My personal configuration of the awesome window manager. The original can be found here. Comments added to rc.lua should roughly explain changes to the default configuration.
super+s-- toggle list of keybindssuper+w-- launch menusuper+shift+space-- launch run promptsuper+ctrl+space-- launch application menusuper+b-- toggle menu barsuper+ctrl+shift+r-- reload awesomesuper+ctrl+delete-- quit awesomesuper+ctrl+shift+delete-- power off computer
Disclaimer: may require changing default terminal in rc.lua and most likely will require editing launch commands in scripts/launcher.sh.
super+ctrl+enter-- launch a terminalsuper+ctrl+w-- launch firefoxsuper+ctrl+shift+w-- launch torsuper+ctrl+a-- launch keepasssuper+ctrl+s-- launch signalsuper+ctrl+d-- launch discordsuper+ctrl+e-- launch mirage (matrix)super+ctrl+e-- launch jitsisuper+ctrl+p-- launch python shellsuper+ctrl+r-- launch R shell
super+ctrl+shift+h/j/k/l/i-- switch to layout with master on left/bottom/top/right/top-leftsuper+ctrl+shift+f-- toggle floating on focused clientsuper+ctrl+j/k-- switch focus to next client down/up the stacksuper+shift+j/k-- move clients down/up the stacksuper+ctrl+h/l-- switch focus to screen (monitor) on the left/rightsuper+shift+h/l-- move client to screen on the left/rightsuper+shift+enter-- move client to mastersuper+shift+.-- increase number of masters by 1super+shift+,-- decrease number of masters by 1super+h/l-- resize clients horizontallysuper+f-- toggle fullscreen on focused clientsuper+m-- toggle maximize on focused clientsuper+shift+m-- toggle horizontal maximize on focused clientsuper+ctrl+m-- toggle vertical maximize on focused clientsuper+shift+down-- minimize clientsuper+shift+up-- un-minimize clientsuper+number-- switch focus to tag (workspace) numbersuper+shift+number-- move client to tag numbersuper+ctrl+number-- toggle view tag number on current tag
super+space-- toggle pause on mocpsuper+p-- begin playlist on mocpsuper+n-- move to next track on mocpsuper+shift+n-- move to previous track on mocpsuper+right-- seek forward on current tracksuper+left-- seek backwards on current track
These tools assume you have a playlist saved in the program mocp. You can install this with sudo apt install moc moc-ffmpeg-plugin and learn how to use it with mocp --help, or by pressing ? inside the mocp terminal interface. There is also a super+shift+ctrl+m bind to open ranger in the directory ~/music to search for songs for form a playlist. This is used in conjunction with a ranger configuration which has its own keybinds to create mocp playlists.
print-- screenshot everything (all screens)super+print-- screenshot active clientshift+print-- select region to screenshot
super+control+print-- launch terminal with interactive prompts to being screen/webcam recordings
Screenshots will by default be saved in ~/pictures/.screenshots and recordings will be saved in ~/videos/.recordings. These directories will be created if they do not exist. In order to take advantage of these features, please read the relevant details in the add ons section!
Volume up/down keys perform their normal function. This can be changed to any keys in rc.lua. Search for "volume controls".
Awesome can be installed from your linux repository on debian, arch, and fedora based distros.
sudo apt install awesome
sudo pacman -S awesome
sudo dnf install awesome
or it can be built following instructions on the original awesome git repository here. To copy this confuguration, clone the git repository into your .config
cd ~/.config
git clone https://github.com/kp9001/awesome.git
cd awesome
This configuration has some additional dependencies, namely
sudo apt install feh xcompmgr unclutter curl
At minimum, you will probably want a wallpaper, so run
sudo cp scripts/fehbg /usr/local/bin
To set a wallpaper, simply move an image into the directory ~/pictures/wallpapers. If you wish, you may put multiple wallpapers in to the ~/pictures/wallpapers directory. If you do this, then each time you restart awesome, a random one will be selected. To change to a new random wallpaper, use super+ctrl+b.
Please refer to the Notes section at the end for important additional notes.
In order to take full advantage of the custom configuration (for instance, screenshots), you will need to install a few more dependencies:
sudo apt install maim xclip xdotool xterm ffmpeg
You can now move scripts as you wish from the scripts directory to /usr/local/bin in order to take advantage of extra features. For everything, you can run
cd scripts
sudo cp record recorder mailsync weather /usr/local/bin
Please note the following before copying:
For recorder, you will need to manually input the values for the variables RES, AUDIO and MIC. These should respectively be the resolution of your monitor, the audio output source, and the audio input source. To find the names of the latter two, assuming you are using pulseaudio, you can run pactl list sources. You are interested in the Name entries.
For weather, you may wish to edit according to the note in the file. If not, it will default to the weather in your current IP location.
Finally, mailsync will automtaically sync your email in the background, if you are using mutt and mbsync. If not, you should remove the lines with mailsync from your autostart list.
Other things you might want to modify before loading:
- You may wish to remove from, add to, or modify the autorun section at the end of
rc.lua. - The keybinds for
move_to_screenare based on my monitor setup. The default binding is commented out beneath my modified bindings. - The widgets, especially the network ones, are set up specifically for my system. You may wish to modify some arguments so they work for you. Search for
Wibarinrc.lua. For instance, you will want to change all instances ofenp2s0to your network connection, perhapseth0orwlan0.
If all went well, awesome should now load with this configuration without errors, and with your wallpaper. If you wish to make any changes, open up rc.lua in your favorite editor and have fun. Press super+ctrl+r to reload awesome (unless you modified this already).
If you wish to check out other themes, the default themes have been copied into the themes directory. You may try them out by editing the line just after "variable definitions" in rc.lua which currently reads
local theme_path = string.format("%s/.config/awesome/themes/%s/theme.lua", os.getenv("HOME"), "xresources")
You want to replace xresources with other theme names.
You may also wish to modify the application launcher. Read the script called launcher in the scripts directory. Adding new applications to this require adding cases to the case list (the names are irrelevant) and adding corresponding lines to the bottom with whatever command calls the application. (To that effect, you can run any command this way.) You then must go into the keybinds section of rc.lua and assign a keybind to launcher.sh with some argument. Use the syntax of the ones currently in the config as a template.
For ease of installation on new systems, I have included miscellaneous config files in other. In order to use these, run
cd ~/.config/awesome/other
sudo apt install vim ranger zathura zathura-pdf-poppler moc moc-ffmpeg-plugin
sudo cp vim/vimrc /etc/vim/
cp ranger/rc.conf ~/.config/ranger/
cp zathura/zathurarc ~/.config/zathura/
cp mocp/config ~/.moc/
In liue of a personal mutt configuration, I am using Luke Smith's brilliant Mutt Wizard.
