[14a] | Arch Linux: BSPWM - Part 1

[@rohandalavi4634]

You are the reason I am able to use i3. Can't wait to watch full series of bspwm.

[@eflinux]

Thanks!

[@nielsroetert]

BSPWM is definitely one of my favorites, looking forward to the next video(s).

[@eflinux]

To be honest it became my favorite. It’s really simple but powerful.

[@peterjansen4826]

The reason that I don't use BSPWM is that you can not hide the panel and systray as far as I know and I don't know of an external panel and systray which does offer this feature. If I could solve that (one hotkey for showing/hiding it) I might give it another shot. I like no GUI visible most of the time, on most of my workspaces/tags.

[@artdoeslofistuff]

My favorite video ever, I've used this so much as a resource when I first got into arch and bspwm, a small note tho for people using this video as a resource now: at 1:47 he recommends xf86-video-intel, this is considered to be depricated (see Intel graphics on arch wiki) and should be replaced with mesa

[@naumanahmad8022]

Thank you for such a great guide as always. I find BSPWM to be the lightest among WM's (not comparing, just personal experience)

[@eflinux]

Thanks! So far I like it a lot too. I’ll how it ages :)

[@user-ir1jp3yv2r]

what about dwm?

[@dafelix]

I love you, please never stop doing the "i´m gonna do this cause i´m in a virtual machine". I´m in a virtual machine too and you saved me soooooo much time. TY.

[@one2boogie]

Well done, thank you for a clear , crisp demonstration. Cheers!

[@eflinux]

Thanks! Glad you liked it :)

[@neotwenty-nineBzH]

That's one of the best explanations I have ever seen. Congrats.

[@eflinux]

Glad it was helpful!

[@peterkruskopfs3626]

Great video and I have used your instructions to switch from i3 to bspwm as my daily driver. Keep them coming and thank you.

[@eflinux]

Thanks, will do!

[@christiangobert5410]

As always, a great and simple tutorial.

[@eflinux]

Thanks Christian! Glad you liked it :)

[@YrmiZ]

I was struggling with BSPWM mouse cursor and then I found this video. Thank you!

[@f33YN]

Dude just found out this channel and it's awesome, helped me a lot specially on the customization stuff and all of the arch videos that I've seen so far are so good and informative, learned a lot, you got a new sub keep it up! :)

[@eflinux]

Thanks for your subscription and for the feedback! Glad you enjoy the videos!

[@minhajsixbyte]

2 minutes into the video and I knew I had to subscribe.

[@eflinux]

Thank you so much!

I never understood why ppl use tiling window managers. Now I'm starting to like them.

[@eflinux]

Hey Peter, once you get the hang of it, twm’s are really fun to use :)

EF - Tech Made Simple i imagine. Maybe I’ll try em sometime. I’m a long time gnome user, and can’t think a better way than super+type the apps I use and “hot corner” to switch between them.

[@eflinux]

I understand. A lot of this is muscle memory. I use both WM’s and DE’s, now I got used to it :)

[@mrgody2651]

Man thats cool i love diy's waiting for part 2

[@letsplayonlinux4383]

I am running Herbstluftwm, but it's a pleasue to watch your BSPWM video installation, because you are so competent on explaining . By the way will you cover Herbstluftwm ? Cheers

[@eflinux]

Thanks! I probably will, but can’t say for sure yet.

[@letsplayonlinux4383]

@@eflinux Thank you once again, to have covered Artix linux with ruint. You are helping Artix linux become more popular on Arch linux base users.

[@eflinux]

No problem. I like to cover as much as I can and Artix is a great distro, but I do have admit Arch is still my favorite :)

[@greenbean5186]

All these wms have their own website and documentation except bspwm

[@jakedespppp]

@@greenbean5186 makes me wonder how the hell the first people that used it figured it out

[@olde14]

Ahora estoy usando una combinación de XFCE4+BSPWM y debo decir que es execelente, gracias por tus tutoriales.

[@eflinux]

Muchas gracias!

[@kevyyar]

@2:15 when you're installing the drivers, what about for those who have both Intel and Nvidia? Would we install both or what command can we use?

[@eflinux]

The latest NVIDIA drivers will take care of that.

[@angiras07]

@@eflinux no man my screen goes black i read the wiki but could not solve it could you help me

[@eflinux]

What card do you have?

[@angiras07]

@@eflinux gtx geforce 1650

[@eflinux]

The nvidia nvidia-utils nvidia-settings are the correct ones. Did you install a DM?

[@redgeoblaze3752]

I think this one is the one for me. I actually had the idea for this just yesterday before I knew what bspwm was. So now I'm messing around with it, I'll probably be installing it on my full system soon.

[@granadian]

Perfect, thanks for sharing .. waiting for the next video. :-)

[@tmode1960]

I like the way you present your videos. Very educational. Many Thanks

[@eflinux]

So nice of you!

[@iBOLDx]

Thank you very much for this tutorial man, it was a really great help!

[@eflinux]

Glad it helped!

[@skankhunt-ef3vw]

Nice, a youtuber that dosent just copy their own configuration but show how to configure it yourself

[@Ginkoman2]

@5:16 i get the error: mkdir cannot create directory .config/bspwm: no such file or directory >>> SOLUTION BELOW i am in my normal user and not root, but i have sudo priveleges. Edit: i am on a completely new arch install. using virtual box. when runnung "ls" no folders show up Solution: use "mkdir -p .config/bspwm" whn on a fresh install as the .config dir doesnt exist yet

[@NotHal-]

You have saved my sanity

[@DanielAlvarez-rq5vu]

Excelente espero el siguietne video

[@martinarganaraz6553]

Excelente video muchas gracias por la explicación espero con ansias las otras partes...saludos desde Argentina

[@eflinux]

Gracias y muchos saludos desde Suiza!

[@sharpicx]

love this video so much

[@eflinux]

Thank you!!

[@alokpawar1789]

Eagerly waiting for next part

[@CristianHeredia0]

Trying to follow this from a VirtualBox installed on macOS 15.5.5, however, I can't get the mouse to show. Should I be installing a different video driver for the virtualbox inplace of xf86-video-qxl ?

[@eflinux]

Try the xf86-video-vmware and also try changing the graphics adapter in VB eventually.

[@CristianHeredia0]

@@eflinux thanks for the tips! Setting up Arch as a guest fixed it, just needed to read the wiki wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/VirtualBox/Install_Arch_Linux_as_a_guest

[@lucasjose4195]

Thanks for this wonderful guide!

[@eflinux]

You’re welcome!

[@andrewhuang6232]

thanks for sharing such good video. i use bspwm too.

[@juxuanu]

Why do you append "&" on some lines only in your xinitrc file? What's the criteria?

[@eflinux]

Some of those needs to be appended in the background.

[@juxuanu]

@@eflinux so, the & is for background?

[@eflinux]

Yes, sort of behind the curtain:)

[@balak2811]

So any shell command appended with & means it goes in background and runs as a daemon service ie a background service. See let for example say you open gedit via your terminal so when u quit your terminal gedit will also be killed as thats your parent who spawned gedit program. By appending & the process will continue running in background even if the calling terminal exits. For example picom which is your composter needs to run in background always. Another way to start picom would also be to use a systemd service and use it to start picom but this is possibly an easier method. The other things like arandr script is just basically a one time thing and is not a program requiring continuous background operation. Hope that explains in detail what is being done.

[@triniton100]

Thanks you, great tutorial.

[@eflinux]

Thanks!

[@adriendossantos4741]

Thanks a lot for your videos ! It's so useful !

[@eflinux]

You’re welcome!

[@metallyricsarchive9947]

Thank you for such a clear video

[@arjunms5746]

Sir mwuth aan Thank you for this amazing video❤️❤️❤️

[@eflinux]

You're welcome!

[@Axey-yt1fu]

ThankYou So Much @ermanno for the video ... Thank You

[@zerotheory941]

I'm doing this from a PC that already has xfce4 installed. I'm assuming because I already am using lightdm as my login manager it's okay to use the bspwm selection from there instead of editing the xinitrc ?

[@eflinux]

It should work.

[@greenbean5186]

Will those configs you put in xinitrc still work if you are using a display manager instead? If they don't where else should we put those configs instead? Thanks.

[@shizeeque]

5:06 it might be a bit misleading to a complete GNU/Linux noob there. Always put ~/ in your paths when referring to the $HOME directory. The reason is you may be in a different directory currently and without "~/" mkdir is gonna create a directory in the **current** directory. You can create as many directories as you want in a single command, like this: $ mkdir ~/.config/bspwm ~/.config/sxhkd -p # you can put '-p' anywhere in the parameters list, actually.

[@eflinux]

Thanks for the feedback.

[@user-ir1jp3yv2r]

soon it'll be SoystemD/Linux :) edit : and the way u said GNU/Linux u r absolutely not a noob, u r average imho :)

[@PhantomBroken]

Hello, I think I messed something up and wanna restore my arch to the default state since I putted all bspwm and other installation on root and not on user. How can I revert this?

[@eflinux]

You can remove packages with sudo paceman -R "pkgname".

[@PhantomBroken]

@@eflinux okay thanks, because everytime when I go into window manager, it always log me in as root

[@Mantorp86]

Awsome tutorial! Great content!

[@uuu12343]

Hi Ermano, i need some help I am running bspwm through lightdm, however when i startup bspwm, i had so much issues just to open the terminal i am using alacritty, at first can open alacritty throug super + enter/return but after i pressed exit via Super + Q, relogging in doesnt let me open terminal anymore so far bspwm has been a complete frustration right from the start

[@eflinux]

You could try and see if it works better with xinit.

[@gatosssss1]

Hello. I m getting startx command not found. One difference we have is installed lightdm instead of xinit

[@eflinux]

The problem with lightdm is it doesn’t recognize bspwm by default. You’ll have to edit the lightdm.conf file and change the user session to bspwm. You can watch my April 2021 iso video on that.

[@gatosssss1]

@@eflinux thanks for the answer

[@drumpf4all]

I think it's called Binary Space Partition window manager. But what do I know.

[@eflinux]

It’s actually binary space partitioning window manager. I’ll put a correction in the video description. Thanks for pointing this out.

[@Tala2n]

You are the Vivaldi of the command line.

[@alokpawar1789]

Sir audio not working no audio in my headphones i just installed bspwm and arch from your guides help

[@eflinux]

Install pulseaudio-jack.

[@alokpawar1789]

@@eflinux its already installed :(

[@eflinux]

If it’s Bluetooth, install also pulseaudio-bluetooth and reboot.

[@stephen6409]

Great video easy to follow thankyou

[@sergejp4727]

Hi I was just installing but it didnt work and now I am unable to login to my account. I'm using Manjaro, and when I try to login my screen freezes and does nothing. I have managed to boot into console mode by editing grub and I enter the command 'startx' which brought me back to me DE but when I try to reboot and try to login again the same thing happens. I have tried to search up how to fix it but I could find anything do you have any ideas?

[@amirsoland4662]

mkdir: cannot create directory '.config/bspwm': No such file or directory

[@eflinux]

Use “mkdir -p .config/bspwm”.

[@nuc5042]

Help: cursor is working, but texture not showing

[@eflinux]

What do you mean texture?

[@nuc5042]

@@eflinux the cursor is not showing up. Its working, but i cant see it

[@eflinux]

Make sure xsetroot is installed and try adding xsetroot -cursor_name left_ptr & in your .xinitrc or bspwmrc file.

[@nuc5042]

@@eflinux doesnt work

[@eflinux]

Is this happening only in this WM?

[@nickdan9045]

On my pc I have already installed Arch. Is it possible to install BSPWM by logging in the root with terminal?

[@eflinux]

You should be able to install fine from the terminal. If you have a display manager you can then choose BSPWM from there.

[@nickdan9045]

@@eflinux Thanks Ermanno!!!

[@eflinux]

No problem!

[@kailashks901]

I have a laptop with Intel graphics and a dedicated Nvidia GPU. Should I install both drivers so I can switch between them?

[@eflinux]

If you are using the latest Linux kernel, the latest NVIDIA drivers are not yet fully compatible with it, especially if you use cuda.

[@kailashks901]

@@eflinux Oh. Thanks for the info. Great explanation video btw.

[@kailashks901]

Sorry for asking again. This time I tried installing bspwm on Vbox. I used lightdm and the system boots but picom is not starting. It gives me the error - No supported vsync method found for this backend.

[@eflinux]

Yep, you need to edit the picom.conf under /etc/xdg/ and search for the vsync option. Comment the option with the "true" option and uncomment the one with the "false" option. Save and reboot.

[@kailashks901]

@@eflinux I also had to add picom -f to the Xessions file for it to stat automatically. Thank you so much.

[@CMDRBaneCorvus]

if you can explain how can we customize termite, such as round window corners, transparancy, colors, that would be really great. I learned so much from your tutorials btw. thanks a lot.

[@eflinux]

I love termite, as soon as I can I'll look into it :)

[@absenceflintivy9676]

This may be dumb of me for asking, but how do I stop the errors "/etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc: line 51: twm: command not found", "/etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc: line 52: xclock: command nt found", "/etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc: line 53: xterm: command not found", and so on, from happening when I enter startx after copying the xinitrc file to .xinitrc and editing the file?

[@absenceflintivy9676]

should I just edit the file from "/etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc"?

[@absenceflintivy9676]

I did that, but now I can't escape the x session because I forgot to add the keyboard layout.

[@absenceflintivy9676]

I fixed the keyboard layout, but now I can't open a terminal.

[@eflinux]

You'll need to define the terminal you're using in kne of the config files.

[@absenceflintivy9676]

@@eflinux I have done that by making xfce4-terminal bound to super + enter, but the terminal will not open.

[@caleb.39]

hey guys. for people that are also using a virtual machine but xrandr/arandr doesn't show 1920x1080 as a display option (or any other that you use), I had the same problem but I figured out how to fix it, so I'll tell you all how to do it too first of all create a directory to put the script you're gonna write, I just named it "scripts" at Home: mkdir ~/scripts/ now open two terminals, one you'll use to find your monitor settings and the second one to write the script with vim (or your preferred text editor), on the first one type "gtf" + your number of horizontal pixels + your number of vertical pixels + your refresh rate, in most people's monitors it will be 1920x1080 @ 60hz so gtf 1920 1080 60 Copy the line after "Modeline", remember that on a linux terminal you copy with ctrl + shift + C. On 1920x1080 @ 60hz monitors, it will be "1920x1080_60.00" 172.80 1920 2040 2248 2576 1080 1081 1084 1118 -HSync +Vsync Now on your second terminal create the script file and .sh will be the format, I named it "display": vim ~/scripts/display.sh and on it you will type: xrandr --newmode [the settings you got with the gtf command, in this case: "1920x1080_60.00" 172.80 1920 2040 2248 2576 1080 1081 1084 1118 -HSync +Vsync] xrandr --addmode Virtual-1 "1920x1080_60.00" ("Virtual-1" is your output, if you're not sure if it's Virtual-1 for you type on the first terminal "xrandr" and the second line will show you it to you, followed by "connected primary" " "1920x1080_60.00" " is the first part of the settings you got with "gtf", if its different for you then replace it with the one you got) xrandr -s 1920x1080 Now save and close with :wq and make it a executable script with chmod +x ~/scripts/display.sh Your script is ready, now you'll set it up to load when you start your system, since we're using xorg, .xinitrc will be the configuration file for that, so edit it with vim .xinitrc and on the end of the file write $HOME/scripts/display.sh I'm not sure if "$HOME" can be replaced with "~", you can try it if you want but I'm ok with just using "$HOME". Save it and close with :wq and now you're done! restart your system with super + alt + q and type "startx" or reboot and see if it worked for you

[@gettriggered_ian3269]

Thanks

[@celestusxd7117]

I did as you said and whenever I do startx I have no cursor neither the console opens just gray

[@eflinux]

What graphic card you have?

[@celestusxd7117]

@@eflinux Nvidia GTX 1070

[@eflinux]

If the console doesn't open it's probably because the terminal is not correctly specified in the .xinitrc file. Also, I don't know what base install of Arch you have, so it's possible some packages are missing.

[@celestusxd7117]

@@eflinux Thanks, I reinstall arch linux with your tutorial and after that everything worked

[@eflinux]

Great! Glad it worked out!

[@TUC_1]

Ok so I have 2 hard disks 1 with 125GB which is an SSD(actually 111GB from what I found) and a 1TB disk which is HDD(more like 970GB) and I've did everything ok till I had to go in /usr/local/share/doc/bspwm it says that it can't find it I installed bspwm but didn't work my friend says that it might be in the other disk and that we don't know how to acces it but I don't think so can anyone help me please?And please don't send the arch wiki I'm bad when it comes to finding information there

[@eflinux]

Maybe the bspwm directory changed in an update. You can try to list the share directory and see what's in there.

[@PavanKumar-qq3dn]

Wow

[@ShivaM-dc4xe]

when i press startx all i see is a blank screen and no cursor. i Put my terminal to super + t but that does not work as well. any idea where i fucked up ?

[@eflinux]

Probably graphics drivers. Make sure you add your GPU driver under the modules section of the mkinitcpio.conf file and regenerate the initramfs.

[@ShivaM-dc4xe]

@@eflinux I am using a VM, so I guess I'll try it again but with drivers for vm. Thanks for replying! This is my first time with tiling window managers I appreciate the support

[@Cad6638]

have you been able to solve it ?

[@NotMurPh]

Excelent tutorial

[@AyandaLatsha]

Thank you

[@eflinux]

You’re welcome!

[@nickdan9045]

Hi Ermanno, I have tried to start startx, but it doesn't work. I get this result: /usr/lib/Xorg.wrap: Only console users are allowed to run the X server xinit: giving up xinit: unable to connect to X server: Connection refused xinit: server error Couldn't get a file descriptor referring to the console How can I fix it Thanks in advance...

[@eflinux]

Are you trying this on VirtualBox?

[@nickdan9045]

@@eflinux no I have tried simply on the terminal...

[@eflinux]

I meant is your Linux installation on Virtual Box? It sounds like a graphics driver issue.

[@nickdan9045]

@@eflinux I didn't istall my Linux on a Virtual Box, I suppose that the problem is related to DE KDE. I have a normal Intel GPU.

[@eflinux]

I see, if you have KDE installed it means you have sddm as display manager. In this case you don't need xinit, as you can choose the session from the Display Manager itself.

[@angelpimentel9884]

Thanks a lot!

[@gettriggered_ian3269]

Dmenu is not starting

[@eflinux]

Look at the keybindings file and how it is set up.

[@gettriggered_ian3269]

@@eflinux Yeah, actually it had a problem to do with my locales. When I tried running just the command dmenu_run it said something about locales not being loaded so I had to put lang=en_ca.utf8 before dmenu_start to make it work.

[@MrG0CE]

EXCUSE ME, HOW CAN I SET AN INTERNATIONAL US KEYBOARD WITH DEAD KEYS?? THANK YOU VERY MUCH ! LOVE YOUR VIDEOS BTW !

[@celestialadministration]

A manual tiling manager.

[@user-ir1jp3yv2r]

the cmmnt i'm looking for xD i

[@lo-firadio]

ничего не понял, но вроде бы интересно