karetsu / xmonad-aloysius

Aloy :heart: XMonad

Call Me Al

A multi-themed XMonad configuration by Aloysius.

Contents

• Overview of recent updates and tasks
• Previews
• Quick-start
• Features
• Dependencies
• Default applications
• Installation instructions
• Key bindings

Newest addition

Say hello to clickable window decorations!

Next tasks

• Move a the non-critical parts of this README into the wiki
• Sort out the screenshots for the missing themes

Details

This XMonad configuration is my attempt at making it feel more like a desktop environment. This means a lot more mod-cons than you typically find in a tiling WM. You will also need my polybar configuration, available in my nix-overlay, as well as all of the supporting scripts available here.

My personal setup looks like:

• OS: nixOS
• WM: XMonad
• Terminal: kitty
• Launcher: dmenu2
• Editor: doom emacs
• Browser: firefox

See below for how to change these for your preferred options. If the build instructions do not seem to work on your preference of OS then please raise an issue. As the build uses a nix-shell then it should "just work".

Latest Previews

NOTE: these are old and new images are pending, they're not far from what you will experience but not completely accurate currently.

Main desktop

Named scratchpad popup

Lock screen

Quick-start

In order to access everything once you get into the WM make use of the following keybinds until you find your way around. You'll notice immediately that Aloysius makes use of key sequences instead of key chords. This means you press your Windows key, let go of it, then press Return to spawn a terminal, or similarly press M, then a, then q to quit an app.

Key Binding	Action
M Return	Launch terminal
M p	Spawn dmenu to launch applications
M q q	Quit XMonad
M 1..8	Change to workspace 1 thro' 8
M a q	Close application

Dependencies

Here are all of the things which this setup needs to work. If you install all of them you should be able to have the intended experience out of the box. If you are content editing the configuration files (which you will have to do eventually) then all of the following should be easily replaceable.

If you notice any missing dependencies please raise an issue so that this table can update.

Dependency	Description	Why/Where is it needed?
xmonad v0.17+	Window manager	self-explanatory
xmonad-contrib	Contributed additional functionality for xmonad	Everywhere, so much of the code base is these extras
dzen2	General purpose messaging and notification program	Power menu
dmenu2	General purpose menu	Application launcher, jump to window, bring window
xsettingsd	Loads X related settings	Loading gnome theme, other X settings
xset	User preference utility for X	Enabling/Disabling DPMS and screensaver
feh	Image viewer and wallpaper setter	Wallpaper
polybar	Status bar	Workspace info, layout info, launchers, DPMS toggling, mpris2 info, time, volume, power
compton	Compositor	Shadows and glitz
i3lock-color	Screen locking	self-explanatory
dunst	Notification daemon	self-explanatory
pulseaudio	Sound system	Liberal use made of pacmd and pactl, anything audio related
M+	Font used widely across the theme, get it here	self-explanatory
Iosevka Custom	Fonts (see here)	self-explanatory
Deadhead Script	Lock screen font (here)	self-explanatory
FontAwesome	Icons	self-explanatory
nix	A purely functional package manager	Compilation of the xmonad binary
fd	A replacement for find	It is in the build script to find the compiled xmonad version

For the polybar configuration files please see here. It uses home-manager and contains an overlay for nixpkgs with additional software. You also need my custom scripts directory available here.

I have not mentioned here that the preferred login manager here is lightdm in order to get access to dm-tool to enable user switching. If you do not use lightdm then you will need to edit the polybar configuration and change the user switching module into one which suits your preference.

Default applications

This setup is pretty opinionated. I have some explicit applications named in ./lib/App/Alias.hs which you may wish to change to your own preferences.

Function	Choice
Terminal	kitty
Browser	firefox
Mail	geary
Music	spotify
IDE	emacs

If you prefer other apps then edit the variables in this file. At some point you will probably need to be doing this anyway and it helps you to get familiar with the structure of my environment.

Installation instructions

In order to compile this you need to have nix-shell and zsh in your $PATH but once you have this it should be pretty automatic

git clone https://gitlab.com/karetsu/xmonad-aloysius
cd xmonad-aloysius
./build -h

This will print the build help documentation. Follow the options presented to build the binary to your needs.

xmonad-aloysius's Issues

Inspirations

Add inspirations list to the readme

Elenapan
Axarva (if I end up using anything)

cabal dependency

on 20.09pre218613.ae6bdcc5358 (Nightingale) I modified your nixos nix. files, then copied the scripts into home folder then cloned the xmonad-aloysius repo, renamed it to .xmonad then ./build -all~ fails with

./build -all                          ~/.xmonad
   Building Aloysius, sit tight
   Configured  
cabal: Could not resolve dependencies:
[__0] trying: aloysius-1.0.4.0 (user goal)
[__1] next goal: base (dependency of aloysius)
[__1] rejecting: base-4.13.0.0/installed-4.1... (conflict: aloysius =>
base^>=4.12.0.0)
[__1] rejecting: base-4.12.0.0, base-4.11.1.0, base-4.11.0.0, base-4.10.1.0,
base-4.10.0.0, base-4.9.1.0, base-4.9.0.0, base-4.8.2.0, base-4.8.1.0,
base-4.8.0.0, base-4.7.0.2, base-4.7.0.1, base-4.7.0.0, base-4.6.0.1,
base-4.6.0.0, base-4.5.1.0, base-4.5.0.0, base-4.4.1.0, base-4.4.0.0,
base-4.3.1.0, base-4.3.0.0, base-4.2.0.2, base-4.2.0.1, base-4.2.0.0,
base-4.1.0.0, base-4.0.0.0, base-3.0.3.2, base-3.0.3.1 (constraint from
non-upgradeable package requires installed instance)
[__1] fail (backjumping, conflict set: aloysius, base)
After searching the rest of the dependency tree exhaustively, these were the
goals I've had most trouble fulfilling: base, aloysius

   Built    
   Installed 
   Restarting XMonad 

My cabal --version

cabal-install version 3.0.0.0
compiled using version 3.0.1.0 of the Cabal library

GHC

version 8.8.3

xmonad

xmonad 0.15

I am new with NixOS, using this repo for learning, maybe I am missing something? Thank you for this, it is a really nice learning ground.

Widgets desktop

Beg, borrow and steal (with credit) from axarva.

Eww works fine on nixos, already pushed a PR to include the shell.nix I used so configure it and prepare it and get it running on desktop 1 so its the main "landing" desktop on log in.

Additional tasks:

• check the Eww overhead

Purge additional themes

Horizon is the one true theme, remove the rest from the main readme. Throw it into the wiki instead.

Fill binding table

The binding table in the wiki is not representative of the full functionality offered, update it.