I have been thinking of doing this for long time, finally I managed to get this working. Here is what you need to do to get i3 with all other gnome services running.

First we will create 2 files, this is actually all you need. In these ones, I copied the original gnome files and just change gnome-shell to i3 to replace my window manager.

11:15:43=>[~]> cat /usr/share/gnome-session/sessions/gnome-i3.session
[GNOME Session]
Name=GNOME + i3
# RequiredComponents=gnome-flashback-init;gnome-flashback;i3;gnome-settings-daemon;
RequiredComponents=i3;org.gnome.SettingsDaemon.A11ySettings;org.gnome.SettingsDaemon.Clipboard;org.gnome.SettingsDaemon.Color;org.gnome.SettingsDaemon.Datetime;org.gnome.SettingsDaemon.Housekeeping;org.gnome.SettingsDaemon.Keyboard;org.gnome.SettingsDaemon.MediaKeys;org.gnome.SettingsDaemon.Mouse;org.gnome.SettingsDaemon.Power;org.gnome.SettingsDaemon.PrintNotifications;org.gnome.SettingsDaemon.Rfkill;org.gnome.SettingsDaemon.ScreensaverProxy;org.gnome.SettingsDaemon.Sharing;org.gnome.SettingsDaemon.Smartcard;org.gnome.SettingsDaemon.Sound;org.gnome.SettingsDaemon.Wacom;org.gnome.SettingsDaemon.XSettings;
11:15:47=>[~]> cat /usr/share/xsessions/gnome-i3.desktop
[Desktop Entry]
Name=GNOME i3
Comment=This session logs you into GNOME + i3
Exec=env GNOME_SHELL_SESSION_MODE=gnome-i3 gnome-session –session gnome-i3
TryExec=gnome-session
Type=Application
DesktopNames=GNOME-Classic;GNOME;

Once, you have created these files, you can restart gdm and then select “Gnome i3” to login to your brand new session of gnome with i3.

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