I used i3 for years on Ubuntu then discovered Regolith Desktop and haven’t gone back. The thing is, I’ve never encountered anyone else who uses it.
I like the project but use DIY Sway.
is it more than a theme for i3?
Gnome-flashback by default is an old-school Gnome DE (Desktop Environment) that comes with a simple, conventional WM but allows you to swap in any WM you like while it operates in the background. Mainstream Gnome Shell DE is inextricably tied to its WM so you can’t swap into that. So with Gnome-flashback you can swap in i3 and get a curated Gnome DE with your own (i3) WM.
It means you don’t have to reinvent everything that makes a DE just to use i3 WM. You get things like the Gnome settings GUI including monitor configuration and restoration on hotplug; clipboard manager; theming; audio/brightness hotkeys just work; USB drives automount, and more. Lots of convenience and utility you want and need but otherwise have to identify, install, configure and set up manually. Without using an already curated DE you have to reinvent one, or at least reinvent the parts of one you can’t live without.
Gnome-flashback is not the only DE that allows swapping in a different WM. My own experience has found it a bit of a PITA every time I try to use it on an OS with an updated Gnome version, requiring poking around, searching and debugging. Sadly, there seem to be limited options for low effort, well polished, curated i3/sway DE.
It’s more like gnome with a tiling WM … but more than that :-D Does this explain it?
I like to use i3 in a desktop environment so I don’t have to reinvent the wheel of sundry support details like hotkeys and monitor behavior, automounting USB drives.
I’ve used gnome flashback with i3, just like regolith, and decided to try using regolith to get the full curated environment but I found their obfuscation of what’s going on impossible to deal with. Just working out how to change configuration was a huge pain in the ass and had to be done the regolith way.
But every new OS release with a new version of flashback etc. doesn’t seem to work right, so I am contemplating giving up and just going direct window manager and accumulating all those sundry details of a DE manually.
I love both GNOME and automatic/dynamic tiling. So Regolith should have been a match made in heaven. However, unfortunately:
- It’s not found in the repositories of any major distro. You know it’s messed up if it’s not packaged as a nixpkg!
- If you can look surpass that, it’s still intended only on Debian/Ubuntu. While the AUR package exists (and even RebornOS -an Arch-derivative- offers it in their own repos), you’re simply out of luck outside of that. So, as a Fedora enjoyer myself, this unfortunately applies to me as well.
I had it recommended to me by a colleague. And I’ve gotta say, it’s fantastic.
Some nitpicks (when it comes to curved screens) , but otherwise it’s pretty much flawless.
