Dwm is a fast, small, and dynamic window manager for X. Dwm is created by the suckless team. This is my build of dwm. I used some patches in this build to make dwm more like me. I based my personal build on DistroTube's dwm build. The patches I added to this build include:
- alpha (for transparency)
- attachaside (new clients appear in the stack rather than as the master)
- cyclelayouts (cycles through the available layouts)
- gridmode (adding a grid layout)
- restartsig (allows dwm to be restarted with a keybinding)
- rotatestack (moves a window through the stack, in either direction)
- statuspadding (horizontal and vertical padding in the status bar are now configurable options)
- swallow (terminal gets swallowed by application)
- uselessgap (adding gaps when more than one window)
- libxft (I actually recommend libxft-bgra)
- ttf-hack (Font used on the build)
- ttf-joypixels (Make emojis on dwmblocks possible)
- st (The bindings summon st terminal emulator)
- dmenu (Same as above)
- tabbed (There are bindings for it)
Also, you will need to add the following from the AUR (Arch User Repository):
- nerd-fonts-mononoki (optional)
- libxft-bgra or libxft-bgra-git (needed for colored fonts and emojis)
Also, if you are building this on an Ubuntu-based system, you need to install libx11-dev and xorg-dev.
Download the source code from this repository, or even better, use a git clone:
git clone https://github.com/brunomontezano/dwm-bruno
cd dwm-bruno
sudo make clean install
NOTE: Installing dwm-bruno will overwrite your existing dwm installation if you have one.
The MODKEY is set to the Super key (also known as the Windows key).
| Keybinding | Action |
|---|---|
MODKEY + RETURN |
opens terminal (st is the terminal but can be easily changed) |
ALT + RETURN |
opens tabbed instance with st |
MODKEY + d |
opens run launcher (dmenu is the run launcher but can be easily changed) |
MODKEY + SHIFT + q |
closes window with focus |
MODKEY + SHIFT + r |
restarts dwm |
MODKEY + SHIFT + e |
exit dwm |
MODKEY + 1-9 |
switch focus to workspace (1-9) |
MODKEY + SHIFT + 1-9 |
send focused window to workspace (1-9) |
MODKEY + j |
focus stack +1 (switches focus between windows in the stack) |
MODKEY + k |
focus stack -1 (switches focus between windows in the stack) |
MODKEY + SHIFT + j |
rotate stack +1 (rotates the windows in the stack) |
MODKEY + SHIFT + k |
rotate stack -1 (rotates the windows in the stack) |
MODKEY + h |
setmfact -0.05 (expands size of window) |
MODKEY + l |
setmfact +0.05 (shrinks size of window) |
If you do not use a login manager (such as LightDM) then you can add the following line to your .xinitrc to start dwm using startx:
exec dwm
If you use a login manager (like LightDM), make sure that you have a file called dwm.desktop in your /usr/share/xsessions/ directory. It should look something like this:
[Desktop Entry]
Encoding=UTF-8
Name=Dwm
Comment=Dynamic window manager
Exec=dwm
Icon=dwm
Type=XSession
dwm-bruno has been patched in such a way that it looks for an autostart file at: $HOME/.config/dwm/autostart.sh
You will need to create this file and the directory that it is located. An example autostart.sh is included below:
#!/bin/bash picom & feh --bgscale ~/img/wallpaper.jpg & dwmblocks &
The example autostart.sh above launches the picom compositor, sets the wallpaper with feh with an image located at $HOME/img/wallpaper.jpg and launches dwmblocks to add some widgets to our dwm panel. Obviously, you would need to install picom and feh to use those programs in your autostart. And you would need to install dwmblocks to use it. To use my dwmblocks, you also need to download the scripts found here.