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Revision as of 21:02, 15 October 2020 by Defolos (talk | contribs) (Update testing section)


i3 Spin

Summary

Create an official Fedora Spin shipping the popular i3 window manager. This is the first Fedora Spin based off a tiling/window manager instead of a traditional desktop environment.


Owner


Current status

  • Targeted release: Fedora 34
  • Last updated: 2020-10-15


  • FESCo issue: <will be assigned by the Wrangler>
  • Tracker bug: <will be assigned by the Wrangler>
  • Release notes tracker: <will be assigned by the Wrangler>


Detailed Description

In May 2020, the Fedora i3 SIG began with a goal to create an official Fedora Spin for the i3 window manager. Since then, a community of i3 enthusiasts around Fedora came together to contribute to what should go into an official Fedora Spin for i3. While this Change will not explain what i3 is, here is what makes the Fedora i3 Spin unique from other distributions (see i3 SIG Design Goals for details):

  1. Simple is better than complex.
  2. Fast is better than features.
  3. There should be one—and preferably only one—obvious way to do it.
  4. Now is better than never.

These four Design Goals inform and guide the decisions for the Kickstart. They are the basis for how the i3 SIG makes decisions for future changes to the i3 Spin.

This Change is the realization of the work that began in May 2020, to create an official Fedora Spin based off the i3 SIG's kickstart.


Feedback

There is no Fedora Spin currently available that offers any window/tiling manager. The i3 SIG includes newer and older Fedora contributors who use i3, and believe it would be a popular Spin if available to the Fedora Community. The community feedback shared to the i3 SIG informed this Change.

What did Twitter have to say?

Here are some tweets of what people had to say in response to news that the i3 SIG is working on a Fedora i3 Spin:

Always wanted to see if I can use tiling manager. If fedora is making official spin then I can try it.


Yes, would love to have i3 on Fedora if you guys can pull it off. Good luck!



Benefit to Fedora

This Change benefits end-users who run Fedora on a desktop or laptop, particularly low-end consumer-grade hardware. An i3 Spin provides a better initial installation experience for new i3 users on Fedora. To use i3 on Fedora, an end-user must install another Edition or Spin of Fedora, and then install i3. This also leaves many unnecessary packages if the end-user does not use another desktop environment.

In particular, the i3 SIG hypothesizes an official i3 Spin will have the lightest footprint (memory and base install size) of any Fedora Edition or Spin, but more data is needed to test this hypothesis.


Scope

  • Proposal owners:
    • Finalize kickstart composition. The i3 SIG is finalizing a list of packages for an integrated i3 desktop.
    • Work with RelEng to build. The i3 SIG needs to work with Release Engineering to pick up the i3 Spin in regular composes.
    • Test Day coordination. Work with the Fedora QA team to plan and run a series of Test Days to solicit early feedback. An excited group of users in our IRC/Telegram are ready to help.


  • Other developers: N/A (not a System Wide Change)
  • Policies and guidelines: N/A (not a System Wide Change)
  • Trademark approval: N/A (not needed for this Change)


Upgrade/compatibility impact

N/A (not a System Wide Change)


How To Test

1. Boot the spin's iso either directly on your machine or in a VM.

2. The iso should boot directly into a live i3 environment with some basic packages available.

3. The anaconda installer can be launched either from a terminal or via the application launcher dmenu. The installer works as on all other spins and editions.

4. The installed system uses lightDM as the login manager and comes preinstalled with i3 as the default desktop environment with default applications present for most uses cases.


User Experience

New Fedora users can install i3 from https://spins.fedoraproject.org instead of installing another desktop, and then manually installing i3 after the initial install. This reduces the number of steps needed to start using i3.

Additionally, the i3 Spin intends to be a ready-to-use, integrated i3 configuration. Often a new i3 user must find or set up other system utilities for things like networking, profile management, and other common desktop functions. The Fedora i3 Spin offers a ready-to-go environment that aims to offer an integrated, lightweight environment without pulling in larger dependency stacks from other desktops.


Dependencies

See %packages in flat-i3.ks.


Contingency Plan

  • Contingency mechanism: If a blocker bug comes up that breaks composes of the i3 Spin in time for Fedora 34, the Change can be bumped to a future Fedora release (e.g. F35).
  • Contingency deadline: Change Checkpoint: 100% Code Complete Deadline (Tue 2021-02-23)
  • Blocks release? No


Documentation


Release Notes

TBD.


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