Ubuntu – How to change the Xfce window manager to awesome

awesomewindow-managerxfce

I'd like to use the Awesome Window Manager with all the other XFCE4 environment daemons, like keyrings, panels, power managers, etc. Is there a way to do this?

Best Answer

(Tested on Xubuntu 12.04, but with the ppas for Xfce 4.10 and 4.12 installed; however this will work from Xfce 4.8 onwards (default 12.04 version))

You can either run awesome as the window manager in an Xubuntu or Xfce session (which I think is what you want), or run it from its own awesome session (once installed that becomes an option in lightdm).

First install awesome from the repositories with

sudo apt-get install awesome

Now, if you want to run awesome as window manager in an Xfce or Xubuntu session, you can edit the relevant xfconf setting with:

xfconf-query -c xfce4-session -p /sessions/Failsafe/Client0_Command -t string -s "awesome" -a

This command changes the default window manager in the Xfce session to the awesome window manager. With other window managers such as metacity, you would instead use -t string -s "metacity" -t string -s "--replace" -a as the second part of the command. The --replace option is not available or needed anyway with awesome.

Now logout and login again by choosing the normal Xubuntu or Xfce session if you want to run awesome within an Xfce session.

To return to xfwm4 as default window manager, run

xfconf-query -c xfce4-session -p /sessions/Failsafe/Client0_Command -t string -s "xfwm4" -t string -s "--replace" -a

You may need to configure the various options in awesome by creating a personal rc file in $HOME/.config/awesome and tweaking the various options:

mkdir $HOME/.config/awesome
cp /etc/xdg/awesome/rc.lua $HOME/.config/awesome/

You will need to set up your themes and manually tweak how windows will appear, as the normal Xfwm4 window manager settings and tweaks will obviously not work when using awesome.

The screenshot below is of awesome running in a Xubuntu session, with the rest of Xfce still installed. If you have an Xfce panel at the top of the screen it will obscure the awesome panel, so you will have to move it elsewhere.

enter image description here

For more information on awesome and its keybindings, see man awesome and the Ubuntu manpages online.

Note: This does not work at least as of Ubuntu 13.10. Bug report against XFCE4 opened.

Starting from a template

First you'll need to copy the template rc.lua file into your home folder

mkdir ~/.config/awesome
cp /etc/xdg/awesome/rc.lua ~/.config/awesome/

Defining applications to start

Now using awesome - edit config copy the following code at the bottom of your new rc.lua file

do
  local cmds =
  {
    "firefox",
    "xedit"
  }

  for _,i in pairs(cmds) do
    awful.util.spawn(i)
  end
end

In this example - firefox and xedit are run on startup.

An excellent wiki page describing this and much more can be found on ArchLinux

Ubuntu – Configure run command in Awesome window manager

the standard awesome prompt just doesn't provide this function, you'd have to switch to a different one, I'm using http://code.google.com/p/bashrun2 which behaves very much like standard bash, it won't do the firefoxy thing though (unless you use things like !f[ENTER]). After installing bashrun you need to edit /etc/xdg/awesome/rc.lua to change mod+r default behaviour, find the lines:

-- Prompt
awful.key({ modkey },            "r",     function () mypromptbox[mouse.screen]:run() end),

and by applying information from http://awesome.naquadah.org/wiki/FAQ#How_to_use_a_keycode_in_a_keybinding.3F we arrive at something like

-- Prompt
awful.key({ modkey },            "r",     function () exec("bashrun2") end),

This seemes fine to me, but I havent tested this lua code myself.

Hope this helps.

EDIT: I (the original poster) had to do:

awful.key({ modkey, }, "r",         function () awful.util.spawn('bashrun2') end)

Best Answer

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Ubuntu – How to define startup applications with the Awesome Window Manager

Starting from a template

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Ubuntu – Configure run command in Awesome window manager

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