@hackage xmonad0.2

A lightweight X11 window manager.

           xmonad : a lightweight X11 window manager.

                       http://xmonad.org

About:

Xmonad is a tiling window manager for X. Windows are managed using
automatic tiling algorithms, which can be dynamically configured.
Windows are arranged so as to tile the screen without gaps, maximising
screen use. All features of the window manager are accessible 
from the keyboard: a mouse is strictly optional. Xmonad is written
and extensible in Haskell, and custom layout algorithms may be
implemented by the user in config files. A guiding principle of the
user interface is <i>predictability</i>: users should know in
advance precisely the window arrangement that will result from any
action, leading to an intuitive user interface.

Xmonad provides three tiling algorithms by default: tall, wide and
fullscreen. In tall or wide mode, all windows are visible and tiled
to fill the plane without gaps. In fullscreen mode only the focused
window is visible, filling the screen.  Alternative tiling
algorithms are provided as extensions. Sets of windows are grouped
together on virtual workspaces and each workspace retains its own
layout. Multiple physical monitors are supported via Xinerama,
allowing simultaneous display of several workspaces.

Adhering to a minimalist philosophy of doing one job, and doing it
well, the entire code base remains tiny, and is written to be simple
to understand and modify. By using Haskell as a configuration
language arbitrarily complex extensions may be implemented by the
user using a powerful `scripting' language, without needing to
modify the window manager directly. For example, users may write
their own tiling algorithms.

Building:

Get the dependencies

It is likely that you already have some of these dependencies.  To check
whether you've got a package run 'ghc-pkg list some_package_name'

mtl             http://hackage.haskell.org/cgi-bin/hackage-scripts/package/mtl-1.0
    (Included with GHC)

unix            http://hackage.haskell.org/cgi-bin/hackage-scripts/package/unix-2.0 
    (Included with GHC)

X11             http://hackage.haskell.org/cgi-bin/hackage-scripts/package/X11-1.2.2
    (Included with GHC)

X11-extras:     http://hackage.haskell.org/cgi-bin/hackage-scripts/package/X11-extras-0.2

And then build with Cabal:

runhaskell Setup.lhs configure --prefix=/home/dons
runhaskell Setup.lhs build
runhaskell Setup.lhs install --user

Running xmonad:

Add:

     exec /home/dons/bin/xmonad

to the last line of your .xsession or .xinitrc file.

Other useful programs:

For a program dispatch menu:

dmenu           http://www.suckless.org/download/

or gmrun (in your package system)

For custom status bars:

dzen            http://gotmor.googlepages.com/dzen

A nicer xterm replacment, that supports resizing better:

urxvt           http://software.schmorp.de/pkg/rxvt-unicode.html

Authors:

Spencer Janssen
Don Stewart
Jason Creighton