Tiling window managers for Puppy?

[mikewalsh]

Well, this is probably as good a place for it as any, so I'll just ask away...

Simply put, does anybody have any experience of running a tiling window manager in Puppy.....something like i3, perhaps, or dwm? Any pitfalls I should be aware of, or any tips/tweaks,etc., y'all can suggest?


Mike.

[rockedge]

@mikewalsh
rufwoof I think has knowledge of setting up a tiling window managers, during the FirstRib development from wiak, rufwoof was setting up Void Linux versions of FirstRib with different managers and some completely different menu systems than most Puppy Linux distros.

Might be worth asking. I might try some out on a new Bionic64-CE fresh from the woof-CE factory,

[williams2]

I am running dwm now. A single executable, 60k in size. No other files, no config files, no library files.

To reconfigure, you would edit the source files, and recompile.
I find that the default configurations work well enough for me.

To switch to dwm, you would kill Xwindows and type:
xwin dwm
To switch back to jwm you would kill X and type:
xwin jwm

I usually want an application to be maximized, so I press alt+m.
Now any app will automatically start running maximized.
No need to click the tiny "maximize" button every single time you start an app.

For example, attached is a pic of what Waterfox looks like.
Also a picture of 2 Rox windows, automatically tiled (just press alt+t)

Dwm has a convenient bar at the top that shows you what workspace you are using (there are 9 workspaces) and which workspaces are being used and whether the windows are maximized or tiled or are floating and the name of the focused window and in the top right corners of the attached pictures, you can see that the bar is showing the time and date and free ram and cpu temperature and amount of battery charge.

You can hide the bar by pressing alt+b

Swicth to any workspace by pressing alt+1 or alt+2 or alt+3 etc etc

Move a window to another workspace by pressing alt+shift+1 or alt+shift+2 or alt+shift+3 etc etc

Close a window by pressing alt+shift+c

Very fast and efficient when you get used to it.

Dwm has no menu. The apps that are in the menu are mostly in /usr/share/applications/ anyway. I have dmenu setup to use /usr/share/applications/, but I don't use dmenu much.
I don't miss having a menu at all. I think a lot of people would miss not having a menu.

Dwm does not support dock apps, so none of the little apps in the right of the jwm bar work.
I don't miss them, I suspect many people would.
You can run a bar like the LXDE bar with dwm.
Adwm has support for dock apps.

https://dwm.suckless.org/
https://github.com/bbidulock/adwm

[mikewalsh]

@williams2 :-

I tried installing dwm from the PPM in Bionicpup64. Killed 'X', re-started with

Code: Select all

xwin dwm

....which put me straight back into JWM. (Errr.....huh??)

Thinking about it, if what you describe as dwm's behaviour is true, it's NOT really what I'm after. What I want is a way to 'split' a large widescreen monitor up into several smaller "virtual" monitors.....if that makes any kinda sense?

Something along the lines of how the Ubuntu 'Unity' desktop worktop 'pager' used to function. You'd click on it in that vertical left-side dock, and the screen would 'split' into four clearly defined areas, each showing what that worktop contained. You'd click on the one you wanted, and the contents would smoothly slide to the front on top of the others.....

I've been looking for something similar for years, and never found anything quite like it..!


Mike.

[williams2]

Is dwm installed and executable and in the $PATH?

If it is, typing this should display the version:

dwm -v

Otherwise, you would get:
bash: dwm: command not found

If you try xwin dwm and dwm is not executable, Puppy will automatically fallback on jwm.

I like dwm.
I suspect most people would not like dwm.

I can press alt+t to enable automatic tiling mode
then I can start 4 different apps running.
the 4 apps will be automatically tiled so they are all 4 on the same screen, any one can immediately have the focus.
i can press alt+m to display that window maximized, and flip to any other window maximized by pressing alt+j or alt+k
I can press alt+t to show all 4 windows instantly and automatically tiled again.

Mostly, I like to put 1 window in each workspace, and work with each app maximized, and flip between workspaces.
alt+tab is very useful, it flips between the last 2 workspaces that were used.

There are other tiling wms, like echinus, xmonad, adwm. I have all those installed.

dwm works well with multiple monitors.

I'm not sure what wm you might like to try. There are various wm comparison webpages, eg. Wikipedia.

[williams2]

dwm running in Fatdog810 with LXpanel at the bottom:

[greengeek]

it's NOT really what I'm after. What I want is a way to 'split' a large widescreen monitor up into several smaller "virtual" monitors.....if that makes any kinda sense?

Hi Mike - does this have any interest?

And did you see these posts from Jemimah?
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=49355
and
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=47192

EDIT : Another possibility? http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=2369
EDIT2 : Hit and hope: http://puppyfiles.org/dotpupsde/dotpups/WindowManagers/

[sc0ttman]

I don't like tiled window managers much - too much config, too many hotkeys, not flexible enough..

JWM can be made to behave like a tiled WM, with its multiple desktops, and hotkeys that move windows to top/bottomleft/right half of the screen.. I have my JWM setup like this - some apps load always in fullscreen with no "decorations" (borders, title bar, etc), others load in on left side by default, others on right, etc ...

So maybe just play with JWM configs a bit...

-----

Now, less about tiled window managers and more about horizontal/vertical splits in terminal sessions...


Nearly noone knows the following: if you want multi hsplits and vsplits in your terminal (separating your terminal screen into "tiles"), you DON'T need tmux et al..

First there is a very old school little util called vsplit - still available in Ubuntu/Debian repos - which lets you split even a xterm into vertical panes..

But most unknown, is that mlterm (a great terminal emulator) has hsplit and vsplit capabilities built-in! You can compile it with mlterm-fb, which runs in the framebuffer, and mlclient, which can do "sessions" with the main server (mlterm itself)..

In other words, mlterm natively supports tmux-style screens/splits, and sessions, with built-in features - and even in the framebuffer (no X required)..

[williams2]

I don't like tiled window managers much - too much config, too many hotkeys, not flexible enough..

I am running the standard dwm executable.
https://dwm.suckless.org/
1 file only, 60K, no config files. To change dwm's configuration, you edit the C source and recompile.
I have not changed anything, my dwm is using the default configuration.

It starts in tiling mode, and most of the time I want maximized mode.
Alt+M sets maximized mode, so I could configure maximized mode as the default, but I just press alt+M once when Puppy first boots. Actually, I have xdotool press alt+M for me, when X starts.

So I don't need to click the maximize square icon every time I start an application.

I mostly press alt+n to switch to workspace n, where n is a number from 1 to 9
alt+tab switches to the last workspace I was using, which is very useful.
Much less clicking and key presses than jwm.

not flexible enough

Mostly I want my windows maximized, 1 window per workspace.
Sometimes I want 2 or more windows tiled, so I press alt+T
I rarely need anything else.

[gychang]

On a fresh FP64 frugal install. I installed dwm after updating the PPM. I edited /etc/windowmanager from jwm to dwm and booted. It does not boot into dwm. Typing the command dwm on console gives "command not found". On find / -type d -iname "dwm*" only finds /usr/share/doc/dwm. There does not seem to be a executible dwm..., can anyone help? Is there a dependency I need to install?

[williams2]

I don't remember if I downloaded a precompiled binary, or if I compiled it from source.

dwm on https://pkgs.org/download/dwm is version 6.1-5
I'm using v 6.2 in BionicPup64
I think it runs in Xenial, Bionic and Fossa.

Attached, my stock standard executable, download ten click to unzip.
Copy it to somewhere like /root/my-applications/bin or /usr/local/bin/

To switch to dwm, kill X (pressing ctrl+alt+backspace should work )
Then type xwin dwm to restart Xwindows.

To switch back to jwm, kill X then type xwin jwm

You need to read the man page (attached, click to unzip)

There is no menu.

Basically, press alt+1 alt+2 alt+3 etc etc to select a workspace. There are 9 workspaces.
alt+M maximizes all windows in a workspace.
alt+T tiles all windows in a workspace.
alt+F floats all windows.

Conky does not play well with dwm.
I kill conky if I run dwm.
And I kill everything in the jwm tray. dwm does not have a tray. I kill them from a startup script.

I have dmenu installed. I don't often use it. It works well.

[gychang]

And I kill everything in the jwm tray. dwm does not have a tray. I kill them from a startup script.

I have dmenu installed. I don't often use it. It works well.

thanks for the detailed instructions, I installed your dwm to /usr/local/bin and noticed it needed chmod +x dwm to get it working.

I am trying to install dmenu and the terminal. There does not seem to be dmenu on PPM. Guess urxvt does not work Mod1-Shift-enter, will have to try to install ST terminal (compiling is difficult for me....). Do I need to kill jwm tray since I would have changed to dwm from jwm?

[williams2]

I prefer urxvt, st seems a bit limited. I wrote a script named "st"

Code: Select all

#!/bin/sh
exec urxvt -fg grey -bg black "$@"

I also made a keyboard shortcut to the desktop console icon, Winkey+T
(right click the icon, select Edit Item )
And Winkey+E as a shortcut to the rox icon.

The bar at the bottom is generated by JWM.
No JWM, no bar and no tray.

So it's pointless to have tray processes running, and possibly using abnormal amounts of cpu power.

I thinks it's easier to kill processes already running than to disable where they are started
so I start dwm from a script, which kills the tray processes, and Conky.

dwm might work with Conky if you edit the configuration header file and recompile, dwm.

dwm can be used with a bar and menu, like lxde's bar or xcfe's bar.
I have a fatdog with the default lxde (openbox) bar and menu, and dwm as the WM.

Attached: some files I use with dwm.

[gychang]

I prefer urxvt, st seems a bit limited. I wrote a script named "st"

Code: Select all

#!/bin/sh
exec urxvt -fg grey -bg black "$@"

Attached: some files I use with dwm.

your script for urxvt and file attachment works well. Now the hard part of getting used to new keybindings....

[tallboy]

The 19 best tiling window managers for Linux as of 2021
https://www.slant.co/topics/1902/~best- ... -for-linux

I have 4 virtual windows in Rox, and in one of them I run a Vavaldi browser, that can be tiled any way you want.

tallboy