Installing gnome with wmii on ubuntu



Background

blablabla

Installing wmii

The first thing to note is that wmii that is shipped is currently version 3.6, which as of Ubuntu 8.10 and greater just doesn't work.  So you'll need to compile and install it from wmii's repository (even the snapshot's available on wmii's website seem a bit broken).

Install the ubuntu wmii package (optional)

bla

Install the newer version of wmii

See the attachment below, for a precompiled version.  The attached file is designed to replace most of the wmii files installed by the ubuntu package.  Just extract the contents and:
$ cd src && sudo make install

Configure Gnome

Tweaking Gnomes Registry

Gnome's registry also needs a little bit of tweaking inorder for it to play nicely with wmii. Next fire up the gconf-editor:
$ gconf-editor
And unmark the checkbox at apps>nautilus>preferences and untick show_desktop.
Next go to desktop>gnome>background and untick draw_background.

Tweaking Gnome Panel

This may not be necessary anymore, but by default the Gnome panel streches from the extreme left to extreme right of the screen.  When these gnome windows aren't "floating" anymore, they will become a little messed up.  So right click on all your gnome panels and click on properties, then untick the expand box.

Telling Gnome to use WMII as the window manager

This step is the step that was the most difficult to find.  Simply run this command:
$ echo export WINDOW_MANAGER=`which wmii` >> ~/.gnomerc
This'll create a .gnomerc which will then run wmii.

Configuring WMII

If you've used the attach file, you'll need to copy /usr/etc/wmii-hg/wmiirc ~/.wmii-hg/.  I've added a rule, that'll force all gnome windows to be floating.  This step may not be necessary, but it seems to work well for me.  I've added this to my tagrules:
/gnome-terminal.*/ -> sel
/gnome-.*/ -> ~
The order is important.

ċ
wmii-hg2474.tar.gz
(7330k)
Ryan Kraay,
Jun 25, 2009, 12:35 AM
ċ
wmii-hg2474_amd64.tar.gz
(7541k)
Ryan Kraay,
Mar 19, 2010, 7:57 AM
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