Loyalty to Awesome WM

chris_ak · 2008-05-04 05:01:22

I'm thinking of switching to awesome from openbox. I installed the git package from AUR and I'm definitely impressed, but it looks like it will take a bit of work to get it the way I like it. So I'm curious to hear from awesome users. Is awesome really a WM people stick with? What are the advantages (aside from the tiling function)? Also, please post a screenshot and your awesomerc and any addons if you have the time. Thanks!

phabulosa · 2008-05-04 16:39:18

I am a new adopter of Awesome WM. So far, I like it very much.
Tiling should be the key reason you choose awesome, if you don't want tiling, why choose awesome?

Compared to other tiling WMs, awesome does not have any killer features.

However, its configuration is very easy to understand (giving my situation, I am not a programmer and I don't want to learn lua to use ion3, or haskell to use xmonad).
As long as you have some basic shell script skills, you can make awesome fly in no time.

I have not spent enough time on xmonad or ion3. So, no comparison with those two.
I used dwm and wmii from suckless.org for a while and both of them have its on merits.
One unique thing about awesome is that it built many good widgets in it already. If you use other Tiling WMs, you may have to use together with dzen and dmenu.
Awsome also meets some of my special needs, such as out-of-box dual monitor support, more flexibility in terms of "styles" (different fonts, colors in different places ...)

DWM and Wmii seems to keep its elitist flavor and don't bring in exciting new features quite often which Awesome is evolving every day.

The coming Awesome 3 is rewritten to use xcb instead of xlib. I gave it a try already and everything does feel snappier.

venox · 2008-05-04 17:48:17

I tried awesome. I really liked it, but it's not extensible enough for me. That's what I like on dwm and xmonad.
xmonad is a pain in the ass to extend since I don't know Haskell very well, so I switched back to dwm.

dwm can have killer features too, you just have to implement them.

thayer · 2008-05-04 17:59:02

dwm is only extensible if you want to implement patches of C code every time you want to add something. It is quite responsive though.

Having used Xmonad for several months, I have recently switched to Awesome myself. The mouse integration is the best I have seen period. I use the keyboard 85% of the time, but it's nice to know that for the remaining 15% I can use the mouse to get around on the desktop, cycle clients, launch stuff from awesome-client, etc.

It's also super easy to configure--absolutely no programming knowledge required (nor used).

jbromley · 2008-05-04 22:04:43

Here's one note about awesome/dwm/xmonad for you. It's default layout paradigm is you have two (or more) columns. One column is considered the main window. By default the window there takes up the whole column. (You can add windows to the main column.) The second column is divided between the rest of the windows in the workspace. So if you've got four windows, one will be in the main column and the other three will each occupy 1/3 of the second column. You can move windows between the main and secondary column easily. If you don't think you'll like this way of working, then perhaps you should look elsewhere. Note that awesome and xmonad do have other layouts, but what is described above is then default layout.

I've tried awesome, dwm, and xmonad, and while all three are very good, I just could not accustom myself to this main/secondary column thing. My main problem was that as I develop I like to have windows open side-by-side for comparison. In awesome/dwm/xmonad I could not do this easily if there were more than two windows in the workspace. For comparison, I normally use wmii or stumpwm.

Regards,
j

Last edited by jbromley (2008-05-06 02:12:21)

axion419 · 2008-05-05 23:08:58

I have awesome-git installed, and the only sstatus bar I can get working is the simple clock, I couldnt get awesome3-git to install ( probably better that i couldnt lol) BUT I am enjoying awesome more this time around. ( normally a openbox or ratpoison user) The TileBottom layout is awesome, I love having kazehakase, mc and ncmpc all on screen at once.

chris_ak · 2008-05-05 23:24:57

axion419 wrote:

I have awesome-git installed, and the only sstatus bar I can get working is the simple clock, I couldnt get awesome3-git to install ( probably better that i couldnt lol) BUT I am enjoying awesome more this time around. ( normally a openbox or ratpoison user) The TileBottom layout is awesome, I love having kazehakase, mc and ncmpc all on screen at once.

Yeah, I started using openbox no more than a couple of months ago, and I do think it is an excellent wm. However, I'm starting to work in terminals a lot more, and awesome seems perfect for that sort of thing. It's just a matter of me taking the time to set it up the way I like it. That will have to wait until I'm done with finals and all that though. Thanks for your input everyone.

Vintendo · 2008-05-06 00:35:21

Nice topic. I am using openbox since a month or so and i am working a lot in the terminal. I have Terminator installed, so i have a lot of terminals in one window. Then i saw Awesome and i liked it a lot(the name too by the way) but i can't get the hang of the configuration file. Tips someone?

Last edited by Vintendo (2008-05-06 00:52:28)

Jerry · 2008-05-06 00:56:46

However, I'm starting to work in terminals a lot more

Have you tried screen? In my opinion it's the best way to manage the terminal.

After trying out DWM and Xmonad, I'm pretty much at home as using DWM as my window manager. By default it's already usable, and modifying the config.h is not something hard to do. If you're trying out Awesome I suggest you try out DWM too.

cubekid · 2008-05-06 02:54:08

I had a similar experience, in that I switched from openbox (which is a brilliant lightweight wm) to awesome. But I did try dwm on the way, and I see why people like it. The only problem was, I had absolutely no idea where this magical config.h file is. I'm sure I missed something really really obvious, but I was very confused, and that was the main reason I kinda gave up on dwm, even though I really liked it.

Vintendo, for the configuration, what I did to get my hands around it (not that i'm an expert or anything) was just going through it line by line. It takes a while, but for the most part it's really self-explanatory. If you start messing around with the configuration a bit, I think you'll start to get the hang of it. You can also compare it to some of the other configurations flying around the forums. Also, the man page for awesome is really good, it has all the default key combinations and such.

Mikko777 · 2008-05-06 10:25:46

Wiki is pretty good by now:

http://awesome.naquadah.org/wiki/index.php/Main_Page

dawn · 2008-05-12 20:23:54

cubekid wrote:

But I did try dwm on the way, and I see why people like it. The only problem was, I had absolutely no idea where this magical config.h file is. I'm sure I missed something really really obvious, but I was very confused, and that was the main reason I kinda gave up on dwm, even though I really liked it.

config.h is one of the source files. Every time you want to change the configuration, you have to modify this header file and recompile dwm.

By the way, dvtm is cool. I ran it on an a older machine for a while. If it only had tags like other tiling managers...

Edit: I guess I could try to emulate that by running different dvtm sessions in screen. Hmmm.

Last edited by dawn (2008-05-12 20:25:54)

sujoy · 2008-05-13 10:33:25

using awesome for about a couple of months now, used openbox earlier, but now tiling WM makes more sense to me. my widget handling is now powered by amazing, and arch, awesome,amazing makes a powerfull,nice minimal combo.

the only other tiling WM i used is wmii, liked it but didn't really understood the config files.

cubekid · 2008-05-13 13:53:49

dawn wrote:

cubekid wrote:
But I did try dwm on the way, and I see why people like it. The only problem was, I had absolutely no idea where this magical config.h file is. I'm sure I missed something really really obvious, but I was very confused, and that was the main reason I kinda gave up on dwm, even though I really liked it.
config.h is one of the source files. Every time you want to change the configuration, you have to modify this header file and recompile dwm.
By the way, dvtm is cool. I ran it on an a older machine for a while. If it only had tags like other tiling managers...
Edit: I guess I could try to emulate that by running different dvtm sessions in screen. Hmmm.

Ah, yea i know it's a source file (i've done a bit of C in my day ), but I couldn't find the actual location of the file on my harddrive... though now that I think about it, maybe it was somewhere in /var where pacman keeps all its stuff. Hm, I might give it another shot, now that my finals are done.

iBertus · 2008-05-13 16:24:03

cubekid wrote:

dawn wrote:
cubekid wrote:
But I did try dwm on the way, and I see why people like it. The only problem was, I had absolutely no idea where this magical config.h file is. I'm sure I missed something really really obvious, but I was very confused, and that was the main reason I kinda gave up on dwm, even though I really liked it.
config.h is one of the source files. Every time you want to change the configuration, you have to modify this header file and recompile dwm.
By the way, dvtm is cool. I ran it on an a older machine for a while. If it only had tags like other tiling managers...
Edit: I guess I could try to emulate that by running different dvtm sessions in screen. Hmmm.
Ah, yea i know it's a source file (i've done a bit of C in my day ), but I couldn't find the actual location of the file on my harddrive... though now that I think about it, maybe it was somewhere in /var where pacman keeps all its stuff. Hm, I might give it another shot, now that my finals are done.

Perhaps I'm wrong here, but don't you have to edit the config.h file from the source package and then recompile dwm everytime you want to change something? Sounds like too much effort for a minimal window manager.

Ashren · 2008-05-13 16:41:19

If a 2 second compile time is to much effort then you're right. Editing the config.h is just as simple as editing awesomerc, perhaps even more so.

dante4d · 2008-05-13 16:48:39

How fast is xmonad compared to awesome? And other tiling WMs...

iBertus · 2008-05-13 20:07:09

Indeed, it would seem that I've overestimated the amount of work required to customize dwm.

Gigamo · 2008-05-14 06:12:46

Ashren wrote:

If a 2 second compile time is to much effort then you're right. Editing the config.h is just as simple as editing awesomerc, perhaps even more so.

Plus an X restart.

robmaloy · 2008-05-14 08:14:54

Gigamo wrote:

Ashren wrote:
If a 2 second compile time is to much effort then you're right. Editing the config.h is just as simple as editing awesomerc, perhaps even more so.
Plus an X restart.

or have i.e. firefox (it somehow stops X from shutting down, other programs do that too)
running and a "killall dwm; /your/statusbar/script | dwm"

i really like dwm, especially on my kinda slow laptop (700mhz, 192megs ram)
and its really fun to "extend", i.e. writing scripts for dmenu usage (mine has submenu support \o/ + displayed names can differ from command names, configured in a simple NAME=COMMAND text file) etc etc etc

haven't tried awesome so far, what features does it have that dwm doesn't?

Ashren · 2008-05-14 08:45:09

Gigamo wrote:

Ashren wrote:
If a 2 second compile time is to much effort then you're right. Editing the config.h is just as simple as editing awesomerc, perhaps even more so.
Plus an X restart.

Well, not if you loop dwm in .xinitrc and map a key to compile, kill, install and restart dwm. But, granted Xmonad and Awesome have a nice feature there.

skymt · 2008-05-14 08:59:21

A while back I wrote a simple dwm patch to add a restart action. I don't have it anymore, but as I recall all it took was exec()'ing argv[0], so it should be simple to rewrite.

barebones · 2008-05-14 14:55:49

I really like awesome, and have been using it since I found out about it. My only complaint is that (so far) the author likes to change config file syntax and the behavior of awesome-client alot, so there have been a couple updates in the past that pretty much destroyed my desktop. A little playing around got everything working again, but frustrating none the less.

Arch Linux

#1 2008-05-04 05:01:22

Loyalty to Awesome WM

#2 2008-05-04 16:39:18

Re: Loyalty to Awesome WM

#3 2008-05-04 17:48:17

Re: Loyalty to Awesome WM

#4 2008-05-04 17:59:02

Re: Loyalty to Awesome WM

#5 2008-05-04 22:04:43

Re: Loyalty to Awesome WM

#6 2008-05-05 23:08:58

Re: Loyalty to Awesome WM

#7 2008-05-05 23:24:57

Re: Loyalty to Awesome WM

#8 2008-05-06 00:35:21

Re: Loyalty to Awesome WM

#9 2008-05-06 00:56:46

Re: Loyalty to Awesome WM

#10 2008-05-06 02:54:08

Re: Loyalty to Awesome WM

#11 2008-05-06 10:25:46

Re: Loyalty to Awesome WM

#12 2008-05-12 20:23:54

Re: Loyalty to Awesome WM

#13 2008-05-13 10:33:25

Re: Loyalty to Awesome WM

#14 2008-05-13 13:53:49

Re: Loyalty to Awesome WM

#15 2008-05-13 16:24:03

Re: Loyalty to Awesome WM

#16 2008-05-13 16:41:19

Re: Loyalty to Awesome WM

#17 2008-05-13 16:48:39

Re: Loyalty to Awesome WM

#18 2008-05-13 20:07:09

Re: Loyalty to Awesome WM

#19 2008-05-14 06:12:46

Re: Loyalty to Awesome WM

#20 2008-05-14 08:14:54

Re: Loyalty to Awesome WM

#21 2008-05-14 08:45:09

Re: Loyalty to Awesome WM

#22 2008-05-14 08:59:21

Re: Loyalty to Awesome WM

#23 2008-05-14 14:55:49

Re: Loyalty to Awesome WM

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