HamzaED Hamza Emadeen Weblog

As an old tester and user of Awesome WM , i want to declare there is something a bit different about this new release version 3 of Awesome WM , totally different than version 2 i used . Not the configuration using Lua scripting , which i find very handy , easy and useful to keep me around Lua which i like , but the issue which regard logout , re-login to take effects , among other issues turn over to be more like version issue .

awesome wm

In this post i’ll add the resources i found very useful to install , configure , and customize Awesome WM . but first why Awesome WM ?

Why Awesome WM ?

1. Its Tiling WM :
2. Easy to install ,Configure , reconfigure and customize ,
3. FAST and SIMPLE ,
4. well documented ,
5. can be extended if you are Lua coder ,
6. LESS Mouse , More keyboard .

For me : i do like to think it saves time , with easy fast shortcuts to move through windows , and open new application to use , you may add its pretty handy for me to define which screen and tag i want to run specific application .and customize shortcuts to fire up all my needed application in specific tags .

Awesome 3 WM installation :

For installation you need either to build your own or install from unofficial repositories as  launchpad repertoires . but why not from the official repositories ?! , because official ubuntu reposatories have Awesome 2.1 not Awesome 3 .

Building Awesome 3 WM instructions for Ubuntu : is by Shinuza at his awesome post in Ubuntuforums.org .  :  HOWTO Build Awesome 3 – link .

But what about installation from the unofficial repositories ?! There are about 3-4 repositories you can add  in your /etc/apt/sources.list and install different versions and snapshot releases from Awesome WM from :

Awesome 3.1 :

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/antage/ubuntu intrepid main

deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/antage/ubuntu intrepid main

More at PPA ( Ubuntu personal package archive ) at launchpad.net for awesome versions :

Awesome 3.1 , Awesome 3.1.2 , Awesome 3.3.1 ,  Awesome 3.3.1 with Extra ( which am using now ) .

Awesome WM Manual and keys  :

After installation you may need to go through manual to see how awesome WM works especially if you have no experience with tiling window managers before ( DWM , Xmonad , or wii )  , well its kind very similar to those but far more advanced and even more customized .

To go for the official manual run your terminal with Mod1+Enter ( Mod1 is your SUPER key , or Windows key ) , and you’ll go with the terminal then write :

man awesome

This will review the Awesome official manual , with the shortcut keys you will need to deal with awesome . but of you are looking for more organized shortcuts keys manual here is an outstanding at Tuxtraining.com .

Configuration Awesome :

Awesome 3 configuration file is resting in

/etc/xdg/awesome/rc.lua

all what you have to do is copying rc.lua to :

/home/yourusername/.config/awesome/rc.lua

.config/awesome is the directory which should has your own awesome configuration file rc.lua along with themes you define for awesome wm  .

Words about Configurations :

all what i needed for my Awesome WM is setting up key-bindings ,  define my own tags and screens plus runs my application in pre-defined tags and screens .

Here is tutorials , tips and resources helped me a lot through that journey and am pretty sure they have said everything already except minor stuff  :

1-Official Awesome wiki – link -

2- Arch linux wiki : Awesome 3 WM page – link -

3-an outstanding awesome page at  a wiki belongs to CompSOC.. – link -

4- HOWTO: write an awesome 3 configuration file , at Ubuntuforums.org by Shearn89 – link -

5-Installing and configuring Awesome WM on Debian , Debian`s forums – link -

Customization of Awesome :

Its pretty much explained in Awesome’s Wiki and Awesome`s pages at arch linux wiki and CompSoc`s wiki .

Tricks :

1-Using Gnome Do as a an application launcher

2- If you are into panels , there are several other panels you may try ,Personally am using Tint . ( sometimes ) .

3-PcManFm : the file manager alternative for Nautilus and more faster , sometimes it does not seems to have gtk theme by default , so you need to define the themes and icons for it  :

in ,gtkrc-2.0 you need to define your icons as

gtk-icon-theme-name=”gnome-brave”

or any other icon theme you have in your .icons directory .

4- I have an issue using such WMs same as blackbox , fluxbox , DWM and Xmonad . somehow i need to switch layouts to other layout am using in writing , so simple you can define key-binding for such task  based on setxkbmap :

setxkbmap us

setxkbmap ara

setxkbmap de

For more additional information please comment .

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/antage/ubuntu intrepid main
deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/antage/ubuntu intrepid main