Following is how my GUI environment is set-up on my home machine (a laptop) and work machine (a desktop). For the (libre) tools I frequently use, see this post instead.
With recent Debian GNOME updates (late 2013), something got broken enough that I could not login to my account. I saw this as a good opportunity to finally try something other than GNOME as my primary environment. I have before tinkered with other GUI environments (XFCE, KDE 3, FluxBox, LXDE, and most recently, Window Maker), but none lasted very long. But I think this time I will actually abandon GNOME permanently (after nearly a decade of use).
I been playing with dwm for the past several weeks, and the experience has convinced me to stay. I am attracted to the philosophy of minimalism, though I find they do take things a bit far in requiring users to tinker with C source code in order to configure it. Luckily it's not hard, and there's examples out there. It just takes a while since there isn't a comprehensive guide I could find.
For my login manager, I use LightDM. I added this line to its
configuration, in [SeatDefaults] section:
greeter-hide-users=false
It removes the need to manually enter my username each time I want to login.
Reason I'm not using GDM? I wanted something light, which also wouldn't pull in dozens of packages that I won't use. For example:
$ sudo apt-get install --no-install-recommends gdm3
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
The following extra packages will be installed:
bluez dconf-cli evolution-data-server evolution-data-server-common
gir1.2-accountsservice-1.0 gir1.2-caribou-1.0 gir1.2-gck-1 gir1.2-gcr-3
gir1.2-gdesktopenums-3.0 gir1.2-gdm3 gir1.2-gkbd-3.0 gir1.2-gmenu-3.0
gir1.2-gnomebluetooth-1.0 gir1.2-gnomedesktop-3.0 gir1.2-ibus-1.0
gir1.2-mutter-3.0 gir1.2-nmgtk-1.0 gir1.2-polkit-1.0 gir1.2-soup-2.4
gir1.2-telepathyglib-0.12 gir1.2-telepathylogger-0.2 gir1.2-xkl-1.0 gjs
gnome-bluetooth gnome-settings-daemon gnome-shell gnome-shell-common
gnome-themes-standard gnome-themes-standard-data libbluetooth3 libcamel-1.2-43
libcaribou-common libcaribou0 libebackend-1.2-6 libebook-1.2-14
libebook-contacts-1.2-0 libecal-1.2-15 libedata-book-1.2-17 libedata-cal-1.2-20
libedataserver-1.2-17 libgdata-common libgdata13 libgdm1 libgnome-menu-3-0
libgoa-1.0-0 libgoa-1.0-common libgweather-3-3 libgweather-common libibus-1.0-5
libical0 libmission-control-plugins0 libmutter0b liboauth0 libopenobex1
libpackagekit-glib2-16 libpulse-mainloop-glib0 librest-0.7-0 libsoup-gnome2.4-1
libtelepathy-glib0 libtelepathy-logger3 libwacom-common libwacom2 mutter-common
obex-data-server obexd-client telepathy-mission-control-5
Suggested packages:
evolution evolution-data-server-dbg gnome-orca gnome-user-share telepathy-haze
Recommended packages:
zenity gvfs-backends gnome-control-center pulseaudio gkbd-capplet gnome-contacts
gnome-user-guide gtk2-engines-pixbuf gnome-accessibility-themes packagekit
The following NEW packages will be installed:
bluez dconf-cli evolution-data-server evolution-data-server-common gdm3
gir1.2-accountsservice-1.0 gir1.2-caribou-1.0 gir1.2-gck-1 gir1.2-gcr-3
gir1.2-gdesktopenums-3.0 gir1.2-gdm3 gir1.2-gkbd-3.0 gir1.2-gmenu-3.0
gir1.2-gnomebluetooth-1.0 gir1.2-gnomedesktop-3.0 gir1.2-ibus-1.0
gir1.2-mutter-3.0 gir1.2-nmgtk-1.0 gir1.2-polkit-1.0 gir1.2-soup-2.4
gir1.2-telepathyglib-0.12 gir1.2-telepathylogger-0.2 gir1.2-xkl-1.0 gjs
gnome-bluetooth gnome-settings-daemon gnome-shell gnome-shell-common
gnome-themes-standard gnome-themes-standard-data libbluetooth3 libcamel-1.2-43
libcaribou-common libcaribou0 libebackend-1.2-6 libebook-1.2-14
libebook-contacts-1.2-0 libecal-1.2-15 libedata-book-1.2-17 libedata-cal-1.2-20
libedataserver-1.2-17 libgdata-common libgdata13 libgdm1 libgnome-menu-3-0
libgoa-1.0-0 libgoa-1.0-common libgweather-3-3 libgweather-common libibus-1.0-5
libical0 libmission-control-plugins0 libmutter0b liboauth0 libopenobex1
libpackagekit-glib2-16 libpulse-mainloop-glib0 librest-0.7-0 libsoup-gnome2.4-1
libtelepathy-glib0 libtelepathy-logger3 libwacom-common libwacom2 mutter-common
obex-data-server obexd-client telepathy-mission-control-5
0 upgraded, 67 newly installed, 0 to remove and 45 not upgraded.
Need to get 0 B/31.0 MB of archives.
After this operation, 90.8 MB of additional disk space will be used.
GNOME philosophy tends towards tight integration, leading to things being not as modular as I would like: how could a display manager end up depending on a Contacts tool, or the Bluetooth stack. It may be just how it was built in Debian, but that also means there were build options that allowed such tight coupling in the first place. GDM has served me well for years, but I'm not interested in all those tools it brings with.
Anyways, enough with that. I added a custom .desktop file which will
become selectable on LightDM UI:
$ cat /usr/share/xsessions/custom.desktop
[Desktop Entry]
Name=Custom
Exec=/etc/X11/Xsession
Type=XSession
On selecting the entry labeled Custom that appears on LightDM, and logging in, the following will get executed (~/.xsession):
# apps
xfce4-terminal --hide-menubar --tab --tab --tab &
firefox &
nautilus --no-desktop &
nm-applet &
trayer --edge top --align right --widthtype request --distance 15 &
quodlibet &
if [ $HOSTNAME == 'twork' ]; then
icedove &
fi
# settings
xset b off
xmodmap -e "clear Lock"
xmodmap -e "keycode 66 = Super_L"
# host-specific settings
if [ $HOSTNAME == 'twork' ]; then
xrandr --output VGA-0 --output DVI-0 --right-of VGA-0
else
synclient TapButton1=1 TapButton2=3 TapButton3=2 MaxDoubleTapTime=100
syndaemon -dti 1
fi
# clock
while true; do
datetime=$( date +"%F %R" )
if acpi -a | grep off-line > /dev/null; then
battery=$( python -c "print("$(acpi)".split(',')[1].strip())" )
xsetroot -name "$battery"" | ""$datetime"
else
xsetroot -name "$datetime"
fi
sleep 1m
done &
exec dwm
Finally, this is what my dwm config changes look like (config.def.h):
diff --git a/config.def.h b/config.def.h
index 77ff358..78af5d6 100644
--- a/config.def.h
+++ b/config.def.h
@@ -14,12 +14,15 @@ static const Bool showbar = True; /*
False means no bar */
static const Bool topbar = True; /* False means bottom
bar */
/* tagging */
-static const char *tags[] = { "1", "2", "3", "4", "5", "6", "7", "8",
"9" };
+static const char *tags[] = { "web", "files", "terminal", "misc" };
static const Rule rules[] = {
- /* class instance title tags mask isfloating
monitor */
- { "Gimp", NULL, NULL, 0,
True, -1 },
- { "Firefox", NULL, NULL, 1 << 8,
False, -1 },
+ /* class instance title tags mask isfloating
monitor */
+ { "Iceweasel", NULL, NULL, 1 << 0, False, -1 },
+ { "trayer", NULL, NULL, 1 << 0, False, -1 },
+ { "Nautilus", NULL, NULL, 1 << 1, False, -1 },
+ { "Xfce4-terminal", NULL, NULL, 1 << 2, False, -1 },
+ { "Quodlibet", NULL, NULL, 1 << 3, False, -1 },
};
/* layout(s) */
@@ -35,7 +38,7 @@ static const Layout layouts[] = {
};
/* key definitions */
-#define MODKEY Mod1Mask
+#define MODKEY Mod4Mask
#define TAGKEYS(KEY,TAG)
{ MODKEY, KEY, view, {.ui
= 1 << TAG} },
{ MODKEY|ControlMask, KEY, toggleview, {.ui
= 1 << TAG} },
@@ -47,7 +50,7 @@ static const Layout layouts[] = {
/* commands */
static const char *dmenucmd[] = { "dmenu_run", "-fn", font, "-nb",
normbgcolor, "-nf", normfgcolor, "-sb", selbgcolor, "-sf",
selfgcolor, NULL };
-static const char *termcmd[] = { "uxterm", NULL };
+static const char *termcmd[] = { "xfce4-terminal", "--hide-menubar"
};
static Key keys[] = {
/* modifier key function
argument */
Note that this diff is against the Debian package (version 6.0-6). I could not change the modifier key with the upstream version of dwm.
You will notice that I'm still using one major GNOME package, Nautilus, the file browser. It remains my favorite GUI file manager.