Sometime while I was in graduate school, I started using the notion window manager. (Actually, at the time, I think it was ion3.) Notion is a tiling window manager that is geared towards keyboard usage instead of mouse usage. But let's be honest: I've been using notion for so long that I simply prefer it over anything else.

Notion, like most minor window managers, is a bit spartan. It does not provide a desktop environment. It really just manages windows. There are some features of a desktop environment that I don't need, such as a launcher. I know all the commands that I use; I don't need a GUI to list them for me. But it's often the little things that get you, such as locking the screen, or using the media keys on your keyboard to adjust the volume. I used to be (more of) a hardcore nerd and relished in my ability to craft a super-complex .xsessionrc file with all kinds of bells, whistles and utilities connected as if with duct tape. But as I grow older, sometimes I just want my computer to work.

For a long while now, I've found that running notion alongside GNOME for "desktop stuff" to work pretty well. For a long time, I followed an old Wiki post about how to combine GNOME with Awesome WM. This worked really welll with GNOME 2.

Many people say that you can't use GNOME 3 with window managers other than GNOME Shell. I've actually had pretty good luck copying the Ubuntu gnome-session and replacing Gnome Shell with notion. The above Awesome WM Wiki also shows how to do it. Unfortunately, I've found that some features do not work, such as the keyboard media keys, much to my dismay. Do media keys matter that much? Yes, yes, they do. This apparently broke when GNOME Shell started binding the media keys instead of gnome-settings-daemon. There used to be a gnome-fallback-media-keys-helper utility around that would simulate this behavior, but it seems to have disappeared.

As I was trying to fix this problem, I came across a blog post and an unrelated but similar github repo both describing how to use the i3 window manager with GNOME. TLDR: GNOME Flashback is a still supported variant of GNOME that is explicitly designed to support third-party window managers. Whereas GNOME Shell incorporates both the window manager and other stuff such as handling media keys, GNOME Flashback has the "other stuff" in a separate component that is designed to be used with a window manager such as metacity. But it works just fine with notion! Best of all, both my media keys and screen locking work. Hurray!

Because I hate setting up stuff like this, I've actually been hard at work packaging up my Linux computer configuration into reusable ansible components. It takes a little longer than doing it manually of course, but it's not too bad and it's pretty easy to read. I'm making my notion role available here in case anyone wants to try out my setup. Most of the logic is here if you are curious what is involved. Below are a few snippets to show how Ansible makes it relatively easy to manipulate configuration files.

# Same thing, but for gnome-flashback

- name: Copy gnome-flashback-metacity.session to notion-gnome-flashback.session
  copy:
    src: /usr/share/gnome-session/sessions/gnome-flashback-metacity.session
    dest: /usr/share/gnome-session/sessions/notion-gnome-flashback.session

- name: 'notion-gnome-flashback.session: Change metacity to notion and add stalonetray'
  replace:
    path: /usr/share/gnome-session/sessions/notion-gnome-flashback.session
    regexp: 'metacity'
    replace: notion;stalonetray

- name: 'notion-gnome-flashback.session: Remove gnome-panel'
  replace:
    path: /usr/share/gnome-session/sessions/notion-gnome-flashback.session
    regexp: ';gnome-panel'

- name: Symlink systemd target for notion-gnome-flashback session to gnome-flashback-metacity session
  file:
    src: /usr/lib/systemd/user/gnome-session@gnome-flashback-metacity.target.d
    dest: /usr/lib/systemd/user/gnome-session@notion-gnome-flashback.target.d
    state: link

- name: Install gconf override for notion-gnome-flashback
  copy:
    src: notion-gnome-flashback.gschema.override
    dest: /usr/share/glib-2.0/schemas/01_notion-gnome-flashback.gschema.override
  notify: Compile glib schemas

- name: Set META
  lineinfile:
    path: /usr/local/etc/notion/cfg_notion.lua
    regexp: '^--META='
    line: META="Mod4+"
    backup: true
- name: Set ALTMETA
  lineinfile:
    path: /usr/local/etc/notion/cfg_notion.lua
    regexp: '^--ALTMETA='
    line: ALTMETA="Mod1+"
    backup: true
- name: Disable mod_dock
  lineinfile:
    path: /usr/local/etc/notion/cfg_defaults.lua
    state: absent
    line: 'dopath("mod_dock")'
    backup: true
- name: Enable mod_statusbar
  lineinfile:
    path: /usr/local/etc/notion/cfg_notion.lua
    regexp: '^--dopath("mod_statusbar")'
    line: 'dopath("mod_statusbar")'
    backup: true