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I use Ubuntu 18.10. I installed i3 before, but I wanted i3-gaps now. So I uninstalled it.

sudo apt purge i3*
sudo apt autoremove

This however did not remove the i3 option from the login screen (the gear button next to the login button, it has Ubuntu, Ubuntu on Wayland, i3 and i3-debug options).

I than followed this article about installing i3-wm at Ubuntu 16.04. It should work, the only problem I had was that I had to create ~/.i3 directory manually, it was not created after install.

But nothing changed on the login screen - there is no new i3-gaps (or whatever should it be) option. When I select the i3 option, the i3 bar is empty with error message (Error: status_command not found or is missing a library dependency (exit 127)) and half of the features doesn't work - for example I cannot launch the d-menu (mod+d). When I open multiple terminals, there are exactly next to each other (as in i3) without gaps.

Directly after install I made ~/.i3 directory, copied there global config and added following lines:

for_window [class="^.*"] border pixel 0

gaps inner 30
gaps outer 20

Edit: Could it be possible that i3-gaps is installed, but just doesn't work, like missing some dependencies? Because adding exec i3 into ~/.xinitrc and running startx from TTY does the same as logging into i3 from login screen. So I think that either i3 somehow survived or i3-gaps didn't really install correctly. If that's the case, almost nothing is installed and it doesn't even read my config file (~/.i3/config). Any ideas?

Edit 2: New config location solved it, thanks @nephilim ! The correct config location is .config/i3/config. The dependency problems were solved by installing some i3 packages, such as i3status.

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  • Are you moving from Manjaro? The config location should be ~/.config/i3/config
    – Nephilim
    Feb 8, 2019 at 14:51
  • No, Ubuntu. But that .config location solved it, thanks!
    – SoptikHa
    Feb 10, 2019 at 9:38

1 Answer 1

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You're using the wrong config location.

The correct location is :

$HOME/.config/i3/config or ~/.config/i3/config

not

$HOME/.i3/config or ~/.i3/config

That is something that's mostly only used in the Manjaro i3 ISO.

Missing bar is due to missing dependencies such as i3-status. Check through your config and see which one is used there(might also be i3-blocks).

I'm writing this as an answer, so people that stumble upon this page can easily find the answer. Many tend to skip "unanswered" questions.

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