Devterm A06: How to setup a tiling window manager?

DevTerm
1

Hi everyone,

Assume you wanted to use a tiling window manager, how does one actually go about replacing the existing one? For example, if you wanted to use i3, Awsome WM, or any of the ones listed here? (The 20 Best Linux Window Managers: A Comprehensive List for Linux Users)

It would be neat if I could make the DevTerm more CLI focused, but I’m kind of new and I have no idea how configuring a window manager unfortunately.

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xfce - How to change the Xfce4 default window manager? - Ask Ubuntu

I cant try this yet as i dont yet have one

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I don’t use xfce, just i3.

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Thanks for all the kind advice. In case anyone was curious, I went the I3 route. I just installed I3, re-enabled the login menu, and made sure to select I3 when logging in. Seems to work just fine for me.

The only thing left to consider is what terminal program is best to use. I don’t mind Terminator, but xterm seems to have higher resolution (more lines). I tried Kitty as well, but apparently it requires OpenGL 3.3 drivers which I’m unsure about how to load.

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Speaking of I3, do you know how to scroll a window dialog downward in the event that it is too tall to fit in a tile? For example, I found many property dialogs for Terminator were too large for me to scroll down and select the “OK” button or “Cancel” button. Is there some set of hotkeys required for that?

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Any modern terminal emulator will allow you to change the size of the font, and thus the number of lines and columns in a given window, on-the-fly. Including Terminator.

You don’t even have to go into the settings: Ctrl and - will switch to the next font size down, giving you more lines but smaller text; Ctrl and + (so Ctrl and Shift and =) will switch to the next font size up, giving you fewer lines but bigger text.

1 Like
7

changing font size actually works wonders on lower resolution screens with even smaller footprints. (like the vufine display hmd)
I personally prefer dropdown terms like tilda, myself.

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Install Manjaro Sway (next-gen i3) - USING A LINUX SYSTEM TO FLASH THE IMAGE TO THE SDCARD:

  • On your linux laptop, insert devterm sdcard. Reformat card to fat32. (this solves most boot issues.)
  • Go to Releases · manjaro-arm/clockworkpi-a06-images · GitHub.
  • Click the Assets link and download Manjaro-ARM-sway-clockworkpi-a06-YYYYMMDD.img.xz
  • xz -f -d Manjaro-ARM-sway-clockworkpi-a06-YYYYMMDD.img.xz
  • dd if=Manjaro-ARM-sway-clockworkpi-a06-YYYYMMDD.img of=/dev/sda bs=10M status=progress (OR WHATEVER DEVICE YOUR SDCARD IS)
  • Pull out sdcard, re-insert, and let it mount the root dir on the sdcard.
  • Edit /SDCARDROOT/etc/sway/outputs/default-screen and add the line:
    • output DSI-1 transform 90
  • save file, unmount sdcard, insert in devterm.
  • Profit.

screenshot4
screenshot41280×480 108 KB

screenshot2
screenshot21280×480 55.3 KB

(tested with the v03 keyboard firmware)

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Slightly off-topic, but I noted that when I try to print color ANSI art or anything complex using jp2a in Terminator / xTerm, etc, I can visible see the screen scroll up relatively slowly. This is in stark contrast to my desktop computer, in which text appears almost instantly in any terminal I run.

Are terminal applications on the DevTerm accelerated at all? Or is the performance I am seeing purely limited by the CPU speed?

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jp2a is fast on Manjaro Sway in foot term…

manjaro-jp2a

1 Like
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Beautiful! Thank you for the tip. I tried and failed to get a wm up and running on my devterm when I first got it. Happy to see there’s devterm dedicated images now.

1 Like