Does i3wm use much CPU/RAM?

[Firestar]

I am new to i3wm and before I install it I want to know if it uses much CPU/RAM

as my computer has no fan and just 8GB of RAM (surface pro 6).

And do I need to install a DE besides i3wm?

Thanks!

[merlock]

Here’s a sample (sudo ps_mem)…this gets me to a blank screen (i3 has been customized a bit, so a basic install is probably different; it also ignores everything else needed to run a system):

 Private  +   Shared  =  RAM used	Program

348.0 KiB + 524.0 KiB = 872.0 KiB	xautolock
876.0 KiB +   1.3 MiB =   2.1 MiB	xfconfd
  1.0 MiB +   1.6 MiB =   2.6 MiB	i3status
  1.3 MiB +   2.4 MiB =   3.6 MiB	dunst
  2.8 MiB +   4.8 MiB =   7.6 MiB	lightdm (2)
  2.6 MiB +   5.9 MiB =   8.5 MiB	i3
  3.8 MiB +   7.4 MiB =  11.2 MiB	i3bar
  8.8 MiB +   9.7 MiB =  18.5 MiB	python3.9
 13.9 MiB +  33.4 MiB =  47.3 MiB	xfce4-power-manager
 23.0 MiB +  25.8 MiB =  48.7 MiB	py3status
 17.7 MiB +  32.4 MiB =  50.1 MiB	picom
 55.7 MiB +  71.8 MiB = 127.4 MiB	Xorg

So, pretty light.

@Firestar

And do I need to install a DE besides i3wm?

DE? You don’t need no stinking DE.

Take a minute to evaluate why you want to use i3. It’s keyboard driven (probably the biggest reason why I use it…I hate meeses to pieces).

You’ll probably save yourself a lot of grief if you install i3 on a VM and play with it there.