User:Hgabreu

Intro

I have no knowledge of Haskell and therefore the codes provided are mostly copied from documentation, examples and users help on xmonad irc channel. Since I'm a newbie, I believe this guide will be a good start for other newbies, or at least easier to read.

Installing XMonad

I installed XMonad from Debian sources and it was just like any other packages. On terminal as root:

apt-get install xmonad libghc6-xmonad-contrib-dev libghc6-xmonad-dev

I'm on Debian Squeeze with XFCE environment and I think it's easy for newbies to use xmonad within an desktop environment so you have easy configurations provided by the environment for keyboard, mouse, wallpaper, graphical applets, themes and so on. I like xfce because it has better applets, it's light and easier to configure. For those that don't know (I didn't), it's easy to install xfce instead of gnome (default) on Debian, just choose from install-cd menu:

Advanced options > Alternative desktop environments > Xfce

I recommend using squeeze sources since lenny has only xmonad older version, which doesn't have some nice features.

Configuring Xfce and XMonad

I followed Xmonad/Using_xmonad_in_XFCE to set up xfce and xmonad and start using it, but as a good newbie I had some difficulties to have it running, that I'll try to clear here. After installing xmonad packages, create a file in your home, ~/.xmonad/xmonad.hs with the following content (so you have where to start configuring it later):

import XMonad
import XMonad.Hooks.EwmhDesktops
import XMonad.Hooks.ManageDocks

main = do
    xmonad $ defaultConfig
        { manageHook = manageDocks <+> manageHook defaultConfig
        , layoutHook = ewmhDesktopsLayout $ avoidStruts $ layoutHook defaultConfig
        , logHook    = ewmhDesktopsLogHook
        , modMask    = mod4Mask --set windows key as modifier to avoid conflicts
        }

I know that it looks weird, but you doesn't need to understand it to use xmonad (I truly don't). Note that the indentation is important, so copy it exactly.

Now, the last configuration necessary is to tell Xfce to use xmonad instead of xfwm4, but there's no standard way to do this, what we're going to do is kill xfwm4 and use xfce session management to keep it killed, this feature is default on xfce so just don't disable it. For xfce to open xmonad no startup add it to 'Autostarted Applications' in Xfce menu > Settings, just click add and type xmonad on name and command fields. Configuration is done! To starting using it now press 'Alt+F2' and type

killall xfwm4 && xmonad

I'll finish the guide later..