[10] | DWM: Getting Started

In this video I am installing the DWM Window Manager on Arch Linux. DWM, or Dynamic Window Manager, is the wm by Suckless and it's designed to be light and fast. I install it by compiling the code, together with the st terminal and dmenu (also from Suckless).
Suckless website: sukless.org
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Distro: Arch Linux
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#howto #dwm #archlinux

[@riseabove3082]

This is the BEST video ever made on installing and setting up DWM. Thank you sir. You explain things very well.

[@eflinux]

Thanks!

[@manu-yj9oo]

yes, this guy is awesome.

[@AnkitJosh]

Agreed.

[@glengonsalves9547]

@@AnkitJosh +1

[@koishikisskogasa]

Ikr the tutorial was TOO MUCH DETAIL and this guy teach me to install arch too!

[@joeldowell5059]

This is just what I needed. I've been watching a bunch of Linux KZbinrs review dwm and really wanted to join in on the fun, but I've struggled a bit to get it installed properly. Looks like I'll just do a fresh Arch install and go from there. Thanks for the tutorial, and keep up the good work!

[@eflinux]

Glad it helped!

[@user-hj2ed5pe6j]

This is the best video on clean install of DWM. Thank you for making such a detailed guide. Really appriciated.

[@Pepperpot666]

Thank you for the video. That made it really simple to follow along and get a first dwm-installation in no time. I was always hesitant to try dwm so far, but that was a gentle introduction.

[@eflinux]

DWM looks kind of scary, but you just need to know the basics and then it’s actually quite simple to build upon. It’s a fantastic WM and I really like it.

[@marol75-l2h]

Finally I installed DWM! But on Virtual Machine :) On the weekend I'm going to folllow 2 and 3 parts of your tutorials. Even after i3wm this wm is a bit unusual to me. But I'm free and open to experiments, so I'm looking forward to new adventures lol Mille grazie, Ermanno!

[@marus7004]

Thank you a lot for your constant high-level work!

[@eflinux]

My pleasure!

[@user-to9py4fk7z]

This is BEST video I have ever seen. Every single day i feel pain, when i trying to set this shit up. The author just like some magic help me with this

[@spandansaha5663]

What a great video sir You're awesome Thanks for making this videos Really excited for the dwm series

[@eflinux]

Thank you! Glad you liked it!

[@byranotieno]

Yet another great video. I hope you get more subscribers. Your content is really golden.

[@eflinux]

Thanks man!

[@peterjansen4826]

Just the series which I needed. :) I knew how to work with dwm but I was stuck at getting it started because I never used the oldschool way of xinit and startx.

[@happyfeet4506]

I've just started out on the Linux route thanks to Windows 11. Another fabulous video channel on Linux. Thank you for the videos and info 👍

[@darrenrichard998]

Look forward to seeing more in this series thanks Ermanno for another great video :D

[@eflinux]

Thanks!

[@SamiVasileiosAmiris]

Thanks for a great video! Very helpful if one is actually to learn how to do this by themselves. Good job!

[@eflinux]

Glad it was helpful!

[@alemswazzu]

Thank you for the great video. Filled in a few missing steps.

[@segsfault]

One word for your channel: underrated

[@clav7711]

This is amazing explanation... great. Thanks a lot 🤗🤗🤗

[@eflinux]

You’re welcome :)

[@GrahamAtDesk]

Nicely done. Just a quick tip; when using make to compile and install software it's considered best practice to run the compilation as a non-root user, then install the files as root in a second step. So the first command is just `make` and the second is `sudo make install`. You won't need the "clean" target, which just removes locally modified files created by `make`. Why am I mentioning this? Because if you do it this way you won't have any files owned by root mixed up in your source code, that really ought to be owned by your non-root user. I'm highlighting the convenience here, but some would argue that an even stronger argument not to compile code as root is security; an error in a Makefile won't be able to wipe out your entire system if you're not running it as root!

[@mohammeddiaa2957]

Thank you very much for this epic introducing 🌹🌹

[@pizaariaaa5909]

Very direct and simple instructions to follow! I just subscribe

[@eflinux]

Thanks for your subscription!

[@davisbindejazz]

I like the way you present this. You got new subscriber :)

[@eflinux]

Hey thanks!

[@legymhueck9271]

Again, a rock-solid video! I'd very much like for you to give an in-depth presentation of dwm and the patching that you hinted at. Thanks for the great content. I've been looking for a tabbed mode in other window managers. The monocle mode seems to come closest to what I've been looking for.

[@eflinux]

Hi! Patching will come in the next video. I am going to install 2 patches and eventually also show how to remove one. DWM is very customizable through these patches, but sometime they require manual intervention.

[@eflinux]

In the next video (or the 3rd one, I don't know yet) we'll explore also the various modes. I am trying to make the videos not too long, as I have seen in the past, they are better received.

[@legymhueck9271]

​@@eflinux Sure thing. Hope you do more shorter videos then. As always, you make people interested in something new and provide a good introduction into the topics. Further steps can certainly be taken with the excellent Arch Wiki on one's own.

[@eflinux]

Yes, and I feel it’s also easier to digest information, especially when there’s a lot of it :)

[@zc0rp10]

Man so exited to have this video! Waiting three days when you know it's going to be something good it the worst! But it's all good, enjoy life and take your time to keep pushing quality content!

[@eflinux]

Hope you enjoy it!

[@zc0rp10]

@@eflinux Always! :D

[@eflinux]

Thanks :)

[@ulisesgonzalez9025]

great help, thanks!

[@aaaa-wh3lj]

"Japan is my favourite country", Ermanno watches anime confirmed.

[@eflinux]

That’s probably the only thing I’m probably the least interested in :)

[@melberg9098]

Thx for the vid u made it so easy

[@joeshelby3352]

Thanks you are the angel bro

[@swissmann1262]

Dont make the same Issue as me and add & to the end of the line from exec dwm it took me hours to find this problem. Thanks to EF for your content!

[@demodoesedits]

Hey, great video! I was just wondering what's the patch you mentioned that keeps the master window stationary when you open new windows.

[@lamug]

THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!

[@schlimem3894]

That smile is soooo cute

[@planetdeepak]

Thank you very much.

[@eflinux]

You are welcome!

[@tristanolsson8475]

One note: When you want to edit DWM or ST configs, you should be editing 'config.h'. 'config.def.h' is the file with default options. You copy that file into 'config.h' when you mess things up with 'config.h'. Anyway, thanks :)

[@eflinux]

Thanks for sharing! I can't remember where I saw that, but I have seen people doing this in many ways. Thing is one would need to back up the config.h file from time to time, as going back to the def file you'd lose all the changes you made.

[@tristanolsson8475]

@@eflinux And properly rename it as 'my-configs.h' 😃

[@a_maxed_out_handle_of_30_chars]

Excellent video, just few requests, I can't see text in vim properly, I guess vim's background is white(so syntax highlighting is weird) , also having application like screenkey helps a lot, and what are the default bindings for resizing the font in the terminal. Thank You :)

[@eflinux]

Hi! About vim maybe some extra fonts would help. The keybind for increasing the font size in the terminal is ctrl+shft pageup.

[@JasonColdham]

This is exactly what I was looking for! Thank you so much :) Question, why did you use nitrogen over feh?

[@eflinux]

Thanks Jason, just a matter of preference, I could have used feh as well.

[@JasonColdham]

EF - Tech Made Simple Is there any pros on cons to using either? Was just thinking from a minimalistic perspective lol.

[@kartikeykushwaha3622]

@@JasonColdham It makes things more modular. If you had to change your image viewer for example, you wouldn't have to change wallpaper commands everywhere because that is handled by a different program. Changing one thing won't change the other. I like using Xwallpaper to set my wallpapers.

[@DimitriosCharalampidis]

Nice video! FYI, you can just delete the config.h, make will create a new one based on the config.def.h

[@magnusanderson6681]

Just want to note, if anyone has an issue where they are doing this in a VM and after running `startx` the terminal is frozen and you have to turn off the vm, it was because I had 'Enable 3d Acceleration' on in my VM settings. DistroTube had a similar video to this and thats where I finally found it out, although he just installs from git repos so I think this is a little better tutorial.

[@eflinux]

Thanks for sharing!

[@ashishthapa529]

wow.. you're great.

[@eflinux]

Thanks :)

[@MpSniperM1911]

i installed dwm and i was searching for the dmenu to install, but for my surprise it was included in the whole package

[@busterbrown8830]

Another excellent video. I like your Arch Linux wall banner. Not many have them. Where did you get that Arch Linux wall banner, if I may ask?

[@eflinux]

Hi there. I got it from RedBubble.

[@Gringooman29]

I get an error with the make clean install cmd for installing the st terminal.

[@nixonx7]

what keys did you press to increase the font size in the terminal? thanks for the video, helped me getting started with dwm

[@eflinux]

ctrl++

[@nixonx7]

@@eflinux thanks for the quick response

[@lydiensandana5531]

Hello Ermanno, Loved the video as always! I have just a question, it bugs me that there is a small gap in the bottom right and the bottom of the screen. Is there a way to remove that?

[@eflinux]

Yes, you have to change the "static const int resizehints = 0;" option in the config.h file.

[@CesarPeron]

I'm not sure if the video tips can help me, but I use in Arch the composer that comes native with Plasma and I have noticed that the {rendering backend} option configured by default, that is, OpenGL sometimes leaves me the system and the GUI unusable of a extreme lag and I have to restart it or else change it to XRender and this works fine and eliminates the lag but the graphics performance is lower, at least I notice it when scrooling on sites like a horizontal cut (horizontal sync issue). BTW I have a Intel HD620 Graphics...I am newbie corner, please be patience with me, thank you! 😄

[@CesarPeron]

Thanks to another one of your videos, I found the package that I was missing and it was the xf86-video-intel. I was going to delete the comment but I leave it in case another newbie happens to the resemblance. By the way I also installed xorg-xinit, xorg-xrandr, xorg-xsetroot but I could ensure that the first of the mentioned ones was the solution, I don't know what the last 3 do

[@TheOriginalJoeBloggs]

Thank you, looking forward to the next video - have you considered a video on Artix Linux and the runinit services??

[@eflinux]

Hi there, yes, someone already mentioned it and it's on the list, but I have now ETA yet :)

[@TheOriginalJoeBloggs]

@@eflinux All Kool - we all have time look forward - Grüsse aus Altstetten

[@eflinux]

Hey danke!

[@zhumingzhong6907]

also work on manjaro-architect cli~ thanks!

[@tejasn3835]

Hi Sir, absolutely amazing video. I'm starting to watch all the videos in this channel how do I do full screen in my VM? When I do full screen now I get black bars all around.

[@tejasn3835]

found solution in this great video kzbin.info/www/bejne/jV7Vkp6ljNeShLs pasting it here so that others who have the same problem can resolve it

[@eflinux]

Every graphical problem in VBox is related to the driver. Changing it to VBOXSVGA always does the trick.

[@leonidas14775]

Trade any shred of intuitiveness for efficiency

[@leighhorton2806]

Hi Ermanno I have spent time checking the entries in. conf files. It appears to be an endeavorOS issue. So my choice is pure arch. The problems are growing. With libre programs also errant errors. Leigh

[@eflinux]

Hi Leigh, sorry to hear about that. Probably EOS configures some files differently. With vanilla Arch it's probably easier.

[@andrewwilliams4801]

Thank you for your educational videos. Is it me or is the contrast poor on this one? I can hardly read the white terminal font against a black background. Even at 128 point! Just discovered it is me. The fine font needs a higher resolution to be seen clearly. My poor bandwidth forced YT to 320p. When I bumped it up to 720p everything was fine.

[@eflinux]

Hey Andrew, hmmm, let's see if someone else is going to comment on that. I don't see the issue on my side.

[@eflinux]

No problem :)

[@sebascm7278]

Is there a way to make the windows have the same size when you open a second window? great videos btw very helpful 👍

[@eflinux]

I am not 100% sure, but I think for that you might have to install a patch.

[@sebascm7278]

@@eflinux Thanks

[@ilyasabi8920]

I would prefer using `localectl set-x11-keymap your_locale` instead of setxkbmap instead. It creates config into xorg natively.

[@Benwick921]

Why there is an extra gap at the bottom and right side of the screen?

[@PCNERD19]

When I run startx my vm completely freezes up after dwm is drawn. I can't switch ttys or anything, I've made sure guest additions is installed, and I'm on VboxVGA on virtulabox, but I can't get it to work.

[@eflinux]

Sounds like a driver problem. What graphics card do you have?

[@wallywall4681]

5:00 how would you know the display name of you aren’t on virtual box??

[@sanjacobs6261]

Tip: wget from git.suckless.org/dwm instead of the dl subdomain. That way you always get the latest version. This works for all suckless software.

[@eflinux]

Yes, there is also an alternative video on how to install dwm from git :)

[@dimitrispogkas179]

Could the xinitrc file be altered to support toggling between two keyboard layouts, using a shortcut?

[@eflinux]

It is possible with something like setxkbmap -layout us,us -variant dvorak, \ -option 'grp:alt_space_toggle' \ -option 'grp_led:caps' \ -option 'ctrl:nocaps' or you can use the localectl command to do that.

[@dimitrispogkas179]

@@eflinux thanks!

[@dmytro_daemonkor717]

Dear Ermanno, do you know how to open small apps like galculator in floating mode (not full window) in dwm? Is this possible? Thank you in advance.

[@eflinux]

You can set floating mode with [Alt]+[Shift]+[space]. If you want, you can also set a rule as described here: dwm.suckless.org/tutorial/

[@dmytro_daemonkor717]

@@eflinux Thank you very much!!

[@eflinux]

You're welcome!

[@shubhamdwivedi7766]

I was to configure i3wm on Arch Linux but I can't get the pulse audio working and rice the terminal plus configure urxvt Please can you make a video on this topic 😅

[@eflinux]

Hi there! I did some videos on i3 on the channel which cover audio. As for the rest, I'll see what I can do.

[@shadowelite-sec]

9:31 sir how to fix this , can you share link of this patch , i don't have enough experience with this , please reply

[@naigalroy3691]

I could not start the chromium it says "/usr/lib/chromium/chromium:error while loading shared libraries: /usr/lib/libwayland-server.so.0:invalid ELF header".

[@androganzch4530]

#ask Why mod4 not working for me ? The button is normal ,can you help me ? I set this to config.h and config.def.h but cannot set the mod4

[@eflinux]

Once you set that in the config.h file you need to rebuild dwm with the make command.

[@Marcoo.]

what is the hotkey to increase font size

[@yashchauhan5852]

cant we just make the changes in config.h and then recompile? So we dont need to copy. It works that way also.

[@eflinux]

You can, however to copy it from the def file is the recommended way.

[@minhajsixbyte]

you make really good videos but please guide using standard practices. who keeps their build files in the home directory

[@eflinux]

Actually config files should be in the home directory. And you can indeed download and install in the home directory. Although the preferred way to install dwm is via git.

[@user-yg5ql1gl6q]

How to increse the font size?

[@kyrobravi2173]

Nitrogen isn’t drawing my wallpaper even though I put it into the xinitrc file

[@falconer9524]

alt+shift+enter not working for me to open the terminal.

[@eflinux]

Did you specify the terminal in your config file?

[@hussainkhorakiwala517]

when will you continue this series. have been waiting for qtile

[@eflinux]

I am still preparing for the RHCSA, so probably early 2021.

[@hussainkhorakiwala517]

​@@eflinux Ok good to know :) Is that the reason you are not uploading as frequently?

[@eflinux]

Kind of, currently I don't manage to produce more than 2 videos per week.

[@hussainkhorakiwala517]

@@eflinux yea i see that btw best of luck :)

[@NewsSphereNetwork]

You like Japan? I like Switzerland !

[@willson3239]

nice. i prefer git for handling the sources, it makes changing to newer versions after patching a bit easier imho.

[@eflinux]

Hi, yes definitely. That’s going to be covered as well.

[@realGBx64]

Isn't installing systemwide programs without pacman against the Arch philosophy though?

[@eflinux]

It is possible. For DWM installing with binaries is against suckless philosophy, though. I guess it really depends what you want to use.

[@realGBx64]

@@eflinux i would think you could satisfy both philosophies: make a custom PKGBuild that builds your customized binary and makea a pacman package you can install.

[@RajmahendraR]

i am using a linuxmint. how can i run dwm in mint ?

[@eflinux]

Hi, I have never tried that, but basically you can follow the same process. Just for the extra packages you'll have to use apt. I can't guarantee it works though as I've never tried it myself.

[@RajmahendraR]

@@eflinux so i have to use a plan no xwindow and then run it after configure

[@eflinux]

First make a backup :) I'd try installing it from within Mint. Mint used lightdm as display manager, you should be able to access the session from there.

[@carlitosbll]

I have a question, how to uninstall dwm, dmenu and st completely?

[@eflinux]

Hi Carlos, if you installed the binaries you can remove them with yay. If you installed it via suckless you can remove the directories where you downloaded the packages.

[@carlitosbll]

@@eflinux Thank you for your answer. I installed them via suckless, I removed the directories, but dwm, dmenu and st still work.

[@eflinux]

Sorry Carlos, I forgot. You'll have to remove them in the bin directories. Just type "which dwm" to see where it is installed. Repeat the same for the others.

[@carlitosbll]

@@eflinux Thanks.

[@abhirupmukherjee3584]

@@carlitosbll if you did a make install, you can also do a make uninstall to remove the binaries and manpages completely.

[@jaynj908]

If you are doing a tutorial maybe you should include most of the packages so someone trying to follow along does not get shorted?

[@eflinux]

I usually do, but in this case files are downloaded directly from suckless, which is most up to date.

[@DFOwl]

I don't know the name of my monitor, so I skipped the step for setting the resolution. Is that alright?

[@eflinux]

You can find out the name of your manager once you start the wm. Start the terminal and type xrandr and you’ll see it.

[@DFOwl]

@@eflinux Thank you!

[@eflinux]

You're welcome!

[@DFOwl]

EF - Tech Made Simple something happened and I cannot use the command startx anymore! I’d be sad to lose all that progress

[@eflinux]

what did you change?

[@ayoubelmhamdi7920]

how can copy this command in this video

[@eflinux]

I don’t have a transcript for this video yet.

[@azulfenix7]

that install not workin don't find menu dwm, and the keys alt shift enter not working , the same +q not woking

[@eflinux]

Something must have gone wrong during the configuration as dmenu should be working fine. You'll have to check again that the files are are correctly downloaded in the appropriate directory and re check the config file for the keys.

[@azulfenix7]

@@eflinux look the file config is in this path ./.cache/yay/st/config.def.h i don't think that is correct, there is not other file config.. i can run the wm but nothin works and the file config is lost.. I searched the entire system and there are no signs or installation, much less configuration files, the strangest thing is that the window manager runs

[@eflinux]

Yep. Everything should be in the home directory. look again at the video and see where all files are downloaded and extracted.

[@minhajsixbyte]

amazing video. but i think it's better to install dwm and dmenu etc from their git server. git clone git://git.suckless.org/dwm etc. because you don't have to remember the version number

[@eflinux]

Couldn’t agree with you more. There’s another video for that on the channel.

[@bobkoss280]

Can't read the text because of your color choices in vim.

[@eflinux]

Thanks for the feedback, I'll make sure to use a more contrasty version next time.

[@kevyyar]

How can I install wifi?

[@eflinux]

Hi Kevin, this is a video for installing a WM. You probably might want to watch one about the base install of Arch.

[@charbelsarkis3567]

What If i got dwm from the repos?

[@eflinux]

It will work, but directories will placed somewhere else probably.

[@charbelsarkis3567]

@@eflinux i tried running find / -name config.h and found nothing

[@eflinux]

I’m not sure where those are stored when you install the binaries. You should look at the DWM wiki as it is very well explained.

[@charbelsarkis3567]

@@eflinux i'm just gonna follow the docs

[@leighhorton2806]

Hello Ermanno I am attempting to reinstall nextcloud I have this error Technical details Remote Address: 127.0.0.1 Request ID: FQqoqR4vOztoSdLQWyCT I found lots of git.git entries in www.conf leigh

[@wally8075]

whenever I startx it doesnt show anything all I see is a cursor, I followed all of the steps in this totorial.

[@eflinux]

It might be something with the graphics driver. Are you on a VM?

[@wally8075]

@@eflinux No, i am on hardware.

[@eflinux]

Make sure you add the video card driver module to your mkinitcpio.conf file and regenerate the initramfs.

[@wally8075]

@@eflinux honestly I have no idea how to do that lol... thanks for your help though

[@boxerfencer]

I have no .xinitrc file

[@eflinux]

You can create one.

[@nat9521]

Thumbs up for not using a cringe anime wallpaper.

[@bioemiliano]

Oh man, you sure don't look like a weeabo

[@DblDTheThird]

Interesting philosophy, could have provided scripts that automate all this and go over what they do instead ...... been done before much better in most cases .... plus for effort though

[@mirkovolkov7636]

This is not explaining anything. Just do this an install that... For someone willing to understand what is a window manager and what it does this video is useless. This is the video equivalent of an install script, undoubtedly useful for those who seek quick solutions but useless for those willing to learn.

[@eflinux]

Exactly, and that is not the point of the video.