First Experience with i3wm Tiling Desktop • Faust

This article is machine-translated and may contain errors. Please refer to the original Chinese version if anything is unclear.

Recently, I’ve been experimenting with a tiling desktop, and after some configuration, the experience feels quite good.

1. i3

Simply run apt install i3.

2. Wallpaper Configuration

When switching to i3wm, the whole screen is a black blob. I use Nitrogen to configure the wallpaper. Just add a startup command to the i3 configuration:

exec --no-startup-id nitrogen --restore

BTW, the wallpaper source is https://artvee.com/

3. Terminal Configuration

By default, it uses gnome-terminal that comes with the Cinnamon desktop; I was too lazy to change it. I simply set the window transparency and adjusted the border color, then removed the right scrollbar.

Update: Changed terminal to Alacritty. Configuration:

[window]
opacity = 0.6

[colors.primary]
foreground = "#e8f5e8"  # High-brightness foreground color

[colors.cursor]
text = "CellBackground"
cursor = "#7fff00"  # Bright green cursor

[colors.normal]
black = "#1a3d1a"
red = "#ff6b6b"
green = "#7fff00"    # Bright green
yellow = "#ffeb3b"
blue = "#64b5f6"
magenta = "#ba68c8"
cyan = "#4dd0e1"
white = "#e8f5e8"

[colors.bright]
black = "#2d5a2d"
red = "#ff8a80"
green = "#b2ff59"
yellow = "#ffff00"
blue = "#82b1ff"
magenta = "#e1bee7"
cyan = "#84ffff"
white = "#ffffff"

[font]
size = 11.0

bar

Configuration file for bar:

bar {
    position top
    workspace_buttons yes
    strip_workspace_numbers yes
    status_command i3blocks
    colors {
        background #1b3a2f
        statusline #a7ffeb
        separator  #26a69a
        # class             border  backgr. text
        focused_workspace   #00897b #00897b #ffffff
        active_workspace    #26413a #26413a #a7ffeb
        inactive_workspace  #1b3a2f #1b3a2f #6a8d80
        urgent_workspace    #d32f2f #d32f2f #ffffff
    }
}

ranger

I use ranger for file management. ranger

Volume

If you want to use the volume and brightness keys on your laptop to adjust them, you need some configuration. For volume adjustment, I use pamixer.

i3 Configuration:

# Increase volume
bindsym XF86AudioRaiseVolume exec --no-startup-id pamixer -i 10 && notify-send "Volume" "$(pamixer --get-volume)%"

# Decrease volume
bindsym XF86AudioLowerVolume exec --no-startup-id pamixer -d 10 && notify-send "Volume" "$(pamixer --get-volume)%"

# Mute
bindsym XF86AudioMute exec --no-startup-id pamixer -t && notify-send "Volume" "$(pamixer --get-mute | grep -q true && echo 'Muted' || echo 'Unmuted')"

I added a popup window, mainly for visualization… volume

Brightness

For brightness, I use: brightnessctl.

brightnessctl requires sudo privileges. First, configure passwordless sudo:

sudo visudo -f /etc/sudoers.d/brightnessctl

Add:

finn ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD: /usr/bin/brightnessctl

Save and exit, then write into the i3 configuration file:

bindsym XF86MonBrightnessUp exec --no-startup-id "sudo brightnessctl set +5% | grep -oP '\\d+%' | xargs -I {} notify-send 'Brightness Up' 'Current Brightness: {}'"

bindsym XF86MonBrightnessDown exec --no-startup-id "sudo brightnessctl set 5%- | grep -oP '\\d+%' | xargs -I {} notify-send 'Brightness Down' 'Current Brightness: {}'"

Screenshot

I use Flameshot, it’s very easy to use.

# Flameshot screenshot
bindsym Ctrl+Mod1+s exec --no-startup-id flameshot gui
# Start flameshot daemon
exec --no-startup-id flameshot

Update:

Color Temperature

redshift-gtk

Configuration:

[redshift]
temp-day=4000
temp-night=4000
brightness-day=1.0
brightness-night=1.0
location-provider=manual
adjustment-method=randr

[manual]
lat=0.0
lon=0.0

Input Method

fcitx5 + rime + Foggy Thesaurus (雾凇词库)

https://github.com/iDvel/rime-ice

END

That’s about all I can think of. Haven’t written anything in a while, just casually posting…