i3 Window Manager vs Sway

i3 window manager vs Sway on Ubuntu 24.04

I have been using Ubuntu since 2013 and the i3 window manager since 2014.

When I tried i3 for the first time it felt like “home”. I had tried a bunch of different Ubuntu desktops like Kubuntu, Lubuntu, Xubuntu and more. Finally I was using a window manager that was not in my way. I felt like I was more productive and faster getting my thoughts out.

I like to update and try new things to see if they help with productivity or make things easier or simpler.

I tried Sway because it is using Wayland and should be faster and better replacement for i3.

Good parts:

The configuration for monitors can now live in the config and is quite simple.

output HDMI-A-2 pos 0 0 res 1920x1080
output HDMI-A-1 pos 1920 0 res 2560x1440

My keyboard config is also simple

input "type:keyboard" {
  xkb_options "caps:escape,grp:alt_shift_toggle"
  xkb_layout "us,is"
  repeat_rate 30
  repeat_delay 250
  xkb_numlock enabled
}

Then I had to find alternative programs for taking screenshots. I used grim, grimshot, slurp and wl-copy which worked really well.

Problems

  1. I could not share the whole screen, only one application window. This made it tricky because I often share a browser window and a terminal, side by side.

  2. I could not record the screen easily. I spent some time on researching this but had constant issues. I tried using OBS, but I did not get it working to record the screen with Wayland. I could not add the ‘Screen Capture (XSHM)’

Conclusion

I used Sway for 2-3 months and then I went back to i3. Sway works fine, but Wayland is not ready for me yet, as of 2024

I personally did not notice that Sway was faster i3 on my computer, but I needed the screen sharing and recording to work properly, so I went back to i3, for now.

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