.xmonad

My xmonad setup

goals: high density, high contrast, low friction, low latency; non-goals: eye candy

Overview

• 24 workspaces named 1…12, W1…W12, bound to Alt-F1…12, Win-F1…F2

• dynamic workspace names/descriptions using X.A.WorkspaceNames; dynamic per-workspace workdirs using X.L.WorkspaceDir; tied together with ~/bin/rofi-git-all-repos (screenshot) to get dynamic topic/project workspaces

• two most used layouts: X.L.ResizableTile with tabs using X.L.SubLayouts (minimal decoration, window titles are in xmobar); Full (with window titles in xmobar this resembles fullscreen tabbed)

• top xmobar on primary screen shows workspaces, weechat notifications, urgents on the left; batteries, temperature, CPUs, net throughput and datetime on the right; commonly used words are replaced with icons to increase density

• bottom xmobar on each screen shows layout, workdir and window titles (like a tmux status line or screen hardstatus); plus trayer on primary screen

• do-not-disturb mode that hides chat notifications and defers urgency requests; together with an xmobar widget and a timer (started from xmonadctl) this acts as a "pomodoro timer"

• program launching, layout selection, emoji typing, password typing via rofi (see bindings and scripts in ~/bin)

• media keys bound to liskin-media, a script that handles controlling the right media player and bluetooth volume

• screen locking via xss-lock + xsecurelock (more robust than xscreensaver, integrated with systemd-logind, can handle media keys)

• xrandr automation via layout-auto and xrandr-smart (xrandr-smart --output 'eDP-*' --auto --output '!(eDP-*)' --auto --above 'eDP-*')

• automatic time tracking via arbtt (guided by workspace names, see categorize.cfg), visualisaton via arbtt-chart, daily summary in mail

Sources

• git submodules in ~/src-haskell: mostly my forks with a dotfiles branch that has some extra stuff that hasn't been upstreamed yet

• haskell modules in ~/.xmonad/XMonad: self-contained additions not suitable for upstreaming or still work-in-progress

• ~/.xmonad/xmonad.hs: xmonad config main

• ~/.xmonad/xmobar.hs, ~/.xmobar/icons/: xmobar configuration

Build

Built using stack and make:

• ~/src-haskell/Makefile: dependencies (xmonad, xmonad-contrib, xmobar, X11, …) built by stack build; utilities (xmonadctl, xmonadpropwrite, …) built by stack exec ghc

• ~/.xmonad/Makefile: xmonad config binary built by stack exec ghc; helper targets for ghci/ghcid

• no automatic recompile: invoked directly via the xmonad-ARCH-OS binary, built manually by typing make

X desktop “manager” and X session

TL;DR: startx in .bash_profile, xmonad as graphical-session.target in user systemd, support for multiple X sessions (primary on intel, temporary on nvidia dGPU).

Details:

• .bash_profile sources .bash_profile_xdm

• .bash_profile_xdm: if XDG_SESSION_TYPE=x11, exec startx /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc ~/.xsession-wrapper (secondary X sessions skip the /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc to avoid messing up user systemd and dbus environments)

• gettys 7 to 10 set XDG_SESSION_TYPE=x11

• getty 9 additionally sets _LISKIN_NVIDIA=1 so that a different xorg.conf is used and everything is rendered on the dGPU

• .xsession-wrapper invokes .xsession with stdout/stderr to systemd journal

• .xsession performs some initialization (xrdb, xrandr, xset, xsetroot, setxkbmap, xmodmap, xinput, …) and then launches xmonad via systemd-run: in primary sessions as a unit binding to graphical-session.target and xmonad@$DISPLAY.target, in secondary sessions as a scope binding to xmonad@$DISPLAY.target

• graphical-session.target starts primary session services like tray applets, notification daemon, …

• xmonad@$DISPLAY.target starts services meant to run in all sessions (compton, xss-lock, redshift, …)

See also

• there may be other interesting (but likely undocumented) bits in my dotfiles

• my mostly technical blog/web; @Liskni_si twitter

• support my free software activities via GitHub Sponsors