Explaining Everything In My XMonad Config

In this lengthy video, I am going to go over my Xmonad configuration file. My config file is massive, including a lot of code that I don't even use myself, but I keep this massive config as a reference manual for others to look at. In this video, I briefly describe what is going on in each section of my config.
REFERENCED:
► gitlab.com/dwt... - DT's Xmonad config
► gitlab.com/dwt... - DT's Xmobar config
► hackage.haskel... - XMonad-Contrib
WANT TO SUPPORT THE CHANNEL?
💰 Patreon: / distrotube
💳 Paypal: www.paypal.com...
🛍️ Amazon: amzn.to/2RotFFi
👕 Teespring: teespring.com/...
SOCIAL PLATFORMS:
🗨️ Mastodon: distrotoot.com...
💬 IRC: irc://freenode #distrotube
👫 Reddit: / distrotube
📽️ LBRY: lbry.tv/$/invi...
DT ON THE WEB:
🕸️ Website: distrotube.com/
🐿️ Gemini Capsule: gemini://distro.tube
📁 GitLab: gitlab.com/dwt1
🔊 Audio Podcasts: www.buzzsprout...
FREE AND OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE THAT I USE:
🌐 Brave Browser - brave.com/dis872
📽️ Open Broadcaster Software: obsproject.com/
🎬 Kdenlive: kdenlive.org
🎨 GIMP: www.gimp.org/
🎵 Audacity: www.audacityte...
💻 VirtualBox: www.virtualbox...
🗒️ Doom Emacs: github.com/hli...
Your support is very much appreciated. Thanks, guys!

[@NicholasHenkey]

Mental Outlaw and Distrotube videos released within minutes. What a treat!

[@edjupp6643]

and Switched To Linux too.

[@thingsiplay]

@@edjupp6643 Windows is BLOAT3D xD

[@eli1882]

@@edjupp6643 whos that?

[@techtiger2558]

@@eli1882 look him up

[@eli1882]

@@techtiger2558 look who up

[@SavvyNik]

Big fan of XMonad! =) Keep up the amazing content.

[@sifatakon2355]

Nik !!!!!!

[@SavvyNik]

@@sifatakon2355 Hi there =)

[@marioschroers7318]

This is brilliant. Just over a week ago, I moved from i3 to Qtile, and I love it. While Xmonad might be a minimal and suckless WM as you say, it's dependencies certainly are not. I pulled pacman to show all the packages, and it lists a good 190 packages on my system. In comparison, Qtile depends on Python, a language most people will have installed anyway. Python is 30 MB installed, Qtile is 6 MB installed. That said, I respect your love for Xmonad, and I admit it's an interesting piece of software. I'm sure I will have a look at it at some point. Just threw this in, as I think these points are worth considering. Keep it up, DT!

[@aethanfoot2103]

It is the same with anything that uses haskell, as the haskell packages seem to be largely in the repos. Whereas the python packages will be installed with pip, which dont show up in your packages. Also the total of those 190 dependencies could be smaller than python, not saying they are as idk.

[@marioschroers7318]

@@aethanfoot2103 I need to correct myself here: It's 119 packages I would have to install for Xmonad, not 190. sudo pacman -S xmonad xmonad-contrib xmobar resolving dependencies... looking for conflicting packages... Packages (119) [...] Total Download Size: 64.87 MiB Total Installed Size: 433.20 MiB

[@ellandill]

@@aethanfoot2103 there's 90% chance you had to install python or gcc anyway and haskell only because of xmonad. Although I can see xmonad has a few nice features, qtile is actually quite poor, the widgets are quite limited in terms of functionality

[@_heyyou3]

Your Dotfiles are a treasure trove! Thanks for the great video!

[@DistroTube]

Glad you like them!

[@DumStrung]

Such a good video man, serve as a quick Haskell tutorial as well! Such a powerful language.

[@umka7536]

Thanks a lot! Clickable WS works like a charm. :)

[@sambird7]

You use a mouse for your WM!?!?! HOW DARE YOU, mice are only for playing Quake.

[@samprice7746]

Amazing video!!

[@DistroTube]

Thank you!!

[@pomo1238]

Wow i love the vid, i'd like to see your DWM config next if possible

[@cstephan7]

Wow! DT, your Xmonad configuration file should become an official example for the Xmonad project. As you said, that is "massive." It is also documented fairly well.

[@abdulararak4672]

I just installed xmonad on test laptop so this video will be very helpful, thanks!

[@poms3559]

DT finally listened!!!

[@jitessh]

I'm using dwm currently and won't switch to another wm for long time. Two things I liked in xmonad are the zoom layout and xmonad prompt.

[@leviticus8930]

Qtile misses you.

[@omegaui]

This is what I really wanted to know ⚡

[@anantgupta7916]

Litreally installed xmonad yesterday

[@theproftiago]

Man please. Start a podcast. It would be perfect. Just a cool conversation about tech and Linux

[@UnspankableGoose]

You should make a video about awesome widgets.

[@sarishraveendiran4041]

5:41 toUpper :: Char -> Char meaning it takes a char and returns a char so it only modifies a single character. To upperCase a String aka. a list of characters you must map the toUpper function like this (map toUpper str)

[@sarishraveendiran4041]

so the map basically is a higher order function which takes a function and applies it to all the elements of the list(string)

[@stephen9849]

Hey DT, can you have a look at penrose? (a tiling window manager written in rust in the style of xmonad)

[@tokiomutex4148]

Rust is not a simple language

[@vladlu6362]

@@tokiomutex4148 Indeed. But you get used to it pretty quickly. Plus with high abstraction such as with Penrose, it's really easy to config.

[@tokiomutex4148]

@@vladlu6362 with rust analyzer and those nice compiler messages...

[@vladlu6362]

@@tokiomutex4148 Yes, those warnings indeed help a lot! Good thing the compiler is included and that rust analyzer works with Emacs, isn't it?

[@tokiomutex4148]

@@vladlu6362 rust-analyzer implements the language server protocol, Emacs surely has a lsp client, I use NeoVim

[@yehudahecht1520]

Hey, DT. Love your videos. You're a big reason why I finally was able to make the jump to Linux, and then to AwesomeWM. I know you're not a huge fan of Ubuntu, but can you do a video on the Regolith DE? I think it provides the middle ground for people to jump into WMs by giving a fleshed out DE experience, while introducing i3 features.

[@okbruh9577]

He did a video on regolith OS

[@apoorv9492]

The only thing that I miss in XMonad is ability to set default layout for each workspace, like for workspace 2, I always want it to be in monocle layout, its where I open my browser and so on. Other than that I really love XMonad, it is the most customized WM I have right now, thanks to DT and has all the functionality I need from a WM.

[@beastade]

Please check XMonad.Layout.PerWorkspace. There is a function onWorkspace which would do what you want.

[@sambird7]

Yeah that is very easy in Qtile and various other WMs but it can be done in Xmonad

[@jeronimomartinezjaramillo9200]

Can you make more videos about awesome? Awesome video video btw!

[@samuelschlesinger4102]

Ah, a wonderfully literate config

[@carloschavezlucero9142]

Gracias a ti tengo un bonito Openbox, pero no descarto la posibilidad de usar Xmonad. Saludos desde México.

[@stephenwilson0386]

Hey DT, have you heard of or checked out Krohnkite for KDE Plasma? It's a tiling extension for KWin inspired by dwm. I haven't seen you do a video on it but was curious to know your thoughts. Cheers!

[@cosmicvoid2207]

Is Xmonad going to stay around considering the fact that Wayland is eventually replacing X11? Is it worth learning in 2021?

[@piperna5786]

I have the same concerns

[@vladlu6362]

Wayland won't be replacing X for a very long time. By then, xmonad will probably be rewritten for it, or maybe an alternative in another language will arise.

[@katech6020]

wayland is still very far from being the main thing, maybe another 10 years

[@olexp9017]

If I'm not mistaken Wayland has an X11 compatibility layer so it should be possible to run XMonad in Wayland as is. Something that Derek could explore in the future videos ;)

[@abhinavkuruvilajoseph9274]

Hey DT, do you think games need to be foss? i am a game dev and i wanna earn smth lol

[@Aturnadagar]

+1. I would like DT opinion about that too. I personally think that art don't need to be Foss. But video games are in that area, where: what is art? and what is just code?

[@gt3293]

Games are the one application that I would agree don't need to be FOSS, but even if it is free you might be able to have some sort of monetization or donation/Patreon setup

[@sheikhshakilakhtar6844]

If I may give my opinion, then, I think games should be foss in the ideal sense. However, often one must take the practicalities into account. Given, how the world runs, a game dev needs to do something about his livelihood and if that means to release games using proprietary license, then so be it. For, if you are not able to earn a living for your own self, how on earth are you going to contribute to FOSS anything-be it code or financially? I run Debian with non-free repos due to the nature of my current hardware. Is that good in the ideal sense? No. However, without those non-free repos, I will not be able to run any free software at all. I hope this makes sense. Also, since, you are a game developer you can contribute to existing FOSS games and likes when you have enough free time and finances for your self. :)

[@auroradraco9974]

I personally think good games deserve to have a price. And also I dont find it unethical for a game to be closed source, contrary to other types of programs which is ridiculous for them to be closed source. But yeah, it would be nice to hear DT's opinion on the subject

[@sheikhshakilakhtar6844]

@@auroradraco9974 Oh price as in money. I am fine with that anyway. I don't mind paying money for the software. I was talking about the source code, though.

[@edjupp6643]

Do an Openbox video! i need it.

[@DistroTube]

I almost did Openbox instead of XMonad for this video. I guess I'll do Openbox for the next one of these. ;)

[@edjupp6643]

@@DistroTube you the best DT . love u from Morocco

[@kanashimi6209]

I would also love an Openbox video!

[@himanshushukla787]

Hey I got 20 less threads than DT

[@anaselsayed6378]

Hey savynnik I followed your installation and took nothing

[@himanshushukla787]

@@anaselsayed6378 is this parallel universe or I don't know I'm savynnick?

[@clouddaemon4828]

Honestly, if Xmonad supported monitors like DWM it would be my main driver, but I've seen a post where a user tried to make xmonad behave like that and oh boy, it escalated quickly

[@dhavalchavda9808]

Can You Please Show method for xmonad.layout.independent screens in your configs...so that we can have 10 workspace for each monitor ....like dwm ....i want to achieve that with your configs ....it will be so much help ...your videos are awesome ✌️❤️

[@ajmasia]

Any way to show the mouse hand pointer over xmobar clickable elements? By default only show the normal mouse pointer 🙂 Thanks!

[@katech6020]

hey DT, check eww (Elkowar wacky Widgets ) It allows you to make custom widgets for any WM

[@vim449]

You do know that you can put your xmonad config in XDG compliant locations, right? As long as ~/.cache/xmonad and .local/share/xmonad folders exist, you can put all of your config in ~/.config/xmonad

[@huahuapro]

Can you do a video about no how to save and restore workspace and session ? Thanks

[@himalpoudel7558]

More videos on awesome please

[@DistroTube]

More to come!

[@ilyaa643]

How did you make it when you open a program it's not fullscreen

[@okbruh9577]

Hi dt, I was desperately trying to implement the multi color bar in awesome wm. After days of failure I kinda gave up. Can you pls make a video regarding awesome and especially the multicolored bar?

[@ChaiBronz]

I have a 'can Xmonad do this' question for ya -- can Xmonad maintain focus of a window while rotating windows through the layout? (I think this is called 'Circulate' in bspwm).. anyway, imagine you are focused on a master window for example, can you rotate windows around the layout while keeping focus on the master? I find this a convenient way to rotate different windows into the main area (or really any area that currently has focus) on bspwm. EDIT: NVM, found the 'Xmonad.Actions.CycleWindows' module that describes what I'm talking about : ) I'm really running out of excuses not to try Xmonad lol ugh something something, too many Haskell libraries to download? lol

[@ABHISHEKSINGH-nv1se]

You still got an excuse 😂

[@caubert]

you still have never explained if you 'xmonad --recompile' and are met with error such as > Could not find module `XMonad' what user should do then?

[@Robertass2000]

For some reason no image preview on vifm using ueberzug with xmonad. On dwm, bspwm works just fine.Does it work on your xmonad setup?

[@kkyrusobad]

that vlc looked different, how's that

[@kaysersozze]

Hey DT, having problems with XMonad.Layout.ShowWName, I mean it works, but with text, if I have glyphs from Nerd font then it shows a rectangle, even if I specify Nerd font in myShowWNameTheme , do you know a solution for that maybe ?

[@kyleeklund9552]

When I install lxsession and initiate it in the startup hook, it completely overtakes Xmonad. Gives me a bottom panel like windows 95, desktop icons, bunch of garbage like that. Do I have to manually configure all of that stuff out?

[@YoutubeChannel-gg3hf]

Hey DT. Could u please teach me how I can get ur config. i mean I don't know how to use the dotfiles and anything else I have to install before installing them. the only step I understand is installing the dotfiles. nothing else. so could u teach me how to install ur xmonad config

[@mmuldo3383]

does anyone know how he gets the windows to slide between postions on transitions?

[@tiktok.4527]

I want to try xmonad, but i still love I3WM. Actualy i'm to lazy to learn new WM. But i want to try Xmonad... so, what should i do?😫

[@tiktok.4527]

@Noob Programmer thank you for your suggestion

[@aspect2670]

What is this distro?

[@amalirfan]

Could any one point me towards videos about debian with WMs?

[@fawzanfawzi9993]

Hello, I'm thinking of using tilling window manager after being a long time floating wm user. Which one should I start with?

[@auroradraco9974]

i3 or awesome are the default ones recommended to beginners. i3 is the simplest tiling window manager to ever exist. You will have no trouble configuring it even if you are a total beginner. Awesome wouldnt be my first recommendation personally but I have heard its not that hard to configure. Furthermore Awesome is probably the best out of the box experience for a tiling wm so you dont need to spend a long time to make it useable. Definitely dont start with Xmonad because you saw this video and it looks cool. A lot of us have fallen in that trap. But xmonad isnt a very easy tiling window manager to get into so by no means should you start with. Hope I covered you

[@fawzanfawzi9993]

@@auroradraco9974 Thanks for the support. Funny enough, I find dwm to be the simplest out of all.

[@auroradraco9974]

@@fawzanfawzi9993 dwm doesnt have documentation so if you dont know C its kinda fucked. If you find it simple though by all means use it

[@fawzanfawzi9993]

@@auroradraco9974 yeah, the patching process was hell but hey, I had my perfect build.

[@drishalballaney6590]

hey DT what colorscheme do you currently use?

[@gt3293]

Looks like Monokai or some variation to me

[@DistroTube]

Doom One (the colorscheme from Doom Emacs)

[@thingsiplay]

I would be interested in XMonad if it was using Python instead of Haskell. Still a very interesting system.

[@marioschroers7318]

Be sure to check out Qtile instead :)

[@thingsiplay]

@@marioschroers7318 The pages are already open. ;-)

[@marioschroers7318]

@@thingsiplay Brilliant! I began using Qtile only recently. Love it! I'm sure you'll enjoy it, too :)

[@thingsiplay]

@@marioschroers7318 I probably need a while to get into it, because I recently switched to Manjaro with KDE. But I configured it with the help of an KWin addon to work and act like a dynamically tiled WM. Here is a screenshot, I am proud of the configuration: i.imgur.com/apCYkKI.jpg (its a project I am working on, but that is not important right now) I really dig into this kind of workspace with WM and might use a real complete one in the future. I might end up disabling KDEs own WM, the KWin, and start Qtile instead. But need to read more into this Frankenstein like configuration. The bloat isn't a problem. I just like the workflow of an automatic tiled WM controlled by shortcuts.

[@marioschroers7318]

@@thingsiplay KZbin seems to have politely removed my reply to your comment, so I'm going to try again. This is a neat little config you have here, I like it ☺️ Of all desktop environments, KDE might be my favorite, especially since they really acted on the resource issues it used to have. In my opinion, it has become quite efficient and lightweight. I'm trying to share my Gitlab with you here. There, you can find screenshots of my current setup I have uploaded yesterday. Tell me what you think! 😁 I'm going to write a documentation about it as well, but that might take some time. Meanwhile, you can find images and read the files, if you wish. Feel free to grab anything, if you deem it useful. My config is here: gitlab.com/mario.schroers/dotfiles/-/tree/master/.config/qtile

[@Rajporus19]

Do the same for doom emacs :)

[@user-ff9sr6ce4t]

How can i get the same effects he gets when opening multiple terminals

[@edjupp6643]

compton

[@warhawk_yt]

Yeah he using a custom fork of picom I think that has animations and stuff.

[@user-ff9sr6ce4t]

@@warhawk_yt thanks, does he have the config somewhere? i think I'm missing this kind of effect to perfect my "rice"

[@rizkyadiyanto7922]

@@user-ff9sr6ce4t its picom-jonaburg-git or something in AUR.

[@webbonyoutube]

First

[@edjupp6643]

There's no trophy to win, if you comment " fIrST " so get a life bro!

[@webbonyoutube]

@@edjupp6643 If there isn't trophies then why has Derek given me so many imaginary internet hearts huh?? huh???

[@egg5474]

I accidentally clicked a macro and ended up here so here's a random link : kzbin.info/www/bejne/gIOWpq1up9ZnpMk