Have you ever felt that it is just annoying to use your mouse with a notebook? or that resizing manually windows as you need to see more? If yes Xmonad is for you. It is based on haskell.
It was quite easy to implement and replace metacity under gnome.
It is not so difficult to make it happen.
Here are the steps:
First we need to tell to gnome-session to use xmonad instead of metacity.
desktop ~/ $ gconftool-2 -s /desktop/gnome/session/required_components/windowmanager xmonad --type string |
You need a file applications/xmonad.desktop to start xmonad at login.
desktop ~/ $ cat /usr/share/applications/xmonad.desktop [Desktop Entry] Type=Application Encoding=UTF-8 Name=Xmonad Exec=xmonad NoDisplay=true X-GNOME-WMName=Xmonad X-GNOME-Autostart-Phase=WindowManager X-GNOME-Provides=windowmanager X-GNOME-Autostart-Notify=true |
Next to your gnome-session you need to run a separate xmonad session. For this you need a xsessions/xmonad.desktop
desktop ~/ $ cat /usr/share/xsessions/xmonad.desktop [Desktop Entry] Encoding=UTF-8 Name=XMonad Comment=Lightweight tiling window manager Exec=xmonad Icon=xmonad.png Type=XSession |
Than edit you X settings to run the ~/.xsession
desktop ~ $ cat /etc/X11/sessions/Xsessions.desktop [Desktop Entry] Name=Xsession Comment=This runs ~/.xsession Exec=/etc/X11/Xsession |
Than edit the ~/.xsession
desktop ~ $ cat ~/.xsession export WINDOW_MANAGER="/usr/bin/xmonad" exec gnome-session |
That’s all. Enjoy.
Everything can be customised to give you and idea here are my config files. inspired by the code of Øyvind ‘Mr.Elendig’ Heggstad
Here is my ~/.xmonad/xmonad.hs
desktop ~/.xmonad $ {- xmonad.hs - Author: dexter -} -- Imports -- import XMonad import qualified XMonad.StackSet as W import qualified Data.Map as M import System.Exit import Graphics.X11.Xlib import IO (Handle, hPutStrLn) -- utils import XMonad.Util.Run (spawnPipe) -- hooks import XMonad.Hooks.ManageDocks import XMonad.Hooks.DynamicLog -- layouts import XMonad.Layout.NoBorders import XMonad.Layout.ResizableTile -- Main -- main = do h <- spawnPipe "/usr/bin/xmobar" xmonad $ defaultConfig { workspaces = workspaces' , modMask = modMask' , borderWidth = borderWidth' , normalBorderColor = normalBorderColor' , focusedBorderColor = focusedBorderColor' , terminal = terminal' , keys = keys' , logHook = logHook' h , layoutHook = layoutHook' , manageHook = manageHook' } -- Hooks -- manageHook' :: ManageHook manageHook' = (doF W.swapDown) <+> manageHook defaultConfig <+> manageDocks logHook' :: Handle -> X () -- logHook' h = dynamicLogWithPP $ customPP { ppOutput = hPutStrLn h } logHook' h = dynamicLogWithPP $ customPP layoutHook' = customLayout -- Looks -- -- bar customPP :: PP customPP = defaultPP { ppCurrent = xmobarColor "$AFAF87" "" . wrap "<" ">" , ppTitle = shorten 80 , ppSep = " | " , ppHiddenNoWindows = xmobarColor "$AFAF87" "" , ppUrgent = xmobarColor "$FFFFAF" "" . wrap "[" "]" } -- borders borderWidth' :: Dimension borderWidth' = 1 normalBorderColor', focusedBorderColor' :: String normalBorderColor' = "$333333" focusedBorderColor' = "$FF0000" -- workspaces workspaces' :: [WorkspaceId] workspaces' = ["1-main", "2-SKYPE", "3-web", "4-icst", "5-rackspace", "6-dev", "7", "8", "9-mail"] -- layouts customLayout = avoidStruts $ smartBorders tiled ||| smartBorders (Mirror tiled) ||| noBorders Full where tiled = ResizableTall 1 (2/100) (1/2) [] -- Terminal -- terminal' :: String terminal' = "gnome-terminal" -- Keys/Button bindings -- -- modmask modMask' :: KeyMask modMask' = mod4Mask -- keys keys' :: XConfig Layout -> M.Map (KeyMask, KeySym) (X ()) keys' conf@(XConfig {XMonad.modMask = modMask}) = M.fromList $ -- launching and killing programs [ ((modMask .|. shiftMask, xK_Return), spawn $ XMonad.terminal conf) , ((modMask, xK_p ), spawn "exe=`dmenu_path | dmenu` && eval \"exec $exe\"") , ((modMask .|. shiftMask, xK_p ), spawn "gmrun") , ((modMask .|. shiftMask, xK_c ), kill) , ((modMask .|. shiftMask, xK_m ), spawn "claws-mail") , ((modMask .|. shiftMask, xK_e ), spawn "emacs") -- layouts , ((modMask, xK_space ), sendMessage NextLayout) , ((modMask .|. shiftMask, xK_space ), setLayout $ XMonad.layoutHook conf) , ((modMask, xK_b ), sendMessage ToggleStruts) -- floating layer stuff , ((modMask, xK_t ), withFocused $ windows . W.sink) -- refresh , ((modMask, xK_n ), refresh) -- focus , ((modMask, xK_Tab ), windows W.focusDown) , ((modMask, xK_j ), windows W.focusDown) , ((modMask, xK_k ), windows W.focusUp) , ((modMask, xK_m ), windows W.focusMaster) -- swapping , ((modMask, xK_Return), windows W.swapMaster) , ((modMask .|. shiftMask, xK_j ), windows W.swapDown ) , ((modMask .|. shiftMask, xK_k ), windows W.swapUp ) -- increase or decrease number of windows in the master area , ((modMask , xK_comma ), sendMessage (IncMasterN 1)) , ((modMask , xK_period), sendMessage (IncMasterN (-1))) -- resizing , ((modMask, xK_h ), sendMessage Shrink) , ((modMask, xK_l ), sendMessage Expand) , ((modMask .|. shiftMask, xK_h ), sendMessage MirrorShrink) , ((modMask .|. shiftMask, xK_l ), sendMessage MirrorExpand) -- quit, or restart , ((modMask .|. shiftMask, xK_q ), io (exitWith ExitSuccess)) , ((modMask , xK_q ), restart "xmonad" True) -- shutdown , ((modMask , xK_F12 ), spawn "sudo halt") , ((modMask .|. controlMask, xK_F11 ), spawn "gnome-screensaver-command -l") ] ++ -- mod-[1..9] %! Switch to workspace N -- mod-shift-[1..9] %! Move client to workspace N [((m .|. modMask, k), windows $ f i) | (i, k) <- zip (XMonad.workspaces conf) [xK_1 .. xK_9] , (f, m) <- [(W.greedyView, 0), (W.shift, shiftMask)]] |
as you can see I have a xmobar, here is my ~/.xmobarrc
desktop ~/ $ Config { font = "-*-Fixed-Bold-R-Normal-*-13-*-*-*-*-*-*-*" , bgColor = "black" , fgColor = "grey" , position = Bottom , lowerOnStart = False , commands = [ Run Weather "LIPB" ["-t",": C","-L","18","-H","25","--normal","green","--high","red","--low","lightblue"] 36000 , Run Network "eth0" ["-L","0","-H","32","--normal","green","--high","red"] 10 , Run Network "wlan0" ["-L","0","-H","32","--normal","green","--high","red"] 10 , Run Cpu ["-L","3","-H","50","--normal","green","--high","red"] 10 , Run Memory ["-t","Mem: %"] 54 , Run Swap [] 10 , Run Com "uname" ["-s","-r"] "" 36000 , Run Date "%a %b %_d %Y %H:%M:%S" "date" 10 , Run Battery ["-t","Batt: ","-L","10","--low","red"] 10 , Run Com "uname" ["-s","-r"] "" 36000 , Run StdinReader ] , sepChar = "%" , alignSep = "}{" , template = "%cpu% | %memory% * %swap% | %eth0% - %wlan0% | %battery%} { %date% | %uname%" } |
And finally a screenshot to have an idea.
thanks for providing the guide, it was very useful! Do you have any new xmonad.hs configuration to share? Are you still using xmonad or find a better alternative? I tried awesome window manager for a while, but prefere xmonad for now.
@soderstrom
still using xmonad and made some other hacking to it. will post soon my actual files.