How to change only the window manager

Linux Discussion Desktop Environments
#1

Hi there, I come bearing the noob question of the day,

I am currently trying out ubuntu budgie, and I really like budgie, but, I really do not like mutter wm, no offence intended, I rather use something else.

I installed i3wm, so, how can I ‘make’ the bugie desktop to use i3 instead of mutter?

Thanks

#2

Have you tried anything from these?

Looks like the key is a reboot so you can switch DEs.

#3

Yep you are right, but this is not my language, I failed at saying what I mean,

I can log in into i3 with no issues, but it is just i3 as standalone wm, what I mean is to log into budgie, but use i3 instead of mutter while in budgie,

typing i3 in terminal I get “19/01/21 13:37:40 - ERROR: Another window manager seems to be running (X error 10)”

So, how do I stop mutter and activate i3? or better yet, is there a way to set i3 as default so budgie grabs it in substitution of mutter?

I know it is weird.

Laters

#4

You’ll need to disable mutter and enable i3. This could be as simple as removing mutter from the startup applications and adding i3. I’m not sure though.

#5

Maybe remove budgie completely?

I also saw someone state that if you want to use i3 solely, he’s had luck just installing the server OS version and then installing xorg and i3.

https://medium.com/@MicroPyramid/usage-and-configuring-i3-window-manager-in-ubuntu-89717ca8490#:~:text=Installing%20on%20ubuntu%20GNOME/Unity:&text=In%20login%20page,%20you%20can,key%20is%20“Windows%20Key”.

To quote from that article -

"# install display drivers
sudo apt-get install xorg

start i3

startx"

#6

OP wants to run a Budgie session but not with the default window manager. That is possible with some DEs but probably not all. I guess Budgie and Gnome 3 would be difficult to “hack”.
I know if you use LXDE, Xfce or LXQt you can change easily the window manager and some of them even support i3.

@dasgeek has a video about i3 running in Xfce, it might give you some ideas.

2 Likes
#7

Yes, that’s I was trying to say, not my language, thanks for that.

I know that LXQt gives the choice of setting the default wm right there in the desktop settings, but you know, it is not a pretty desktop, so I wanted to try to do it on budgie, that I do like.

Thanks for the vid, I do not mind xfce at all, I might try that as a first run at it.

Laters