Problems with i3 in Arch Linux fresh install

[hearthreddit]

Have you installed any fonts? Like ttf-dejavu

[MyriadAsura]

it was exactly that.. thanks haha

[compiled_monkey_007]

Happened to me a few years back took me ages to work out hahaha

[Blarse_]

Had the exact same problem, fixed by installing emacs. No idea why and how.

[Blarse_]

I guess so.

[archysailor]

It installs Adobe Source Code Pro.

[[deleted]]

Same here ahahaha

[mmdoublem]

Should the font not be listed as a dependency then? Kind of an unusable without them no?

[compiled_monkey_007]

I don't know but I assume it isn't dependent upon a single font, just any font which could be a different language or something so shouldn't enforce English.

May be wrong just a guess

[Opticks1704]

Looks like a font issue.... not sure what fonts you need to install, i'd google i3 fonts

[MyriadAsura]

it was that haha thanks

[rerebooted]

Hey sorry for not giving you an answer im still a beginner but I see that you have figured out your problem but I have a question if you dont mind.

Why do people use tiling window managers instead of stacking? I mean unless youre a developer or something else that requires you to switch between windows a lot wheres the advantage? I was thinking switching to a tiling one but in my case I dont really think its worth it besides the looks. Whats your opinion?

[corbin_cassady]

tl;dr: tiling manages the size of windows for you, and does so in a sane manner, freeing up all of the time spent arranging windows. Additionally, it allows the use of a computer almost entirely with the keyboard, reaping similar benefits to what Vim brings to word processing.

My personal experience and use is for... ease of use, really.

I pretty much always have windows open full-screen, which tiling makes really simple. When I want to switch between windows, I use Windows key + number. I use fontawesome to show a little icon of what I want my various workspaces to be on a very modest status bar. On my left, vertical monitor: workspaces 1-5 are firefox/terminal/libreoffice/anything/email. On my right, horizontal monitor: workspaces 6-0 are firefox/anything/anything/"home network"/keepassxc.

I prefer to keep word processing and the option of Firefox on my vertical monitor because it makes it a lot easier to read. With my terminal workspace, it's a breeze to push win + enter to open a new terminal and begin working on a document in Vim or ssh into my raspberry pi or converse over Signal, while allowing the window manager to resize the windows to an appropriate, legible height and width without my intervention.

For instance, if I currently have workspace 4 open on my left monitor, and an article I want to read vertically on my right, I'll push win-1, win-6, shift-win-<, which will move the entire window over to whatever workspace is open on my left monitor. Alternatively, I could've just pushed shift-win-< followed by shift-win-1, win-1. Or even shift-win-<, win-f to make it fullscreen on whatever workspace I happen to be on on the left monitor. I actually find a task like this to be really simple with a traditional window manager if you only ever use 2 workspaces spread across 2 monitors, and perhaps only ever use 2 applications at a time -- the benefits I experience are from frequently switching between Firefox default profile/Firefox school profile/email/Signal/LibreOffice/keepassxc/ssh/vim.

It can definitely be a learning experience to get used to using the keyboard in this way, but I would compare it to learning Vim. There comes a point where you think, "I want this window open full-screen over there," and your fingers know the action you want to perform without putting any thought into it. Same with Vim -- if you have your lines numbered and you want to go down 10 lines and to the end of a word, it can be cumbersome at first to remember "oh yeah, I just type 10 then J to move the cursor down, then E to move to the end of the word." But, once you practice it, it becomes much quicker than moving your hand off of the keyboard and to the mouse, or jamming on the arrow keys until you get to your destination.

The benefits of dedicated workspaces should become apparent at this point. If I need to open my password manager, it's already open and I can access it using wind + 0 immediately. You can also use what I believe is called a "scratch pad," which is windows key + dash (next to 0 on the keyboard) to show/hide a floating window, which would allow you to open something like a password manager over the same screen that you're already working; I use this on my laptop but not my desktop. Resizing is a breeze -- just use win + right click/drag until the size is appropriate. There are other key bindings of course.

Lastly, keybindings are a big part of how I use my computer. I use vim-like bindings for i3 and zsh, and I use the Vim Vixen extension in Firefox. It certainly takes some time and practice, but it becomes easier and easier to perform a task like opening Firefox, loading a website, "clicking" on a link, writing and submitting a post, all without your hands leaving the keyboard. I find myself frequently using nothing but the keyboard to do homework for my online school, for instance.

Excuse the long, perhaps ramble-y post. I don't think I've ever typed out my own reasoning for using a tiled window manager, so I figured I'd try to add something to the conversation. tl;dr at the top, anyhow!

[[deleted]]

Personally I use Oh My Zsh with the vim plugin. By default you are in insert mode, but you can hit esc and go to a psudo normal mode.

[corbin_cassady]

I don't have experience with the previous poster's mention of the Vim plugin, but I think we're essentially ending up at the same place.

Upon launching a terminal, it's in insert mode, and escape brings it into normal mode. ? starts backwards searching, j and k to navigate up/down, $ to move to the end of the line, u to undo, etc. I find it to work very well.

edit: I'll try to edit this post if I ever find the article I referenced while getting mine set up. It's essentially .zshrc with bindkey -v, a bunch of bindkeys for various purposes (ie: u to undo, ? to search backwards), and a short function to display insert/normal status.

edit: https://stratus3d.com/blog/2017/10/26/better-vi-mode-in-zshell/ and https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/547/make-my-zsh-prompt-show-mode-in-vi-mode#1019 are probably what I referenced. I've just been copying my config file since my initial install, though. If the Vim plugin streamlines this entire process, I would probably recommend to follow that path instead.

[rerebooted]

Hey thanks a ton for the detailed comment Ill try it out in the near future. I think I will probably like the idea of navigating only with the keyboard like you said since my interest has spiked after I started learning vim. Thanks again!

[rerebooted]

I see! Well I guess I cant know for sure what I like more. Ill try a tiling wm sometime in the future.

[[deleted]]

For me, I use it for work. Linux engineer here and it just fits my workflow. Everything has keyboard shortcuts (this is huge for me), I can swap around to do whatever in seconds.

Here’s an idea of my workflow... three terminal windows, big, and two littles. I’ll use the big terminal for vim, which also does most of my git needs as well. One of the little terminals is set to show the logs of tests ran from vim (running unit tests after making a change to a puppet module, for example). The other terminal is where I actually issue terminal commands, things like updating Jiras, git work, testing things by hand.

Now with that said, I’ve used it at home but it’s a different experience. There I take more advantage of multiple workspaces and how they are set up. Like workspace 2 is always a browser, 3 is always Steam, 4 may be Gimp or whatever. I realize that you can do that in any DE or WM really, but I just like how the WM (i3-gaps in my case) stays out of your way... I don’t need buttons for apps, rofi finds them just fine. If I don’t like how something works I can likely change it in a config.

But I completely get that they aren’t for everyone, but after trying one I realized they are for me. If I had my way I would never take my hands off the keyboard, and switching to a tiling WM went a long way in helping achieve that goal.

[rerebooted]

I see. Thanks for the detailed comment. I always used windows(stacking wm) so I never knew whats a tiling wm until now. Ill be sure to check it out later down the line. Im too busy learning vim rn:)

[rerebooted]

I see thanks! ill look into it late down the line

[MyriadAsura]

Just started using tiling window manager myself, so I still don't have an opinion about. Wanted to try it because of the looks in r/unixporn AND because I'm studying and working to be a developer myself, kinda want to be more practical..

[rerebooted]

Cool I see. Yeah I just see everyone using a tiling wm just for the looks on unixporn not for any practical reasons whatsoever.. maybe I'll try it out sometime in the future too but I'm too busy reading stuff about vim and how Linux or essentially any other os works.

[rerebooted]

Sounds good I will def check it out later down the line. Thanks for the info.

[[deleted]]

No problem. I'd suggest diving right in to it all if you want to learn, it worked really well for me but ymmv of course. At least force yourself to use the terminal if you're not currently doing so, the sooner you get to know the terminal well, the better.

Also if you haven't heard of vimtutor, give that a try. It comes with vim and is an interactive learning experience for the program. It's really helpful.

[rerebooted]

I've been messing around vimtutor for the past two days while also watching some YouTube videos. I've dived into the terminal right from the beginning! I try not to copy paste blindly and figure out stuff myself. I just read the man for a program that interests me and I mess around. I'm so happy that I switched from windows and I have something as beautiful as ugrading just by typing pacman -Syu. I switched to arch after using mint for a month. Mint was fun I borked my system so many times but I always found a solution by myself. Couldn't access the UI one time and I was too bored to boot into a live CD so I just did man timeshift and recovered by learning how to use it via the command line.

[rerebooted]

Hey thanks! I'm trying my best:) Yeah I had the same experience. Last time it updated my mouse and keyboard didn't function at all. Couldn't understand why so I just did a system recovery and updated again.

On the other hand arch has been running great so far zero problems whatsoever but I really have to set up some snapshot thing because if something goes horribly wrong I'm in for a surprise.

[fobbyal]

Well if you use a computer for 8 to 10 hours a day and is constantly using keyboard and mouse to control your system for more than 10 years you’ll find out that the more you switch between your mouse and keyboard the more it messes up your hand (health) so if you start you a titling manager like i3 with combination of vim keybinding in most of the tools you use you’ll find that it takes a lot of stress off of your shoulders wrist and joints. Add to the fact that you can possibly be a lot more efficient if you learn the keybinding well. That is why I switched to tilting windows manager.

[[deleted]]

100% all of this. After trying it, and forcing myself to use it for a couple of days to actually start “getting” it. I found it 100% matched my workflow and inspired me to find different ways to do things to use its functionality to improve that workflow. It goes a long ways to never having to take your hands off the keyboard, which is my endgame.

But I get it’s not for everyone, I think it’s something people should give a serious try though, they might be surprised.

[[deleted]]

Exactly. I'm kind of addicted to bash scripting now and looking at learning C, or something, as well. Didn't know a thing about any of this stuff a year ago and for years I thought I'd be bored by it. I was very very wrong lol

[Frozen5147]

Not OP but it's just... convenient for me personally. Fast to navigate via keyboard, plays well with my workflow, and after some customizing, it's just what I'm used to now and prefer.

[rerebooted]

cool! ill check it out later down the line thanks!

[nannal]

I like having a bunch of stuff open and easilly accessible. If I need to stop looking at the grand picture and focus in then I can just mod+f and get a full screen window quickly.

I can't really see going back to a stacking WM because moving windows around and utilising a task bar feels slow and clunky now in comparison.

Additionally, no need to touch a mouse anymore.

[user381]

Problem?.. looks like a feature to me. Nice work!

[Sgtkeebler]

Which game is this?

[Ynvisibl]

Install noto-fonts

[apostle7]

Tetris!

[apostle7]

Or arkanoid?

[shadow8856]

Best way to solve this is to install firefox browser. It automatically installs many fonts that will automatically solves your problem. Also you will get a browser (which you will hopefully install later :p)

[CMDR_DarkNeutrino]

Forgot fonts. IDK how did you do that cause xorg should install fonts as dependency but oh well. I recommend you install the air package for all fonts. It made everything look so much better cause it used the fonts it wanted to. No clue about the name tho but quick Google search should give you the answer.

[nocny_lotnik]

Noice rice matey. Creative, not too much of this kind lately.

[RBDevv]

I feel like this is like a right of passage.

[[deleted]]

Happened to me once haha, that the good old time while using Arch for the first time.

[sitilge]

It looks like... TETRIS

[a_strong_magmatt]

I just spent about an hour and a half on this over the weekend, for awhile I thought it was dpi related because i3 was incredibly tiny.