I would, but I just don't use my home desktop enough to get used to anything too esoteric. I'd never remember the keyboard shortcuts and such. I just need to run some GUI utility programs, manage files, launch some (Steam, GoG) games, and manage simple network file sharing (Samba mostly). Anything else (and some of those things, to an extent) I can do from the command line. At work and at home I do Real Work™ on MacOS, so that's where I spend ~95% of my computer time.

If I started using Linux desktops most of the time again, I'd go back to what I found to provide the best experience: minimal everything, and manual config of practically the whole system past the base OS (and even some of that). So yeah, i3 or similar would be a likely choice, and probably Arch or Gentoo for the distro (used to love Gentoo).

As a user of i3, it is anything but simple. Outside the standard DEs, you vastly complicate things like power, network, and display management. It's possible to build out a fully functional environment with i3, but it is far from simple.

For the pieces you mention, I use tlp, connman and xrandr. Yes they have a small learning curve and I wouldn't recommend them to everyone, but they are stable and not likely to change (whereas Apple/Microsoft/Redhat are constantly reinventing their UIs).

Building out a desktop environment from ones own choice of components is much more aligned with the Unix philosophy.

I don't disagree that building your own DE is a fantastic way to operate, but the point remains that it is in no way, shape, nor form simple.

It's taken years for my own collection of tools to stabilize enough that it isn't painful to juggle ethernet/wifi/mbim connections. So that my displays are properly laid out (automatically) when I get to the office and plug in my monitor. So that my laptop consistently sleeps when I close the lid, instead of continuing to run in an enclosed bag. So that GPS on my cellular card is usable at the same time as an internet connection. So that Java applications run properly (don't forget to tell your window manager to lie about its name!).

Now that I've wasted so much time over the last decade tweaking and tuning this environment to make it stable and mine, I wouldn't give it up for the world -- and suspect I can't give it up at this point without massive changes to my workflows.

You are quoting me out of context. I originally said i3 is simple in a reply to a post complaining about KDE and GNOME, both of which are hugely complex installations of numerous libraries and services. So complex in fact, that they cannot be made to work reliably. Granted i3 provides substantially less functionality, but this comes from being simple.

Your examples above are mostly common configuration issues, easy to find with Google. Even a Windows user would likely need to Google many things (e.g. disabling forced updates, privacy settings, registry hacks).

I'm also skeptical that Gnome or KDE will make it significantly easier to solve such configuration issues. Do they even allow settings to be easily moved to another machine? Unfortunately Linux in general will always need some tweaking to work with specific hardware.

You provided absolutely no context to go with what was quoted.

You replied suggesting a specific window manager (a single component within a desktop environment) to a post lamenting the rough edges in popular modern DEs. You made no indication that your recommended replacement offers no way to hot plug a monitor, connect to the internet, or even launch an arbitrary application without installing and potentially configuring additional packages. These are very basic features folks have come to expect in a DE.

Making this sort of recommendation is throwing the user headfirst into a painful situation likely to give them an extremely negative impression of i3.

> You provided absolutely no context to go with what was quoted

Not explicitly, but I never said configuring or using i3 was simple. It is a very valid point, but is does not refute the fact that i3 is itself simple.

> You made no indication that your recommended replacement offers no way to hot plug a monitor, connect to the internet, or even launch an arbitrary application

I should have written more originally yes, but I have since given my recommendations for these. So why bring it up again?

> Making this sort of recommendation is throwing the user headfirst into a painful situation likely to give them an extremely negative impression of i3.

This is Hackernews and I was replying to knowledgeable posters. I think it is safe to assume they will look into it first without getting into a "painful situation".

Although you do raise some good points, I feel it is your posts that have given an overly negative impression of i3.