xmonad a mention

[woodsmoke]

Hi
This is not a review it is a "mention".

My second boy, a very high end astronomer who does the number crunching on things like "dark energy"(that is energy not matter) is now using xmonad.

He previously used a Mac and then an Ubu distro but, has, of late, run into incipient possible carpel tunnel problems.

He has ditched the Mac for a Lenovo style ThinkPad with the button in the middle to minimze hand movements.



And, he uses xmonad for the OS.

He demonstrated how it works, basically four, or definable, number of "tiles"(different than windows I guess) on the screen. Seems very fast and pointed at CLI people of which he is one.

Just a mention not that I am going to run right out and switch.

The below link is NOT to his setup but it gives several excellent examples of how the tiles appear in action:

http://www.haskell.org/wikiupload/a/...ead-galois.jpg

Below is link to the site:

http://xmonad.org/

woodsmoke

[Snowhog]

Re: xmonad a mention

And it is available for installation from the default Ubuntu package repositories.

[woodsmoke]

Re: xmonad a mention

Oh, I didn't even think of that SH.

I might just have to fiddle with it a little.

I do notice that the above first image has a really ergonomic keyboard and mouse so...hmmm

Dunno about setup of things like peripherals though.

if anyone has comments I, for one, would like to read them.

woodsmoke

[woodsmoke]

For those wanting to fiddle with a "windowing system" a trick with xmonad

If this does not come across as understandable please say so.

This is just a hypothetical so if you do not PARTICULARLY want to fiddle with a "different windowing system" you can stop here.

to continue with the hypothetical:

If one wants to fiddle with the "windowing system" per se, as opposed to using the command line(part and parcel of using xmonad). Then there is, I think, a relatively easy way to do that.

As stated by Snowhog, the "windowing system" is, indeed in the repos.

If one looks at the xmonad website one sees buried in the information a statement which really desribes what the use of xmonad is all about.

There are the "automatically resizing" tiles but there are also "floaters".

if one looks at the screenshots, the "tile" part of it is where the "action is" in terms of massive amounts of "data". However, using GIMP(the example) is not about massive amounts of data it is manipulating an image. Applications like GIMP or Amarok are called floaters.

And, I suspect, LibreOffice would be a floater also.

There is also reference to a "menu bar" that one can install, manually, and configure manually.

But, for the point of this, the menu bar can be laid aside.

One also notices that there is no mention of how to install "wireless" or "a printer".

Now, for the true CLI person that is ok, they can do it with a few keystrokes but the rest of us cannot.

So..."the trick"

Find an extra hard drive and install any kind of basic Ubu variant that does the wireless, if needed, and installs the printers.

Install "most" of the normal apps that one uses, like GIMP or Amarok, etc.

Hunt around in usr/bin and write down the actual names of the things like LibreOffice/writer or GIMP or Amarok etc. and lay that aside to have it handy.

There is one "script" that one will need, it is on the website, about a single one of those "script sheets" that holds the names of the "floaters".

One will have to go to root when running xmonad to the particular script sheet and merely enter the NAMES of the floaters. It is very well outlined how to do that and I really do think that an "inexperienced person" would not bork the system.

So, next install xmonad and when one reboots one chooses the xmonad window manager.

There are a set of keystrokes for manipulating the tiles into various configurations which one can get from the site, they should probably be written down on a sheet of paper until they are learned.

After some initial fiddling with the tiles and one is ready to maybe use Amarok, one will then will have to enter the names of the "floaters" in the script as mentioned above, following the step by step procedure at the website.

HOWEVER< it might be, that since all of the stuff under "/" is available for both the Ubu and the xmonad windowing system, one might, possibly enter the names of the floaters in the "script" while running Ubu.

The total code for xmonad is, from the website, about a thousand lines so don't be intimidated.

You can then fiddle around with the tiling thing and see if it actually helps you in some way.

if you need a floater, then open the terminal and type the command for the floater.

The printers are already installed so that if one needs to print something from LibreOffice, the printer is already ready to go.

This is all very hypothetical, although I might give it a whirl next week or so.

And, of course, if anyone actually has experience with xmonad, one could post and tell me just how WRONG I am about all of this.

woodsmoke

[SteveRiley]

Re: xmonad a mention

Window managers don't have to be big...take a look at the code for TinyWM -- it's all of 57 lines!

[Snowhog]

Re: xmonad a mention

tinywm is available for installation from your favorite package manager.