Gnome3 plus i3

EDIT 2023-09-05

I'm archiving this projects as it's probably too old to be updated or useful to anyone. If you still need gnome and i3, please, look for more recent projects than this one.

Note: I recently tried Sway and it works surprisingly well. Unless you need X for some specific needs I suggest to use Sway without X and without login manager.

About

By installing this repo your system will be able to load Gnome3 session through GnomeFallback and then the i3 window manager.

This configuration is running on Debian Testing. I use it daily.

This is a screenshot of my "L shaped monitor configuration"

Install this repo

Be sure to have these packages installed

apt-get install i3 i3-wm i3blocks i3lock i3status suckless-tools gnome-flashback gnome-flashback-common

Then install this repo: this will just copy a few files in your filesystem and, therefore, it's an idempotent installation. It requires root.

1. clone this repo
2. cd repo
3. run sudo ./install.sh

Configure your system

You now need to edit your ~/.config/i3/config file and look for "exits i3": arrange the lines as follow:

# exits i3 (logs you out of your X session)
# bindsym $mod+Shift+e exec "i3-nagbar -t warning -m 'You pressed the exit shortcut. Do you really want to exit i3? This will end your X session.' -b 'Yes, exit i3' 'i3-msg exit'"
bindsym $mod+Shift+e exec "i3-nagbar -t warning -m 'Do you really want to exit i3?' -b 'Yes, exit i3' 'gnome-session-quit --force --logout'"

Load Gnome3 with i3

You are good to go. Restart X

sudo pkill -9 X

When the GDM3 screen appears click on the "gear icon" and you should see "gnome3 plus i3". Select it and log in.

Test Gnome session

To test if the gnome-session has been loaded correctly you can run these tests:

echo $GDMSESSION

gnome3-plus-i3

echo $DESKTOP_AUTOSTART_ID

108e796b5eb23a2777150601919829285800000156950002

and ps aux | grep gnome-session

... you should see a few instances

Additionally you can run some other tests if you install some additional packages:

sudo apt-get install wmctrl

wmctrl -m
Name: i3
Class: N/A
PID: N/A
Window manager's "showing the desktop" mode: N/A

or

sudo apt-get install libnotify-bin

notify-send "this is a bubble message"

In this last case you should see a notification message (a bubble on the top right of your screen) showing "this is a bubble message)

Troubleshooting

If the gnome session is not starting and, therefore, you are not able to login in your gnome-i3 environment, check you /var/log/syslog

If you see something like

gnome-session-binary Unable to find required component 'org.gnome.SettingsDaemon.xxxxx'

most likely you are missing some gnome package. Be sure to have the nautilus package installed.

In my debian testing, every once in a while, after a "dist-upgrade" my gnome-i3 doesn't work anymore but so far it has always been due to some missing package. I'm leaving my "gnome-something" packages list in the gnome_packages_list.txt file

Uninstall

Unistalling this repo will leave your filesystem clean. It requires root.

1. cd repo
2. run sudo ./uninstall.sh
3. sudo pkill -9 X

More

Now that you are here you might be interested also in this my other repo