dwm as default wm

[Moderator Brian Masinick]

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FYI, just to “toss this” into the discussion, the raw dwm itself (not the full system with dwm, only looking at dwm, starts using about 1M, one of the most frugal window managers around, according to a study. IceWM is easy on resources, but of the components best described as “window managers”, ir’s in the middle of the pack, neither the most efficient nor the most wasteful.

Here is a link to the research, which includes a graph, if you scroll through the article, comparing many window managers and desktop environments, and they EXPLAIN what they mean and also HOW they compiled the numbers:
A Memory Comparison of Light Linux Desktops

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Brian Masinick

[Member olsztyn]

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Brian Masinick wrote:

Perhaps the “no novices asking stupid questions” is what offends some people. If so, there certainly are other choices available, even on our own antiX. The wording may be a bit strong, but it’s also true – because of the fact that it is a source code based window manager

Thank you Brian for your very elaborate moderation… It is greatly appreciated.
I completely agree. I consider myself a Novice. However I do not take the quoted wording ‘No novice asking stupid questions’ as arrogant or unreasonable.
I am grateful that developers are spending so much time and effort to produce such gems. It is not reasonable to expect them to remain on standby and answer every silly question for the rest of their life…
Just MHO…

Live antiX Boot Options (Previously posted by Xecure):
https://antixlinuxfan.miraheze.org/wiki/Table_of_antiX_Boot_Parameters

[Member ex_Koo]

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@blur13

I have ask anticapitalista to update a few of the programs that use in the past, which he has done. But really I now prefer to just compile the programs myself I get more out of it, learn and have fun too. Plus the mod’s have plenty to do already Repos , new versions to work on , making thing better etc. I’m just Happy to have the opportunity to use this great system antiX and be around users that have the same interests that I do.

And as for herbstluftwm this was the first WM that I ever used for about 4 months then moved to i3 and herbi still has a special place for me i’ll be back.

[Member Xecure]

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Brian Masinick wrote:

OK, please allow me to comment. Everyone is still free to formulate their own opinion, but here is the jist of what is said that is “objectionable” to some people:

dwm is customized through editing its source code, which makes it extremely fast and secure – it does not process any input data which isn’t known at compile time, except window titles and status text read from the root window’s name. You don’t have to learn Lua/sh/ruby or some weird configuration file format (like X resource files), beside C, to customize it for your needs: you only have to learn C (at least in order to edit the header file).
Because dwm is customized through editing its source code, it’s pointless to make binary packages of it. This keeps its userbase small and elitist. No novices asking stupid questions. There are some distributions that provide binary packages though.

Perhaps the “no novices asking stupid questions” is what offends some people.

No. The “elitist” message is what has me frown when I see suckless software. It is this mentality of “we are programmers, we are the elite, and we will try not to teach others so we can keep this exclusive elitist club small”. They reduce the ammount of lines of code small on purpose, so code comments (superfluous for them, takes up space) are removed or not included, so stupid users like me have to spend hours trying to study and understand the code just to add something.

I wouldn’t have spent all the time I did in “fixing up” badwolf (also suckless philosophy) if it wasn’t because I was asked to. I don’t use the stupid thing. But f*ck it. If they don’t want to teach me and I have to spend lots of hours just to get a stupid keybinding to work or trying to understand bookmarks, because the developer doesn’t want to tell me and hints at “learn to program, search for the documentation yourself”, then they can forget about me. I already spend much of my limited free time trying to help in this forum for me to waste time on other things.

No personal attack on anyone in particular. I am just venting out today.

antiX Live system enthusiast.
General Live Boot Parameters for antiX.

[Member ModdIt]

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Thanks Xecure, very much agree. I try and give my limited knowledge freely, up to now i have always regarded antiX as power to people
an anti elitist distro accesible to non programmer elitist users, something I really like.
You are one of the persons who generously donates time and thought which really helps to make it that way. Many thanks for that.

• This reply was modified 1 year, 9 months ago by ModdIt.

[Moderator BobC]

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Yeah, if you take the percentage of people willing to install a program from source and compile it (maybe 5 to 10% of people installing Linux, probably 1 to 2% of computer users), and then the percentage of those willing to spend an evening reading up, watching videos, setting up a test system, doing an initial install, testing, making changes, testing, fixing, etc., till it becomes usable, it’s down to only a few. Not that its a good thing, just the reality. I agree that its not something to brag about that so few are able to even install it, and not commenting code to reduce lines of code (instead of just not counting comment lines, lol) will translate into a huge waste of every person who has to figure out the puzzle from scratch. Not everyone is born a C programmer. Even giving my lack of C programming knowledge, I was able to tweak the config.h file a bit. I made mistakes, and copied the syntax from other lines not knowing why the syntax was the way it was, but I guess that’s better than nothing, or trying to change something that is so complex that I have no chance at success, like IceWM.

Sad that the only reason I find myself trying it is because IceWM doesn’t have the ability to log what programs are called from the menu or toolbar, and my brain is stuck on the concept of an automatic toolbar generator, which is only useful if you have the log data to work from of what programs are being run most often.

But then DWM doesn’t even have a toolbar, LOL, and only DMenu. I got it running, and replaced st with RoxTerm, and DMenu with App-Select, and added a hotkey for the web browser. The default keys chosen are very foreign to me, and so I changed the hotkeys for those to antiX’s normal keys, which are at least reasonable.

BTW, in antiX, the Conky can easily be changed to not normally start in ~/.desktop-session/desktop-session.conf by changing the conky line to LOAD_CONKY=”false”

There is lots of good info in this thread, thanks for that. Thanks also to Manyroads, though I haven’t seen anything from him on DWM recently, he made some posts both here and on his site which were very helpful. I liked DWMX, and got most of it running on an antiX foundation (and made a respin of it), but I am too attached to my current setup, which is 99% antiX IceWM with zzzFM as the default file manager. There is no way I could create anything this good, no matter what I started with or how much effort I put in.

[Member olsztyn]

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BobC wrote:

But then DWM doesn’t even have a toolbar, LOL, and only DMenu. I got it running, and replaced st with RoxTerm, and DMenu with App-Select, and added a hotkey for the web browser. The default keys chosen are very foreign to me, and so I changed the hotkeys for those to antiX’s normal keys, which are at least reasonable.
BTW, in antiX, the Conky can easily be changed to not normally start in ~/.desktop-session/desktop-session.conf by changing the conky line to LOAD_CONKY=”false”
There is lots of good info in this thread, thanks for that.

Thanks for the tips. I remember using App-Select was recommended in this thread by Andyprough. Great tip. Although I have not got yet to the actual replacement of dmenu…
Also in another thread ‘DWM on antiX19’ in the beginning of Dec. 2020 Andyprough reported memory use of antiX/DWM as 159M, but as soon as Firefox is started it shoots to 600s or whereabouts. Just want to mention that in my experience base memory use of antiX/DWM is in line with the one reported by Andyprough (145M to be exact but on lesser machine, which accounts for this delta).
However regarding web browser, when using Seamonkey the total memory footprint appears to stay consistently below 400M (one tab) and using Chromium appears to stay below 500M.
Now, as a disclaimer, this measurement in my testing seems not much different from the same measurement unter IceWM. As mentioned by Andyprough earlier in this thread, the reason for not seeing much difference is that IceWM is still alongside with DWM. However so far I do not see myself shedding IceWM altogether based on my limited experience:
– It would take more user-friendliness to be customized into configuration of DWM. Still outstanding.
– The pesky behavior in DWM, where in some circumstances when closing apps their residual image remains on the screen. Screen is not being cleared in that tab upon app closure. This image is being carried over to other tags as well until a new app is started. Trying to narrow down the circumstances causing this behavior I was able to narrow down so far to CMST, which when started and network switch is made or something it appears to crash. I was trying to replace with Network Manager and see if it resolves the problem but with Grup Yorum CMST seems to want to keep control for some reason. Under Hannie Schaft (antiX 19.2) I easily replaced with Connman with Network Manager. There must be something more than installation of Network Manager and changes in session start config…

Just want to mention that from DWM ‘family’ of WMs I tried also:
– i3 – Keeps unnecessary windows decoration.
– Herbstluftwm – The ‘capable’ Badwolf was able to defeat it. But I will give another look at Herbstluftwm and run more testing such as behavior with CMST leaving residual image across tags (again under circumstances).
– Awesome – Way too wasteful on presentation for my taste.

Just reporting my experience…

Live antiX Boot Options (Previously posted by Xecure):
https://antixlinuxfan.miraheze.org/wiki/Table_of_antiX_Boot_Parameters

[Member blur13]

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@BobC

“if you take the percentage of people willing to install a program from source and compile it (maybe 5 to 10% of people installing Linux, probably 1 to 2% of computer users), and then the percentage of those willing to spend an evening reading up, watching videos, setting up a test system, doing an initial install, testing, making changes, testing, fixing, etc., till it becomes usable, it’s down to only a few.”

This is probably true. I think you have to see it as a sort of “game.” Can I get this to work? Can I change the font size? Can I make this software do exactly what I want it to do? Usually the incremental changes are trivial compared to the amount of time invested in making them so if there wasnt an element of fun involved it would be a complete waste of time.

Regarding a panel of the most used programs, I’ve completely moved in the other direction. Once I set up keybindings for my most used programs, there was really no need for a toolbar at all. I never use the menu either, I just launch programs from the terminal if there isnt a keybinding for it. So my desktop is just a wallpaper with a conky.

[Member andyprough]

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olsztyn wrote:

Thanks for the tips. I remember using App-Select was recommended in this thread by Andyprough. Great tip. Although I have not got yet to the actual replacement of dmenu…
Also in another thread ‘DWM on antiX19’ in the beginning of Dec. 2020 Andyprough reported memory use of antiX/DWM as 159M, but as soon as Firefox is started it shoots to 600s or whereabouts. Just want to mention that in my experience base memory use of antiX/DWM is in line with the one reported by Andyprough (145M to be exact but on lesser machine, which accounts for this delta).
However regarding web browser, when using Seamonkey the total memory footprint appears to stay consistently below 400M (one tab) and using Chromium appears to stay below 500M.

On app-select, I do not use it to replace dmenu, just to run it with keybindings as an extra option when I can’t find something easily with dmenu. Or when I need to open something with root privileges.

On the web browser, I’ve been finding that the LibreWolf browser uses significantly less memory and cpu than other major browsers. It’s 64-bit only, but if you are looking for a great browser on a 64-bit system, here’s how I install and maintain it (major thanks to @Moddit and his post on extracting the LibreWolf AppImage, which I stole from liberally for this writeup):

0. Create a “librewolf” folder in your home directory and cd into it:

mkdir ~/librewolf/
cd ~/librewolf/

1. Download the latest 64-bit AppImage by pointing your web browser at this url:
https://gitlab.com/librewolf-community/browser/appimage/-/jobs/artifacts/master/download?job=appimage_x86_64

2. Unzip the downloaded file to get our AppImage file:
unzip Librewolf-[version xx.x-x-]AppImage-x86_64.zip

3. The AppImage itself is just another compressed file. We will extract the files from it, in order to get LibreWolf to run faster on our system, have better privacy, and integrate with our system better:
./LibreWolf-[version xx.x-x-].x86_64.AppImage --appimage-extract

4. This creates a “squashfs-root” folder. Visit that from your file manager. Make sure the “AppRun” file has file permissions set to allow it to Execute as a program. Delete the “pingsender” file (reduces the ability of LibreWolf to do any sneaky telemetry). change directory into squashfs-root/browser/features/ folder, and delete “formautofill@mozilla.org.xpi” and “screenshots@mozilla.org.xpi” files (for enhanced privacy).

5. Link the “AppRun” file to /usr/bin/:
sudo ln -sf /home/[username]/librewolf/squashfs-root/AppRun /usr/bin/librewolf

6. Create a librewolf.desktop entry:
sudo mousepad /usr/share/applications/librewolf.desktop
Paste this text into the file, then save and close:

[Desktop Entry]
Version=1.0
Name=LibreWolf Web Browser
Comment=Browse the World Wide Web
GenericName=Web Browser
Keywords=Internet;WWW;Browser;Web;Explorer
Exec=librewolf %u
Terminal=false
X-MultipleArgs=false
Type=Application
Icon=/home/devuan/LibreWolf/icons/default48.png
Categories=GNOME;GTK;Network;WebBrowser;
MimeType=text/html;text/xml;application/xhtml+xml;application/xml;application/rss+xml;application/rdf+xml;image/gif;image/jpeg;image/png;x-scheme-handler/http;x-scheme-handler/https;x-scheme-handler/ftp;x-scheme-handler/chrome;video/webm;application/x-xpinstall;
StartupNotify=true
Actions=new-window;new-private-window;

[Desktop Action new-window]
Name=Open a New Window
Exec=librewolf -new-window

[Desktop Action new-private-window]
Name=Open a New Private Window
Exec=librewolf -private-window

7. You can add the command “librewolf” to your menus in other window managers to get it to pop up on your menu. In DWM, I made a keybinding for myself to the Super-Shift-L key combination. I added the following lines in the /usr/src/dwm/config.h file:

I added line 70 (your line numbers will be different):
static const char *wolfcmd[] = { "librewolf", NULL };

and added line 81:
{ MODKEY|ShiftMask, XK_l, spawn, {.v = wolfcmd } },

and then save and quit mousepad, and:
sudo make install

Log out and back into DWM, and Super-Shift-L is my key combination to bring up LibreWolf without going to dmenu or app-select.

8. You’ll have to repeat several steps when a new version of the LibreWolf AppImage is released, usually about once every 2-3 weeks. Steps are:
a. Check at this url for a new version:
https://gitlab.com/librewolf-community/browser/appimage/-/releases

b. If there’s a new version, download it by pointing your browser at this url:
https://gitlab.com/librewolf-community/browser/appimage/-/jobs/artifacts/master/download?job=appimage_x86_64

c. Close any open instances of LibreWolf, and delete LibreWolf’s squashfs-root file:
sudo rm -r ~/librewolf/squashfs-root/

d. unzip the file you downloaded, and then extract the AppImage files:

unzip Librewolf-[version xx.x-x-]AppImage-x86_64.zip
./LibreWolf-[version xx.x-x-].x86_64.AppImage --appimage-extract

e. cd into squashfs-root and delete the “pingsender” file, cd into squashfs-root/browser/features/ folder, and delete “formautofill@mozilla.org.xpi” and “screenshots@mozilla.org.xpi” files.

f. Make sure that ~/librewolf/squashfs-root/AppRun has permissions to Execute as a program

g. renew the link to the new AppRun file:
sudo ln -sf /home/[username]/librewolf/squashfs-root/AppRun /usr/bin/librewolf

Hopefully the LibreWolf devs will get it together and offer a proper repo with a .deb version on a regular basis, but until then installing and updating it will be a bit of a hassle per the above. But it’s well worth it, as the performance for the unsquashed version is outstanding and I haven’t found another 64-bit major browser recently that can beat it.

• This reply was modified 1 year, 9 months ago by andyprough.

[Member olsztyn]

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andyprough wrote:

On the web browser, I’ve been finding that the LibreWolf browser uses significantly less memory and cpu than other major browsers.

Thanks Andyprough for this another ‘Wolf’ web browser candidate to test… Aside from memory/cpu use I am particularly curious if it is equally capable of ‘stress testing’ WMs as BadWolf is… The same family name, after all…

Thanks and Regards…

Live antiX Boot Options (Previously posted by Xecure):
https://antixlinuxfan.miraheze.org/wiki/Table_of_antiX_Boot_Parameters

[Member ModdIt]

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LibreWolf is very much Firefox as it could be, i.e. not a monetising madly pinging and search sharing machine.
Up to now it has not shown any bad behaviour. Running from appimage on 19.4 and Bullseye runit beta.

PPC pointed me to the project, posted about it in browser thread in Jan, been using in preference to
firefox latest since then.

Some sites especialy banks refuse to connect to many alternative browsers so need latest fox at times.

• This reply was modified 1 year, 8 months ago by ModdIt.

[Member blur13]

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@andyprough

Thanks for the tip about Librewolf and the detailed way of installing it. I’ve always stayed away from app-images and Snap packages, but perhaps this approach can ge generalized. Is this simply better than running the app-image as is because its uncompressed?

Regarding librewolf itself, I did notice that it uses about 100 MiB less memory than fox, cant really say I noticed much of a diff in CPU usage. I’ve become accustomed to using Links2 in graphics mode for pretty much all my browsing, it cant be beat in speed and low resource use. I actually find that rendering all webpages in a coherent font, size, and color is great for readability. However, some sites require scripts to work at all, and then I switch over to firefox which is sloooooow in comparison. I recently discovered Midori, the version from 2019, and that is really light but can still run scripts. I’d say it uses about 150 MiB less than librewolf on my system. Maybe not as privacy focused as librewolf, but still blocks ads.

[Member olsztyn]

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olsztyn wrote:

Thanks Andyprough for this another ‘Wolf’ web browser candidate to test… Aside from memory/cpu use I am particularly curious if it is equally capable of ‘stress testing’ WMs as BadWolf is…

Having performed tests on Librewolf, the same which caused Badwolf to kill our popular IceWM, among others, I am happy to report that LibreWolf does not share the same capability as BadWolf. In my testing it did not cause any problem for IceWM under the same conditions. I did not test impact on Fluxbox and JWM as in result of simplifying my environment I am left with just key WMs: IceWM and DWM. Expectedly LibreWolf was not able to cause problems for DWM as well as BadWolf was not able to crash DWM in my previous test.
Performance – my observations are basically in line with those of blur13.

Live antiX Boot Options (Previously posted by Xecure):
https://antixlinuxfan.miraheze.org/wiki/Table_of_antiX_Boot_Parameters

[Moderator Brian Masinick]

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Good news; thanks for your testing and the results!

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Brian Masinick

[Member andyprough]

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blur13 wrote:

@andyprough

Thanks for the tip about Librewolf and the detailed way of installing it. I’ve always stayed away from app-images and Snap packages, but perhaps this approach can ge generalized. Is this simply better than running the app-image as is because its uncompressed?

Regarding librewolf itself, I did notice that it uses about 100 MiB less memory than fox, cant really say I noticed much of a diff in CPU usage. I’ve become accustomed to using Links2 in graphics mode for pretty much all my browsing, it cant be beat in speed and low resource use. I actually find that rendering all webpages in a coherent font, size, and color is great for readability. However, some sites require scripts to work at all, and then I switch over to firefox which is sloooooow in comparison. I recently discovered Midori, the version from 2019, and that is really light but can still run scripts. I’d say it uses about 150 MiB less than librewolf on my system. Maybe not as privacy focused as librewolf, but still blocks ads.

In answer to your first question – the reason to uncompress LibreWolf is a) it starts up faster, and b) it allows us to customize it and remove pingsender and some other anti-privacy stuff. I’m not sure if it runs faster overall that way or not. Also, by uncompressing it we really just have to link ~/librewolf/squashfs-root/AppRun to /usr/bin/librewolf, and renew the link when we get a new AppImage. If we don’t uncompress it, then we have to link a new version number each time, which is a bit of a hassle.

I’ve noticed personally that it uses about 10% less cpu on general browsing than chromium-based browsers. I did not compare it directly to Firefox for cpu usage. The difference between LibreWolf and Midori (or links2 + graphics) is that LibreWolf is a full-fledged modern browser with all the bells and whistles, including the ability to use all the Mozilla add-ons. If you don’t need that much browser, then there’s no need to use it.

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