Window Managers

Xfce4

A debian image contains Xfce4 as the default, so installation is easy. Good selection of software without all the crapware that comes with Gnome. If you prefer Arch, Manjaro Arch using Xfce4 as the default window manager. More comprehnsive utilities than stripped down WMs like I3.

When installing Debian, there is a special image for automatically installing Xfce4 (instead of Gnome).
downloaded torrent from http://cdimage.debian.org/debian-cd/7.4.0/i386/bt-cd/
use sha256sum debian-7.4.0-i386-xfce-CD-1.iso to verify

debian-7.4.0-i386-xfce-CD-1.iso.torrent 660 MB

Do not use unetbootin. Instead:

1
2
3
# fdisk -l   ;;to identify USB drive
# cp debian.iso /dev/sdb1
# sync

elect special installation to be able to install with Xfce
Selecting encrypted hard drive will start a >10 hour random write to disk which you can cancel out of and continue the install.

Select “Guided – use entire disk and set up LVM”; this is for the xfce window manager installation
Partition all files in one partition.
Once installed, modify the sources and UPGRADE to the latest packages.

1
#nano /etc/apt/sources.list

comment out the line referring to a cd and add:

deb http://http.debian.net/debian/ wheezy main contrib non-free
deb http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/ sid main #for electrum

1
#apt-get update && apt-get dist-upgrade

From the documentation:

upgrade: used to install the newest versions of all packages currently installed on the system.
dist-upgrade: in addition to performing the function of upgrade, also intelligently handles changing dependencies with new versions of packages.

Add to startup

Go into settings > settings manager > session and startup > application autostart > add
name: MyStartItem
command: bash /home//mystartupscript.sh

Another option is to modify /etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf to add the following options:

display-setup-script > calls your mycustomloginvideo.sh before the login screen appears
session-setup-script > calls your mycustomdesktopvideo.sh before the user desktop session starts

[SeatDefaults]
greeter-session=unity-greeter
user-session=ubuntu
;;for your login screen, e.g. LightDM (Ubuntu 11.10) or GDM (11.04 or earlier)
display-setup-script=/usr/share/mycustomloginvideo.sh
;;for your desktop session
session-setup-script=/usr/share/mycustomdesktopvideo.sh

Repair shutdown button

Need to make the following 2 files and paste in contents

/etc/polkit-1/localauthority/50-local.d/consolekit.pkla
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10

[restart]
Identity=unix-user:*
Action=org.freedesktop.consolekit.system.restart
ResultAny=yes

[stop]
Identity=unix-user:*
Action=org.freedesktop.consolekit.system.stop
ResultAny=yes
/etc/polkit-1/localauthority/50-local.d/udisks.pkla
1
2
3
4
5

[udisks]
Identity=unix-user:*
Action=org.freedesktop.udisks*
ResultAny=yes

http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/76308/xfce-upgrade-from-squeeze-to-wheezy-broke-xfces-user-policies


i3

A robust, lightweight tiling window manager.

pacman -S dmenu

config in ~/.i3/config

set $mod Mod4
bindsym $mod+c exec ~/conkeror.sh

exec –no-startup-id i3-msg ‘workspace 2; exec emacs; workspace 1, exec ~/conkeror.sh’

~/.xinitrc has exec i3
~/.bash_profile has startx (Important- not .bashrc which is activated with each new console)

/etc/i3status.conf


StumpWM

Written in LISP. Memory intensive.

/stumpwm/configure to reconfigure and get things running

~/.stumpwmrc

man ./stumpwm makeinfo stumpwm.texi
info stumpwm

Share