Awesome

awesome is a highly configurable, next generation framework window manager for X. It is primarily targeted at power users, developers and any people dealing with every day computing tasks and who want to have fine-grained control on their graphical environment.

Installation
Install :

Starting
To start awesome use a display manager or startx.

To use with ConsoleKit support, setup ConsoleKit and create the following file:

Configuration file
The default configuration file of awesome is located in. If such a directory or file does not exist then it needs to be created. A default, out of the box, configuration is distributed with and can be found at. Copy that configuration file to the user's home directory.

First create the directory:

Next copy the configuration file:

If is not installed, either install it or change the default terminal emulator to the terminal emulator available on the system. Below, the default terminal emulator is set to, part of.

After making changes it is useful to check the configuration file for errors:

Add wallpaper support through the package:

For instance, to use to set the wallpaper, edit :

Tags
In, tags are the name given to virtual desktops under which one or more applications are running. It is possible to assign custom symbols to these tags:

Menu
Below is an example of a custom menu:

Date
Below is an example use of a custom date format. The format syntax used is. The second option,, is the update interval in seconds.

Volume control
can be used to handle volume keys automatically, and to show the volume level through a tray icon.

Autostart from within :

Alternatively, a lightweight method is to add volume keys straight into the configuration:

MPD multimedia keys
Install to add multimedia key bindings for MPD:

Next update the configuration to assign the multimedia keys to the proper command:

Debugging the configuration with Xephyr
Xephyr is a useful tool for debugging new configuration files as it creates an instance of an X server within a client window.

This will open an 800x600 window. To run awesome within it open a new terminal and run the following:

This will run awesome within a window.

Keyboard shortcuts
These are the most useful default shortcuts:


 * + = move client with mouse
 * + = resize client with mouse


 * + = open terminal
 * + = run command
 * ++ = kill
 * + = maximize
 * + = minimize
 * ++ = restore minimized clients
 * + = full screen
 * + = switch to previous client
 * ++ = float


 * + = highlight left client
 * + = highlight right client
 * ++ = move client right
 * ++ = move client left


 * + = resize tiled client
 * + = resize tiled client


 * + = change tag
 * + = change tag
 * ++ = send client to tag

Custom key bindings, like +, can be mapped to make the experience even better. For instance, to use + to switch to the previous window:

External resources

 * User Configuration Files at awesome wiki