Combine that with a nice terminal-driven text editor (e.g., Vim) and a keyboard-focused browser for a fully keyboard-driven workflow. Since the windows are automatically positioned, you can start typing your commands right away. With practice, it means you'll improve the speed and efficiency of your workflow.įor example, to open a new terminal, press +. The main benefit is that you don't often need to switch contexts from the keyboard to the mouse. When you start using i3, you need to memorize a few of those shortcuts to get around and, with time, you'll use more of them. These include opening the terminal and other programs, resizing and positioning windows, changing layouts, and even exiting i3.

I3 makes extensive use of keyboard shortcuts to control different aspects of your environment. If you need more space for a particular window, enable full-screen mode or switch to a different layout, such as stacked or tabbed. For example, system administrators can open several terminals to monitor or work on different remote systems simultaneously and developers can use their favorite IDE or editor and a few terminals to test their programs. It also allows you to get to what you need faster. Since you don't need to worry about window positioning, i3 generally makes better use of your screen real estate. Screen real estateĪs a tiling window manager, i3 will automatically 'tile' or position the windows in a non-overlapping way, similar to laying tiles on a wall. Pick the tools that make the most sense for your workflow, and i3 will manage them all in the same way. Do you want to use Thunar from Xfce as your file manager? GNOME's gedit to edit text? I3 does not care.

In addition, i3 is a window manager and, unlike full-featured desktop environments, it does not dictate the applications you should use. Free online course: RHEL Technical Overview.

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