Installing i3 alongside XFCE

Desktop Environments
1

Hello guys and gals!
I’ve been using xfce for some time and now I feel like I’d want to experiment with second DE. I followed the guide https://github.com/endeavouros-team/endeavouros-i3wm-setup#readme and run following commands:
git clone https://github.com/endeavouros-team/endeavouros-i3wm-setup.git

cd endeavouros-i3wm-setup

cp -R .config/* ~/.config/

chmod -R +x ~/.config/i3/scripts (make scripts executable)

dbus-launch dconf load / < xed.dconf (setup xed-editor)

wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/endeavouros-team/endeavouros-i3wm-setup/main/setup.sh

ran the setup.sh and commented out the first line in /home/berzerg/.config/i3/config . I thought that I would be able to choose i3 from login screen, but in the top right corner Ionly have a greyed-out XF that probably stands for xfce. Any suggestions?

2

you also installed all from the packagelist? (just a question)

3

wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/endeavouros-team/endeavouros-i3wm-setup/main/setup.sh

As far as I know just running the setup.sh would have been enough to set it all up automatically.

Looks like you have done it once manually and then a second time with the setup.sh

setup.sh

#!/bin/bash
git clone https://github.com/endeavouros-team/endeavouros-i3wm-setup.git
cd endeavouros-i3wm-setup
cp -R .config ~/                                            
chmod -R +x ~/.config/i3/scripts
cp .gtkrc-2.0 ~/
cp .nanorc ~/
dbus-launch dconf load / < ~/xed.dconf
sed -i 's|\(exec --no-startup-id ~/set_once.sh\)|# \1|' ~/.config/i3/config
wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/endeavouros-team/EndeavourOS-packages-lists/master/i3
sudo pacman -S --needed - < i3
cd ..
rm -rf endeavouros-i3wm-setup

Just an observation.

:thinking:

4

Yepp, as it was my second or third try running setup.sh just told me that all packages were up to date.

5

Oh, that’s right. Nevertheless even doubling some steps didn’t help me :slight_smile:

6

Try yse regular i3 instead gaps?

7

I did. I’ve deleted i3-gaps and installed i3wm and saw no differences. Are there any additinal steps I’m missing?

8

Weird should show where the other session are in lightdm

9

Thought so. Should I try another display manager or it wouldn’t fix the issue?

10

You can try ly …

Is mayby more text but should do

1 Like
11

Now that was a trip. Ly does recognize both DE’s, but it’s too simple to my taste. While I was switching back and fourth I logged into tty, which gave me some little panic attack as I was still working :slight_smile: I guess I’ll look into disolay managers and try some options. Too bad lightdm doesn’t see i3 even after systemctl restart. Anyways thanks a lot for advice!

P.S.: I won’t close the thread just yet to document the ultimate solution.

12

lets say recognize both session’s :slight_smile: i3wm is a wm :slight_smile: or try lightdm-gtk-greeter mabyby a difference but heard it somewhere also same as your but dont know why exact…

13

True, that pesky i3 is not a DE… Haha. I think I’ll start with sddm, lookd nice and configurable.

14

There are several different greeters for light to make it look different/better
https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/LightDMhttps://wiki.archlinux.org/title/LightDM
lightdm-slick-greeter, lightdm-webkit-theme-litarvan, and lightdm-pantheon-greeter are all pretty nice imo

1 Like
15

Ok, so I now I have i3 session accessible. I turned off autologin /etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf
#autologin-user=berzerg & #autologin-session=xfce and took away xfce defaulting #user-session=xfce but still if I’m already logged in in xfce I can’t logout and choose i3. Vice versa is doable which is even stranger. I was thinking to leave xfce as a default session and switch to i3 when it’s needed to try it out. If I uncomment autologi n I can’t change the session on the go, but after restart i3 session starts :slight_smile: I guess I need to try other display manger. Btw, thank for lightdm-webkit-theme-litarvan @KDen it looks neat as I changed logo to EndeavourOS and set some purple background.

16

Allright I didn’t succeed with starting sddm. It just gives me a black screen on start. Lxdm kinda works. Kinda. When I’m in xfce logout button doesn’t wokr but end session button does the trick. The problem is that when I switch to i3 mod key doesn’t work for most cases. Mod + enter gives you terminal, but mod + d doesn’t give you the menu. I3 restart doesn’t help, but reboot does.

I guess I’ve found the solution finally. I’ll stick to lightdm, but to switch from xfce you don’t use logout button but use end session button. When I do it from lightdm mod button works correctly in i3! So now I have it - autologin with previous session on start/reboot and working session switch.

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