Debian 13 Trixie with i3¶
A desktop image built around i3, a tiling window manager, instead of XFCE. Same Debian 13 base, same kernel, same hardware stack — the difference is what runs on top of Xorg, and it costs 133 MB less memory.
Not released yet
This image is being prepared and does not appear on the download page yet. The figures below were measured on a working build; the page will link to the image as soon as it ships.
1. Why a tiling desktop on this board¶
The Smart Pi One has 960 MB of usable RAM. A conventional desktop spends a large part of it before you open anything:
| Desktop image | RAM at idle | Available |
|---|---|---|
| Debian 13 Trixie — XFCE | 378 MB | 581 MB |
| Debian 13 Trixie — i3 | 245 MB | 714 MB |
There is no panel, no desktop icon manager, no compositor and no tray applets — so the memory goes to your work instead. Windows are tiled automatically: they fill the screen, side by side, with no overlapping and no manual resizing.
2. What you see at first boot¶
The screen is deliberately bare. There is no start menu and no taskbar — that is normal, not a fault:
- a thin status bar at the bottom (i3bar): IP address, memory, CPU load, date
- a workspace number at the bottom left —
1is the workspace you are on - nothing else until you open something
Everything happens with the keyboard.
3. The keys you need¶
The modifier is Alt on this image.
| Keys | Action |
|---|---|
| Alt+Enter | Open a terminal (Terminator) |
| Alt+D | Application launcher (dmenu) — type a few letters, press Enter |
| Alt+Shift+Q | Close the focused window |
| Alt+F | Fullscreen the focused window |
| Alt+Left / Alt+Right / Alt+Up / Alt+Down | Move the focus between tiled windows |
| Alt+1 … Alt+9 | Switch workspace |
| Alt+Shift+1 … Alt+Shift+9 | Send the window to another workspace |
| Alt+Shift+E | Log out of i3 (asks for confirmation) |
Open a second window and i3 splits the screen automatically. Nothing to drag, nothing to arrange.
4. Same base as the other images¶
Everything from the shared hardware stack applies: overclocked kernel, custom U-Boot, YUMi SmartPi One device tree, SSH over the USB cable, kernel packages held. Only the desktop layer changes, so anything written for the Debian 13 images works here.
5. Who it is for¶
- You want a screen and the memory too — 714 MB free against 581 MB with XFCE, on a board where a single browser tab can take 300 MB.
- You work with the keyboard — a terminal, an editor, a browser side by side, no mouse.
- Prefer XFCE if you want a menu, a taskbar, drag-and-drop and a familiar desktop: see the Debian 13 desktop image.
Full i3 documentation, including how to change the keys: i3wm.org/docs.