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#1 2008-06-21 04:30:52

cautha
Member
From: Kingston, Ontario
Registered: 2008-06-02
Posts: 115
Website

Switching to a tiling wm from KDEmod

I put this in the newbie corner because I think I'm going to need a little hand-holding tongue

I'd like to make the switch so that I get the best possible use out of the screen space I have. I've also come to dislike a lot of GUI apps, when it comes down to it. I'll leave KDEmod on the system for now, but I'll start doing things more efficiently; that means learning more about the command line and a minimalistic window manager like dwm or wmii. My thought is that if I force myself, I'll eventually get used to it and come to prefer it. (Also, does anyone have any experience with CLFSWM or Stumpwm? I plan on learning Common Lisp.)

My question is, where do I begin editing my various config files? I'm not asking how a text-editor works, but rather, what are some customizations that make life easier on the command-line? What could you not live without? My reasoning is, everyone had to start somewhere; and I've seen some pretty awesome screenshots. This is similar to the thread where everyone posted their .bashrc files, but from the perspective of someone who has never had to deal with certain files before.

I want to customize things from the ground up, just like the rest of my system! I haven't touched the default look of KDEmod since I installed Arch, and it's kind of depressing sad

Harry

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#2 2008-06-21 04:56:45

peets
Member
From: Montreal
Registered: 2007-01-11
Posts: 936
Website

Re: Switching to a tiling wm from KDEmod

What do you want to do? Think about what you really need. Trying to set up your work environment so you can get a good screenshot out of it is not the best motivation (I've used it). My goal is comfort. Find out what your needs are, and pick the best applications that fill those needs. Here are the most obvious ones:

1. Pick a good shell.
2. Pick a good terminal emulator.
3. Pick a good window manager (does one exist? argh!)

For stuff I don't do often, I usually don't care much about the quality of the app. I don't spend much time picking those: I use k3b to burn cds. For stuff I do often, I care about having a solid and comfortable app: I use vim to edit text files.

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#3 2008-06-21 05:05:41

cautha
Member
From: Kingston, Ontario
Registered: 2008-06-02
Posts: 115
Website

Re: Switching to a tiling wm from KDEmod

peets wrote:

What do you want to do? Think about what you really need. Trying to set up your work environment so you can get a good screenshot out of it is not the best motivation (I've used it). My goal is comfort.

True. But when I see a screenshot I like, it's usually because it looks like it would be nice to work with that particular system. I'm not big on flashy things: I lost faith in Ubuntu when they started packaging compiz-fusion with the default install.

Mu current goal is to learn how to program, so that I can start contributing back to the community. I need Scribus for school, but that's about it. And I don't really have time to play games any more neutral

Harry

Last edited by cautha (2008-06-21 05:10:05)

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#4 2008-06-21 13:52:20

Misfit138
Misfit Emeritus
From: USA
Registered: 2006-11-27
Posts: 4,189

Re: Switching to a tiling wm from KDEmod

peets wrote:

1. Pick a good shell.
2. Pick a good terminal emulator.
3. Pick a good window manager (does one exist? argh!)

Which shell do you use, Peets? (I Just use bash)

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#5 2008-06-21 15:26:33

sniffles
Member
Registered: 2008-01-23
Posts: 275

Re: Switching to a tiling wm from KDEmod

Opinions alert:

Personally I used to use DWM, currently I have switched to Awesome. One of the "problems" with dwm/wmii as far as I am concerned, is their self-imposed code size limit. Whilst I agree that keeping code short has various benefits, having an -exact- upper bound for the number of lines can be damaging: something which could improve the program might not be implemented simply because it would mean "too many lines". Also, not a fan of wmii's configuration method.

Xmonad: sounds cool, but I'm not going to occupy 300 MB of disk space with GHC when all I want is a minimalistic WM. Sure, perhaps disk space these days is not as `expensive` as other resources, but still. So Xmonad itself would be providing a minimalistic approach to your "desktop experience" but this minimalism would be "ruined" by GHC.

Ratpoison is supposed to be succeeded by Stumpwm. I may be bleeding edge but I'm not bleeding edge enough to run Stumpwm on the laptop I use for soft-dev.

Ion: no thanks, for historical reasons related to its creator.

Anyway, this could be turned into a rather lengthy post regarding my opinions of various tiling WM and why I did -not- choose them. To tell you the truth I didn't pick Awesome because it was "just what I was looking for" but rather because I didn't find anything better.

--

In any case, my advice is this: if you're -serious- about programming, spend more time on actually learning to program rather than trying to anticipate what would make your life easier. Once you'll start handling code your needs will start standing out and you'll be able to to make better decisions regarding your environment and how it should be. Knowing how to use VIM (or / and) Emacs before starting to handle code might be a plus (i.e. you won't have to wrestle the text editor when all you want to do is change XPacman's default key-bindings by modifying its source | EDIT: or when you're trying to add a god-mode or mudkipz to said game); but only if you feel you trust all those people who say Vim / Emacs == good.

--

Misfit138: ever tried ZSH?

Last edited by sniffles (2008-06-21 15:29:06)

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#6 2008-06-21 17:46:06

Misfit138
Misfit Emeritus
From: USA
Registered: 2006-11-27
Posts: 4,189

Re: Switching to a tiling wm from KDEmod

No, in fact, I am just vaguely familiar with bash and its full capabilities at this point.

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#7 2008-06-22 06:54:53

sujoy
Member
From: India
Registered: 2008-02-08
Posts: 94
Website

Re: Switching to a tiling wm from KDEmod

i would say awesome , vim (with omnifuncs) , and rxvt-unicode is all thats needed.

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#8 2008-06-22 13:47:30

Mr.Elendig
#archlinux@freenode channel op
From: The intertubes
Registered: 2004-11-07
Posts: 4,092

Re: Switching to a tiling wm from KDEmod

Some usefull stuff:

mc - cli filemanager, sometimes faster than using the core tools
lftp - best ftp client ever.
vim/emac/jed - comes down to personal preference
claws/mutt - first is a nice gtk2 mail client, the later is a realy good cli mail client.
bashburn - A nice script for burning cd/dvd's
finch/bitlbee - the only two multiprotocol IM clients that does unicode right.
python/ruby - when an sh script isn't enough
moc/mpd(with ncmpd) - two nice music players
mplayer-svn - best media player ever made for the *nix world
links -g - when you just want to browse the net without 10000 adds/flash/java/ajax crap

When it comes to the wm of choice, my tip would be wmii or xmonad.
wmii
pros:
plan9
easy to configure
you can easily mix layouts on one single view
dynamic tagging
nice defaults out of the box

cons:
non-existing documentation
realy hard to change anything but the basic
not actively developed anymore
no xinerama

xmonad
pros:
The devs are really nice
actively developed
haskell
Good and extensive documentation
You can configure absolutely everything about it quite easy.
xinerama support

cons:
haskell
ghc is a big dep if you don't need it for anything else.
not so good out of the box as wmii


Evil #archlinux@libera.chat channel op and general support dude.
. files on github, Screenshots, Random pics and the rest

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#9 2008-06-22 17:29:36

cautha
Member
From: Kingston, Ontario
Registered: 2008-06-02
Posts: 115
Website

Re: Switching to a tiling wm from KDEmod

sujoy wrote:

i would say awesome , vim (with omnifuncs) , and rxvt-unicode is all thats needed.

Would you mind if I looked at your .bashrc/.Xdefaults, etc? wink

Harry

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#10 2008-06-22 18:36:39

Ashren
Member
From: Denmark
Registered: 2007-06-13
Posts: 1,229
Website

Re: Switching to a tiling wm from KDEmod

I would say go with Awesome or Dwm 5.0. Awesome can be a pain to configure IMO, but will look better than Dwm, since Awesome can use Xft fonts in its statusbars. Dwm can look nice as well, especially in combination with dzen2. (see http://xs.to/xs.php?h=xs227&d=08203&f=2 … rot980.png for reference (shameless plug)). Dwm has gone through a featureritis phase, but has now returned to simplicity. Dwm 5.0 is really sleek and easy to configure if you can read and edit a C header file and type make.

If you decide to go with Dwm, please post any questions you might have.

Last edited by Ashren (2008-06-22 18:37:08)

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#11 2008-06-22 19:59:30

cautha
Member
From: Kingston, Ontario
Registered: 2008-06-02
Posts: 115
Website

Re: Switching to a tiling wm from KDEmod

Thanks, Ashren! I appreciate the offer. I'll think on it.

BTW, where did you get the icons in your menu? Are those the standard ones? I love them big_smile

I guess most people misunderstood my reason for posting; I was looking for help to migrate to a more efficient setup. Meaning that I don't want everything to be perfect right away, but I wanted to know where I should start (useful things to put in my config files, etc. -- apart from aliases, those I already know about). I was curious to know how some of you started, as well. I'm already aware that choosing a text editor/terminal emulator/wm combination is necessary, but how best to ease myself into such a new environment (one that I'll be using every day, and gradually customizing)? Everyone needs a starting point.

Is that more clear? cool

Harry

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#12 2008-06-22 20:16:03

iBertus
Member
From: Greenville, NC
Registered: 2004-11-04
Posts: 2,228

Re: Switching to a tiling wm from KDEmod

I've switched from compiz-fusion to awesome for both my desktop and laptop. I'm still trying to get the config the way I like it. Still, beats when I was trying to configure FVWM and the major bloat that is GNOME/KDE with Compiz.

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#13 2008-06-22 20:29:39

cautha
Member
From: Kingston, Ontario
Registered: 2008-06-02
Posts: 115
Website

Re: Switching to a tiling wm from KDEmod

I'm less inclined to screw with the setup on my laptop, since it took me a while to get things up and running on it. Fear is a tricky thing.

I've also got some (unfortunately) important, specialized Windows software on the lappy, which I won't be able to replace until I have a better handle on programming tongue In that regard, though, I've started doing some mockups, at least. When I have something to show for myself, maybe I'll post about it.

Harry

Last edited by cautha (2008-06-22 20:31:57)

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