dwm

dwm is a dynamic window manager for X. It manages windows in tiled, monocle and floating layouts.

This guide covers:

Installing dependencies for the suckless tools and installing firefox
Installing from source or from repository dwm (dynamic window manager), dmenu (dynamic menu), st (simple terminal)
Configuring the new profile to run dwm at login.

Prerequisites

Internet connectivity, unless the packages have been pre-fetched into a local cache.
A non-root user account.
The community repository must be enabled.
Set up eudev.
Install and configure D-Bus. without D-Bus icons and keyboard shortcuts may be missing.
Install appropriate Graphics driver drivers for your hardware. Without graphics drivers, errors are likely to occur.
Install Xorg

Installation

Install dwm binary packagaes dwm, dmenu and st:

# apk add dwm dmenu st

Installing from source

Installing dependencies

Note: git make gcc g++ libx11-dev libxft-dev libxinerama-dev ncurses are needed to install suckless tools from source.

dbus-x11 is needed for the dbus system (enables firefox running in dwm to open in a tile)

The last three adwaita-gtk2-theme adwaita-icon-theme font-dejavu are optional, but recommended for a nicer looking firefox.

The command to install the dependencies:

# apk add git make gcc g++ libx11-dev libxft-dev libxinerama-dev ncurses dbus-x11 firefox-esr adwaita-gtk2-theme adwaita-icon-theme font-dejavu libxft-dev

Installing suckless tools

Change to the /tmp directory.

$ cd /tmp

then execute:

# git clone https://git.suckless.org/dwm

Once downloaded, go to the dwm directory

# cd dwm

To install, run:

# make clean install

Next, go up one directory level

# cd ..

to install dmenu:

# git clone https://git.suckless.org/dmenu # cd dmenu # make clean install

Finally, go up one more directory level

# cd ..

to install st:

# git clone https://git.suckless.org/st # cd st # make clean install

Setting up your profile

Change to your home directory:

$ cd ~

Create or edit .xinitrc with at least the following:

Contents of ~/.xinitrc

exec dwm

Save the file and exit vi.

Next, create or edit .profile with at least the following:

Contents of ~/.profile

startx

Note: If you install additional programs that call your `$SHELL` with the POSIX `-l` login flag, you'll need to make launching `startx` conditional, otherwise X will attempt to launch every time your shell is called with the login flag.