Comments on: Big Monitors, Window Management Frustration, and finding StumpWM

By: Weekly linkdump #139 - max - блог разработчиков

Weekly linkdump #139 - max - блог разработчиков — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 05:00:17 +0000

[...] окон (tiling WM) постепенно идет в массы, Yann’s Blog » Big Monitors, Window Management Frustration, and finding StumpWM. Я себе тоже xmonad планирую поставить, благо монитор [...]

By: cadar

cadar — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 14:06:14 +0000

I vote for AwesomeWM. Just used it one week, but best so far.

By: Yann

Yann — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 07:40:22 +0000

@Olivier

I first replaced it with a set of shell scripts which brought interfaces up and down, etc. I’ve sinced moved it to ifup/ifdown framework which Debian (and Ubuntu) provides. I’m looking into using guessnet, but haven’t seen a real need in my case yet.

And for those of you wondering why Stump and not XMonad, it comes down to the philosophy. I don’t like the auto-layout functionality of XMonad. I’ve already set up my zones, why must windows move around constantly? The ability to push and pull windows around on a “stack” is also a very nice Stump feature. The separation of Xinerama screens from the virtual desktops also drove me crazy. Granted, my experience was two days each before settling on Stump, so I’m willing to revisit this decision at some future time.

Plus, I find Common Lisp much more hackable, coming from hacking on emacs.

By: Olivier

Olivier — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 00:02:24 +0000

Interesting read, I’ve recently also been playing with stumpwm for “serious” work. With what did you replace NetworkManager?

By: Josh

Josh — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 22:26:29 +0000

For MS Windows, you can’t go past GridMove. It’s an awesome app that integrates cleanly into the shell, tiles your windows to predefined layouts or lets you create your own layouts, and allows for easy swapping of windows. Hotkeys and multimon support too.

By: Curt Micol

Curt Micol — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 21:46:46 +0000

I’ve recently switched from Fluxbox to AwesomeWM for the reasons you mention in paragraph one. I’ll have to give Xmonad and StumpWM another look but I wasn’t impressed with them immediately like I was AwesomeWM.

By: Ben

Ben — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 20:44:16 +0000

@Joe: Except dwm.

By: Joe

Joe — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 18:57:53 +0000

Just to second what David said, xmonad is way better than any of the other tiling WMs.

By: David House

David House — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 18:30:51 +0000

Incidentally, why do you prefer StumpWM over xmonad? You say xmonad is your second favourite, then list all the reason’s it’s better than Stump! Also, why bother replacing Gnome? There are many great pieces of software for the Gnome environment, I’m of the opinion that going completely “pure” isn’t really worth it.

@SJS: tiling managers support virtual desktops as well, of course. I don’t think your set-up need be specific to traditional WMs; certainly xmonad supports everything you describe. Tiling just gives you a more efficient way to use your screen real-estate.

By: SJS

SJS — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 17:41:58 +0000

I don’t use GNOME or KDE, I use WindowMaker with multiple desktops (and I remap the change-desktop keys to Mod4+Fn where n is the desktop #). Windowmaker lets me put universal applications in the dock, desktop-specific applications on the clip, and it doesn’t put files “on the desktop”. I tile the windows myself, and then tell Windowmaker to remember on which desktop those windows and applications are found, and where they should appear.

I have a desktop called “main” that has 5 terminals, xdaliclock, and xmms running. I have a desktop called “web” where I run the browser(s), and also thunderbird, a desktop called “remote” where I have four terminals that are typically ssh’d into remote machine, a desktop called “development” where I have two (tabbed) terminals and an IDE, a desktop called “games” where I keep three terminals (one for running xpilots, one for running xpilot, and the third in case I need to look at something briefly while playing, a desktop called “apps” where I keep openoffice/abiword/etc. on the clip, and a desktop called “scratch” that has nothing by default, but that I use for running applications that don’t really fit on the rest.

WindowMaker also lets you “windowshade” windows, as well as iconify them. You can “roll up the window” into just the title-bar, which lets you get a window out of the way without having to worry about z-order and obscuring some windows but not the rest.

Tiling window managers are a good idea, sometimes. But the lessons of tiling can be applied without HAVING to tile everything, and virtual desktops are better at keeping disparate activities separated, which really helps to reduce clutter.