30 Window Managers in 30 days

kri5 · 2012-03-22 19:52:14

2ManyDogs wrote:

longer.....
If the sessions list doesn't have a scroll bar yet, you're not really trying.

lol lol Nice one, I may have to take you up on that. I just can't resist fiddling, first it was distro hopping until I came across #! and now it's WM's. wink

Last edited by kri5 (2012-03-22 19:52:29)

ivanovnegro · 2012-03-22 19:53:46

Distro hopping is for kids, real men hop WMs. smile

gensym · 2012-03-22 19:54:58

+1 on the DWM thread.

Is musca still worth giving a shot with herbstluftwm around? (Or are they similiar at all, if so how similar)

2ManyDogs · 2012-03-22 19:58:08

^ I will be (probably) write a review on herbstluftwm eventually, but from what I've seen musca is much more intuitive and easy to use. I'm no expert on either one, but I am seriously considering using musca on my main machine. Herbstluftwm may be more powerful, but my first experiences with it were very frustrating.

Try them both, and tell us what you think! smile

Last edited by 2ManyDogs (2012-03-22 20:00:14)

gensym · 2012-03-22 20:06:21

^ I might. I was curious about herbstluftwm for some time (it has the coolest name among all the window managers -- now that scrotwm is renamed big_smile ). I might also give musca a shot.

Keep up with the good work smile

Last edited by gensym (2012-03-22 20:25:39)

2ManyDogs · 2012-03-22 20:19:33

^ Thanks. I just tried herbstluftwm again and it makes a lot more sense now that I've used musca. It's still not nearly as intuitive (at least to me), but I might actually be able to use it and write a review now. We'll see. hmm

gutterslob · 2012-03-23 02:59:06

^hlwm is basically bash copulating with more bash till you get something resembling window management. It's quite solid despite being a young project, at least according to the people that use it on a regular basis.

I think there's a thread covering hlwm here somewhere. Just use the forum's search box. Started by Doomicide and another bloke (think his name was Aaron), but most of the latter's posts are just excuses to push his weird font, so ignore those and just read Doomicide's.

Edit:
Found it: http://crunchbanglinux.org/forums/topic … wm-thread/

Last edited by gutterslob (2012-03-23 03:01:59)

Doomicide · 2012-03-23 09:16:41

^ Be sure to click the link to the hlwm-thread on the arch-forums. It's somewhere near the bottom. The arch-thread is much more active and thorsten (creator of hlwm) reads and posts there, too.

gensym · 2012-03-23 09:24:09

@Doom, gutterslob

Thanks for mentioning those! I'll post to one of those threads if I have any questions.

el_koraco · 2012-03-23 09:56:46

gutterslob wrote:

another bloke (think his name was Aaron), but most of the latter's posts are just excuses to push his weird font, so ignore those and just read Doomicide's.

In general, if you run into Aron on the web, just ignore or/and insult him.

2ManyDogs · 2012-03-23 12:39:22

Day 19. Another short review; I have to work again today (what? two days in one week?).

Rhowaldt told me I could call tmux a window manager (here), and I've always wanted to learn how to use it more effectively, so I decided to take a better look at it.

Tmux, or "terminal multiplexer", is a (relatively) simple way to have several terminal sessions running in several windows and panes at once, all accessed from a single screen. Think of it as a manual-tiling console window manager. No X and no gui.

Tmux is in the repos, so apt-get install works. Tmux can be started at the console by simply typing "tmux" or it can be automatically started by placing this code in ~/.bash_profile to start tmux only with the login shell, or in ~/.bashrc to start tmux with every terminal, even those running in X:

[[ $TERM != "screen" ]] && tmux && exit

Tmux has a long list of bound keys, and by default it uses the prefix key control-b before each key command. The man page has details, and you will want to print the key-code section of the man page before you start learning tmux. You can also access a list of the key codes from tmux with the sequence ctrl-b+? at any time.

When tmux first starts, you see a screen with a command prompt at the top and a bright green status bar at the bottom. The status bar shows the session number, the window number and other status information:

You can use the terminal normally. You can also split the screen horizontally and vertically into tiles. In tmux terms, each window (desktop) contains one or more panes. By default, ctrl-b+% splits the current pane in two, left and right, and ctrl-b+" splits the current pane top and bottom. Panes can be resized, and their contents can be switched with adjacent panes.

The active pane has a bright green border; inactive pane borders are white. If you don't like the current layout you can select one of five preset layouts: even-horizontal (evenly divided along the horizontal axis), even-vertical (evenly divided along the vertical axis), main-horizontal (bottom stack), main-vertical (right-side stack), or tiled. This is the tiled layout:

Panes can be broken out of the current window and sent to other windows, and new windows can be created and named. If you have a lot of windows open, one handy key sequence is ctrl-b+w -- this displays a list of open windows and allows you to choose one to move to.

In addition to the bound keys, tmux has a list of commands. Command mode is entered with the key sequence ctrl-b-:. The list of commands is very long, and includes commands for pane and window management and for attaching and detaching tmux sessions.

A tmux window may be placed in "copy" mode -- this permits a section of a window or its history to be copied to a paste buffer for later insertion into another window. This mode is entered with the copy-mode command, bound to ctrl-b-[ by default, or when a command that produces output (such as list-keys) is executed from a key binding, so text may be copied from command output. Copy mode uses one of two sets of bound keys for text selection and searching, vi or emacs. The default is emacs, but it may be changed to vi with this command:

set-option -g mode-keys vi

This command may be placed in the run-time configuration file ~/.tmux.conf, along with other commands to change default behavior and key bindings. I added these lines to my .tmux.conf:

set-option -g prefix C-a

bind - split-window -v
bind | split-window -h
bind ^ resize-pane -U 5
bind v resize-pane -D 5
bind < resize-pane -L 5
bind > resize-pane -R 5

set-option -g window-status-current-bg cyan
set-option -g mode-keys vi

First, I reset the command sequence from ctrl-b to ctrl-a ( a little easier for me to type). Then I changed the window split commands so they make more sense to me: ctrl-a+| splits the window left and right, and ctrl-a+- splits the window top and bottom. I also added some window resize commands because the defaults did not work well with my keyboard, and I changed the current window status background to cyan (its default is the same green as the status bar) and changed the copy mode keys to the vi sequences (sorry xaos). There are lots of online examples for more complex .tmux.conf files, including ways to change the status bar colors, but I like it the way it is.

Tmux sessions can be detached and allowed to run in the background, and a single tmux session can be attached to several other tmux sessions. One very good use for tmux is to use it with ssh to connect with multiple clients, so several machines can be maintained from one master console.

One more screen shot, with the status color changed and w3m running:

What I Like About It

It's a window manager for the console. It lets me run several command-line apps at once. I like its green default status bar and window dividers -- they remind me of the old terminals I used to use (yes, I am that old). It's powerful and simple at the same time.

What I Don't Like About It

It uses some pretty non-intuitive key sequences and commands. It does a lot of things I don't really need. Maybe I'll take another look at dvtm (a simple console window manager) if I have time in this series.

Links

practical tmux
hawk host blog -- using tmux
using tmux to share a terminal
further adventures in Antix-Xless
tmux in the Arch wiki

tomorrow: ratpoison
back to the top

Last edited by 2ManyDogs (2012-03-24 16:47:52)

h8uthemost · 2012-03-23 15:55:33

Thanks for that tmux review. I've never heard of w3m, I'll have to give that a go.

I use a lot of Cli-based apps, but I usually always have to have a gui browser and email client. I haven't came across a Cli-based email client that I've liked yet(think Alpine was the only one I could halfway stomach). But if I ever do move over to a terminal for those two particular apps then I would definitely use something like tmux as my wm. The lighter and faster the better for me...

ivanovnegro · 2012-03-23 16:03:26

Now, a dumb question. What does Tmux do in a tiler? For the stacking ones, ok.

PackRat · 2012-03-23 16:24:29

ivanovnegro wrote:

Now, a dumb question. What does Tmux do in a tiler? For the stacking ones, ok.

I was thinking that too - doesn't really fit with my work flow; but I can see the potential.

Last edited by PackRat (2012-03-23 16:25:33)

gutterslob · 2012-03-23 17:13:45

^ Main benefit of Tmux (and Screen) is the ability to attach/detach remote sessions. If you're the type that does a lot of work remotely, this is indispensable. There are some other benefits like easy copy-paste and the ability to effectively isolate terminal sessions from X (meaning if X crashes your terminal apps will still be running), among others.

ivanovnegro · 2012-03-23 17:29:10

^ ^ Ok guys, interesting things.

sqlpython · 2012-03-23 18:11:49

Great Job To Date for 2manyDogs ... I look forward to each installment..(What a Geek I am! big_smile )

I will be interested to read the herbstluftwm..a very recent tiling take on WMs.
I am sending some info to 2ManyDogs as I do not want to comment on his project especially before he publishes a review.
Anyway I like to (for reasons of aging Organs) identify myself with the OHCB #! group.. Computing with personal computers since 1979 I have gone through a lot of changes..
Took a look at herbstluftwm and Robert Carr would be surprised to see echos of his Framework by Ashton Tate in it.
I used Framwork on Digital Dos on / about 1984 through 1987...Great Stuff!
This will be interesting and nostalgic.. I think?

Thanks for taking the time to produce this thread 2ManyDogs..

Last edited by sqlpython (2012-03-23 18:13:05)

dkeg · 2012-03-23 19:00:21

This is really interesting. I use terminator for the purpose of having the vertical / horizontal split. This way I can use another terminal emulator and get the same benefit. Plus I find terminator to be laggy at times. @2ManyDogs, you use sakura. Any particular reason?

I am going to try this out over the w/e.

kri5 · 2012-03-23 19:43:42

@2ManyDogs.. What are the two apps you running in the bottom right corner, the music player and something that looks a bit like a system monitor?

http://postimage.org/image/qziu0vuab/

dkeg · 2012-03-23 19:48:17

^ looks like moc and htop. Both are must haves.

kri5 · 2012-03-23 19:54:52

Thanks for that dkeg, have just installed to give them a spin myself. wink

kri5 · 2012-03-23 19:59:14

^ Just have one problem now, how do you run 'moc' ?
I tried:

moc

in the terminal but i just get the 'command not found' error.

EDIT: Not to worry, have figured it out myself. Thanks 2ManyDogs not only are you supplying great reviews and tempting me with minimalist WMs, now I find myself looking at CLI apps. wink

Back to old school. lol

Last edited by kri5 (2012-03-23 20:04:11)

Istvan · 2012-03-23 20:00:01

kri5 wrote:

^ Just have one problem now, how do you run 'moc' ?
I tried:
moc
in the terminal but i just get the 'command not found' error.

Try ' mocp' :-)

dkeg · 2012-03-23 20:04:20

use this how to. It helped me to get up and running

http://crunchbanglinux.org/forums/topic … moc-howto/

and while you're at it. For CLI rss, try newsbeuter

sudo apt-get install newsbeuter

http://newsbeuter.org/

Last edited by dkeg (2012-03-23 20:04:37)

2ManyDogs · 2012-03-23 20:04:47

dkeg wrote:

@2ManyDogs, you use sakura. Any particular reason?

Because terminator loads really slowly on my machines (is that what you mean by "laggy"?) and sakura loads quickly hmm

dkeg wrote:

I am going to try this out over the w/e.

Great! That's what I'm hoping for with this series...

Last edited by 2ManyDogs (2012-03-23 20:09:55)

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