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Comment by gavinray | Hacker News Reader

I've never been as productive in anything as I have in this.

Whoever came up with the default key combinations is a genius.

I'd heard people talk about i3 and other tiling WM's, but it seemed like a big step to take to learn and take the time to configure it, etc.

I found out about Regolith, figured "Eh since it also comes as an apt package I can just install + uninstall it if I don't like it."

By the end of using it a single day I was used to the keybindings. They felt natural and my productivity was through the roof.

Bless the authors, this software brings joy.

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I tried regolith for a few days and am now using arch with sway window manager. From what I remember, regolith was mostly default i3 bindings along with a handy cheat sheet that would pop up. I agree completely about the productivity boost.

To give you an idea, I have been trying to get into vim for year. Several tentatives. Only now I am starting to be able to code for a day in it when I am stranded on a remote machine.

For i3, it took me couple of days. I am so much more efficient with it. No more moving windows around, no more alt-tabbing again again to find that terminal, where is it already?!

I always have my browser, my music in the same workspace, etc.

It's a small investment with a big reward.

Manjaro i3wm version is just like this. It’s out there for years, so it’s more mature. Also, it is built on top of arch linux, so it’s much less bloated, and you get the arch linux guides which are the easiest and most polished I’ve found on any distribution.

I've had nothing but bad experiences with Manjaro's i3 spin (though I do like both Manjaro and Arch, fwiw)

- Manjaro's i3wm lacks a universal theming application like the one Regolith has

- Manjaro's config is not stored as a package manifest

- The out-of-the-box experience is quite poor, it didn't ship with a network manager until quite recently iirc

- The default appearance is quite ugly and barebones

- There is no popup for keybind hints

Honestly, I think their Sway spin is more well-maintained, and that's coming from someone who hates Wayland with a passion unlike anything else.

It's basically default i3 key bindings here.

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