Quickly Setting up Awesome with Gnome
From awesome
This page will help you configure your gnome to use the awesome window manager by default. This lets you play with awesome and gradually ease into it.
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[edit] Configuration
[edit] gnome < 2.12
These commands will change some settings in gconf in order to set up awesome as the default window manager and disable Nautilus' naughty root window behaviour. If your version of gnome is older than 2.12, this should do the trick.
gconftool-2 --type bool --set /apps/nautilus/preferences/show_desktop False # Disable buggy Nautilus desktop thing gconftool-2 --type string --set /desktop/gnome/applications/window_manager/current /usr/bin/awesome # Set awesome as your WM of choice -- note that you may be using /usr/local/bin/awesome if you compiled it yourself
[edit] gnome >= 2.12
If you use a more recent version of gnome, you can try
gconftool-2 --type bool --set /apps/nautilus/preferences/show_desktop False # Still disable the buggy Nautilus desktop thing gconftool-2 --type string --set /desktop/gnome/session/required_components/windowmanager awesome # sets awesome as wm
You'll also have to edit ~/.config/autostart/awesome.desktop
[Desktop Entry] Version=1.0 Type=Application Name=Awesome Comment=The awesome launcher! TryExec=awesome Exec=awesome
[edit] Finally
Log out and back in again. You should now have awesome as your default window manager. You should also have gnome-panel and all the other gnome things running.
[edit] Going Forward
You will likely want to choose either gnome-panel or awesome's main wibox as your panel. If you choose to disable your wibox, configure your rc.lua to not start it up. If you choose to disable gnome-panel, it is easiest to stop using gnome-session and run your session in the traditional way.
The traditional way is to have a .xinitrc or .Xsession file, which is used as your session. This file is usually a shell script that is run by the login manager or by X directly. When the shell script exits, your session ends. Here is a sample .Xsession / .xinitrc file. (Note that some distros call it .Xsession and others .xinitrc. You may want to make one and ln -s the other one if you don't know which script your distro uses.)
gnome-settings-daemon & # handles themes, starts gnome-screensaver. You may have to use gconf to disable it setting the background. nm-applet & # assuming you're using Network Manager pidgin & # if you're using pidgin. You can really put any programs here. gnome-power-manager & # for laptops and stuff gnome-volume-manager & # for mounting CDs, USB sticks, and such exec awesome # awesome receives xinit's process id; when it terminates, X will be terminated
If you're still using GDM, you can select something along the lines of "X client script" when you choose which session you want to use from the GDM login screen.
[edit] Problems
- If you run into trouble with "awsetbg" -- ie. it does not set your background and pops up an error, install the program "feh". Installing it should be all you need to do.
