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Xmonad as a Windowmanager for Slackware
Xmonad is a tiling windowmanager, for information about tiling windowmanagers please read this wiki: wikipedia
For Xmonad read here xmonad.org
Required packages
Xmonad is not included in Slackware by default, but available via slackbuilds.org. Xmonad is written in Haskell and therefore some packages of the Haskell-series are required in order to build Xmonad. Here the packages in the correct order:
- ghc (the glasgow-haskell-compiler)
- haskell-syb
- haskell-utf8-string
- haskell-X11
- haskell-transformers
- haskell-mtl
- xmonad
- haskell-random
- xmonad-contrib
- haskell-hinotify
- haskell-stm
- haskell-X11-xft
- haskell-text
- haskell-parsec
- xmobar
I would also recommend to install dwm and trayer (note that trayer is not yet available via slackbuilds.org, but I'm considering to write a slackbuild-script).
Configuration of Xmonad
After building and installing the above packages you can configure Xmonad
.xinitrc
the following sections of my .xinitrc configure dbus, the mousepointer and trayer, then xmonad is started
# Use dbus-launch if installed. if test x"$DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS" = x""; then dbuslaunch=`which dbus-launch` if test x"$dbus-launch" != x"" -a x"$dbus-launch" != x"no"; then eval `$dbus-launch --sh-syntax --exit-with-session` fi fi xsetroot -cursor_name left_ptr trayer --edge top --align right --SetDockType true --SetPartialStrut true \ --expand true --width 10 --transparent true --height 14 & exec xmonad
Configuring xmobar
xmobar displays useful information, in my case in the top-part of the desktop. Here an example for the file .xmobarrc
Config { font = "-misc-fixed-bold-R-normal-*-13-*-*-*-*-*-*-*" , bgColor = "#1074EA" , fgColor = "#DDDDDD" , position = TopW L 90 , commands = [ Run BatteryP ["BAT1"] ["-t", "<acstatus><watts> (<left>%)", "-L", "10", "-H", "80", "-p", "3", "--", "-O", "<fc=green>On</fc> - ", "-o", "", "-L", "-15", "-H", "-5", "-l", "red", "-m", "blue", "-h", "green"] 60 , Run Cpu ["-L","3","-H","50","--normal","green","--high","red"] 10 , Run CpuFreq ["-t", "<cpu0> <cpu1>", "-L", "0", "-H", "2", "-l", "lightblue", "-n","white", "-h", "red"] 50 , Run Memory ["-t","Mem: <usedratio>%"] 10 , Run Swap [] 10 , Run Date "%a %d. %B %H:%M Uhr" "LC_TIME=date" 10 , Run StdinReader ] , sepChar = "%" , alignSep = "}{" , template = "%StdinReader% }{ <fc=#FFD700>%date%</fc> | %cpu% %cpufreq% | %memory% %swap% | Bat: %battery% " }
for an explanation please read the manuals.
xmonad.hs
Here as an example my ~/.xmonad/xmonad.hs file
import XMonad import XMonad.Hooks.DynamicLog import XMonad.Hooks.ManageDocks import XMonad.Util.Run(spawnPipe) import XMonad.Util.EZConfig(additionalKeys) import System.IO myManageHook = composeAll [ className =? "Gimp" --> doFloat , className =? "Vlc" --> doFloat ] main = do xmproc <- spawnPipe "/usr/bin/xmobar /home/markus/.xmobarrc" xmonad $ defaultConfig { manageHook = manageDocks <+> manageHook defaultConfig , layoutHook = avoidStruts $ layoutHook defaultConfig , logHook = dynamicLogWithPP xmobarPP { ppOutput = hPutStrLn xmproc , ppTitle = xmobarColor "green" "" . shorten 50 } } `additionalKeys` [ ((mod4Mask, xK_c ), kill) ,((mod4Mask, xK_Return ), spawn "xterm") ] ]
Please read the documentation for xmonad.hs, this is only an example (which works well for me).
Additional Hints
When using a tiling windowmanager one experiences that some applications behave unusual. In my above xmonad.hs you see Vlc and Gimp in the List of programs which should float. In order to find out the so called “Classname” of the application (through which the application can be detected by the windowmanager, there is a script in the xmonad-contrib package. You can find it in /usr/share/doc/xmonad-contrib-0.10/scripts/
directory.