I tried i3 once. And I hated it.

[cod3poet]

There is something to be said about breaking old habits and trying something relatively new. I have always been a fan of Openbox as my default window manager, as it can run standalone does not take much in the way of resources and when configured correctly does not get in the way.

Floating windows are the way we all operate, it's how we think when using a GUI and can be a pain when you have to grab a title bar or find the little close icon.

This is made better by keyboard shortcuts like Super+Drag or Alt+drag or right click to move / resize respectively. However keyboard shortcuts mean you do not have to move your right (or left if you are so inclined) hand at all to switch tasks.

i3 is a tiling window manager so when you spawn a new window / application it will split the screen into sections - directly in half as default. No overlaps no dragging just splits the display, you can set it to firescreen and then switch work spaces but you can do that with Mac / Windows as is today so I saw nothing really new there.

Is it fast? yes (ish) because I am "old school" and used to placing windows where I need them and resizing browsers because well... Internet standards are clearly defined and well agreed upon. *shakes head no* a fixed window size works fine every time right?

Alt+tab to switch vs moving block by block even for a command line centered guy like myself works fine.

Is it useful? if you need a specific layout every time, even after reboot without having to open all your apps and have them in the same place then yes, OCD requirements aside I still do not see the benefit.

You CAN however tear windows away and set them to floating with a keyboard shortcut and then put them back in their place however that kind of adds a level of redundancy and brought me to the conclusion of sticking with Openbox. And honestly for the 4-5mb of RAM savings just to run the same Apps I usually run in a very constrained environment just did not sit well with me. To the point where I ran screaming back to the familliar.

Don't get me wrong I see the benefits and i3 is used extensively by powernerds and by Linux Hipsters however it just didn't sit well with me. And when using linux to customize it to fit my needs I'll stick with what I know, is familiar and is comfortable.

[Jason]

It's good to try new things once in a while, like you say, but some interfaces just feel less than intuitive. You didn't say how long you tried it for? I find that whenever I try a new GUI interface, the first few hours, I'm often screaming "NOOOO" in my head at things it does differently but after a few days of using it, I sometimes end up liking it.

[cod3poet]

I spent a few days with it trying to figure out all the keyboard commands, I just found that it was a little bit clunky in the management of the workspace. If it was pure terminal I would just use a session mutliplexer anyway like screen or tmux which gives the exact same result but does not require multiple "windows" and can be run, detached and reattached in remote sessions.

I guess it makes sense for a single box commandline junkie. However I still need access to GUI Tools that do not fit together in a cookie cutter fashion. Plus my brain works a certain way and I am not going to limit my productivity for a fad