I tried searching the forum for existing threads, but i3 is ignored in searches, because it is too short.

I am testing i3 on my Debian system. All of the key-bindings seem to work, except switching between vertical and horizontal layouts. (Alt+v, Alt-h) The way I understand the documentation, it should be possible to have one vertical "container" and the rest split horizontally. I know it is possible, because screen grabs on the i3 website show it. It is probably possible to create such a layout in the configuration file, but then what would be the purpose of the key-bindings? They should work. It is also possible that I am not seeing or misunderstanding something in the documentation.

New day, new boot, and those two key-bindings are now working. ? ? ?
Although it is now working, I am not marking the thread as solved, because I have no idea what the problem was.

To create such a layout you need, eg (for me the META key is the Windows key)

Win + Enter (Open terminal)
Win + Enter (Open another terminal)
At the moment two instances of the terminal are positioned side by side
Focus is on the one on the terminal on the right-hand side.
Win + v (split container vertically = no visible changes yet)
Win + Enter (Open another terminal which jumps right below the one on the right hand side)

I have no idea what might have been the problem. A bug? Which version of i3 are you using?

From version 4.8 onwards it's possible to save layouts and restore them either automatically or assaigning a key to it. This is a really useful feature.
I've written about it here and here.

Although I haven't answered your question I hope it was useful in some way.

Version 4.2-2.
The Alt+h and Alt+v combinations are working exactly as you describe, but yesterday they were not. i3 was just installed on this installation. For whatever reason, it seems to have needed a re-boot. Perhaps it is a Debian thing.

Might have been a just one-off crash of some functionality.
If you use i3 on a regular basis, I'd suggest upgrading i3.
i3 website provides a debian repo and while I am aware of Debian's philosophy but I think it's worth upgrading to the latest stable version.

Right now I am just testing tiling WMs: i3, Xmonad, spectrwm, wmii. If I were to switch to i3 permanently, upgrading would be an option, but at the moment it is wait and see.

Ah okay. Just please note that from 4.2 to 4.8 there have been many bugfixes and features added but I guess the most fundmental principles of window management have remained the same so you can get the feel of i3.

Let us know which one you feel most comfortable with.

Personally, I do not find tiling WMs to have anything other GUIs do not, except one thing. Being able to do almost everything with the keyboard, which makes them more productive (much quicker than reaching for the mouse, moving the mouse, clicking, clicking again). Of course, the trade-off is losing aesthetics.

My experience has been:
Xmonad seems to be the most polished, but configuration requires learning at least the basics of Haskell. A royal pain in the buttocks.

Spectrwm is much easier to configure. I would rate it the best, except for one thing. Spectrwm and Xmonad share some funcky set-up that does not allow them to play nicely with some applications, like Conky.

i3 is as functional as Xmonad and does not have the latter's problems with any of the applications I use.

It has been a while since I tried dwm, so I do not remember exactly what I did not like about it. If I remember correctly, configuration requires learning C+, Python or something else. Basically, more difficult than Xmonad.

wmii is quite good. I would describe it as i3 minus a few features.

I am sure I have tried a couple others, but do not remember which ones.

If I were to permanently switch to a tiling WM, it would probably be i3. But for now it is still Openbox.

I think I'd agree with your general comment on tiling wms. I'm all about functionality so the aesthetic side does not bother me much. The advantages that you described are massive, especially if 3 conditions are met:
a) you do a lot of things on the command line
b) you enhance Firefox with a plugin to make it easier to control with a keyboard (eg. vimperator)
c) you are able to and do utilise all those keybindings in your window manager. Relying on (and doing most things with) a mouse in a tiling wm is okay but what's the point of using a tiling manager then?

I've been using i3 for the last 3 years almost exclusively and whenever I sit at my work computer (Windows) or help a friend with their linux distro (usually with Xfce, Unity or Mate) I feel frustrated with how many redundant and unnecessary movements with a mouse I need to do to accomplish the simplest tasks and arrange the windows the way I want.


Having said that one could save a lot of time in the long run just by investing some time in learning keyboard shortcuts on non-tiling window managers.

Now that I have finally figured out how to get applications auto-starting, i3 is definitely my favourite tiling WM. I plan to stop dual-booting Debian and Slackware soon and go only with Slackware. When I install it to the main partition, there is a good chance I shall also switch from Openbox to i3. After i3 is figured out, it is a pretty good GUI. All I need to do is figure out how to modify the status bar to my liking and the job will be complete.

What are you using for your status bar? The default i3status is sufficient for me, but have a look at py3status and i3pystatus as well.

I have not fiddled with the status bar other than move it to the top of the screen. I prefer to have Conky displayed on the screen on workplace 1. I am currently installing a few things from SlackBuilds. (I have already replaced Debian with Slackware and am getting things set up.) When I feel energetic, I might try to configure the status bar to display the system monitors I want. Then, and only then, would I worry about default or py3status. Although py3 looks interesting.