Spectrwm Is An Impressive Tiling Window Manager 

What's the default keyboard shortcut for opening terminal or doing anything, really, in spectrwm? I tried several key combinations, but couldn't have it do anything for me, not even logout, reboot or anything. Had to switch TTY and hit CTRL + ALT + DEL to get it to gdm

Always a good time when DistroTube reviews tiling window managers

I just wanted to come back to this video to let you know that it inspired me to install spectrwm on my laptop with Debian 10. I have no regrets. That combination is excellent for getting work done without hassle.

Hey man I really just wanna say how much I appreciate you making these videos showing programs. I usually go to your channel first to see if there is a review of it already lol. Thanks again

I have been daily driving spectrwm on Debian for a while now and I love it.

DT thank you very much for this content. I was using i3 but not for very long because I found it unintuitive for me. I probable spent more time customizing it than actually using it, because I always missed something. Manual tiling was too cumbersome for me and it felt like a lot of unnecesary work. You made me curious about other tiling WM's. After a while of watching your content, I decided that DWM should work for me, but I was afraid of wasting 5+ evenings patching the beast until it is somewhat usable. Spectrwm is pretty close and the config is much much easier, it works flawlessly. Now it is my daily driver - about a month in - and it feels so natural... I don't even think about it when using it. Thanks for giving it a heads-up. I think spectrwm stands in the middle ground of being very user-friendly and easily customizable (even easier to customize than i3 IMO) but at the same time being pretty minimal and very KISS in nature.

I love this. I was thinking in trying dwm but was worried after your said it was not recommended for your first twm. But this with all those configs and nice default options if great! Will try it right away! Thank you!

Thanks for a very informative and inspiring video, I have been meaning to try a tiling wm and after watching this I will go ahead. BTW the reason the Spectrwm code is so well-written and documented is that it is developed by the OpenBSD people. I believe that its former name was Scrotwm. Cheers, Bill

The bar is customizable. Got colors and icons in it. DT should read the man page.

Hey man, (just throwing this out there) thanks for explaining some of the basics here. For example, the difference between dynamic TWM and manual TWM. I realize that this is probably basic knowledge for the majority of your audience. But for me, a lapsed *nix user who is coming back and re-learning everything like... 15 years later, it's a big help.

After I tried i3wm, I fall in love with tiling window manger and its elegance and lightweight

Learning about spectrwm here -- this very video -- inspired me to change my setup on my laptop from Manjaro i3 to minimal Debian with spectrwm (building on top of the Debian core utilities). This is my first time starting with a bare version of any GNU/Linux distribution. I have stumbled across a number of hiccups, but I have learned a lot in the process, and I think that Debian with spectrwm is here to stay for me. Why Debian? Well, I wanted to try something new, and the setup is for work, so trusty Debian stability is what I desired. For dotfiles, I have been merging some things from the samples from the spectrwm GitHub, some ideas for your GitHub, and some ideas from linuxdabbler's GitHub (he also has a good video on Debian + spectrwm that helped me with a few important things to get started). Thank you for this great video. DistroTube is one of my top few favorite RU-vid/LBRY channels. Derek, you are basically responsible for me making the jump into tiling window managers and a host of other things -- each one specifically for a combination of hobby (when I do the setup itself -- evenings) and efficiency with my workflow (when I use what I have pieced together).

I've been running dwm for quite a while on my main machine and I wanted to get a similar experience on a different so I gave this a shot. After a day I already quite like it, I do miss the dwm feature of combining workspaces effortlessly. Out of the box spevtrwm works great with a dual monitor setup, that saves me the trouble of configuring dwm to do the same.

I've been using i3wm and tried dwm. Now I've installed Spectrwm and like it better than the others. No patching to death; and no adding a dozen dependencies. Slackware has several window managers included but not a tiling wm. Spectrwm would be nice to have out of the box.

This is just the right tiling manager for the beginer! Whow! im amaized!

Wonderful episode! Thank you! Btw it seams you can use emojis from a Xft font with unicode PUA

This code sctructure reminds me to NSIS code structure. Pretty descriptive functions, much more practical to customize. Thanks for the recomendation.

I've used spectrwm a couple of years back and it's a great WM; instead of the default bar I've used dzen+i3status. Despite of being a nice WM I'll never switch back to it from i3wm, I'll miss too much the scratchpads, i3 layouts, i3 modes, etc.

7:30 spectrwm used to be called scrotwm

For those new to Spectrwm its worth pointing out the conky integration via bar_action makes populating the bar with stats alot easier if you prefer working with conky syntax over bash and dont want to do anything overly complex.

I was using scrotwm nearly 10 years ago on a Toshiba laptop with a meagre 192 MB RAM, and it was actually usable for a time (if one didn't websurf too much)

I might have to try this as my first wm

My first WM and the best beside DWM both are great in my thoughts 😍

There's a way to use colors and fonts for unicode. * First install spectrwm-git from the aur. * In the variables "bar_font" and "bar_font_color" create a comma separated list. * When formatting use "+@fg=n;" and "+@bg=n;" for foreground and background color respectively. * For fonts use "+@fn=n;" n=[0-1]

Great video as always! Spectrwm looks very nice

Impressive, another i3 user over here AND i say, damn, all that i want it in one place with a plus one config file.

Thank you for the video, I've never heard of this wm, I might give it a try. I just bought a new laptop and spent the whole week-end customizing my i3, I feel dumb now lol

That's really cool the default config gives you so much to start with. Some TWM configs are SOOOOO blank, that when you open a Session in that TWM - you get a black screen lol Going to install this WM in ArchCraft and give it a go.

I'm still using i3wm customized to my liking but after your review of spectrwm it will be something I will try when I'm bored - it looks very easy to get going so it's on my radar now.

Pretty cool. I saw somewhere else you can minimize programs. That's a game changer for me. I think I'll give it a try.

Everytime I install a new Window Manager, RU-vid shows me a recommendation of a better one.

Thank you, Derek.

It's now my favorite window manager.

Thanks sir. Always happily informed by your contents.

Looks nice. Have been in i3 for a few months (is my first twm, because it is one of the easiest to customise). This wm config reminds me of that, I will have to check it out

i use i3wm currently but comparing to it, spectrwm is far more easier. Great presentation, thanks.

I knew you would like it.

How can you close just one window of the same program, like when I have opened 2 separate windows of my browser? When I close one with the wind_kill keybind, all the browser windows got killed as well. Nevermind, I was in fact using the wrong action. I should've use window_del

Even with dwm, u can compile it without modifying the source code and it is totally usable out of the box with good default keybinding and a working bar.

6:05 The bar is actually pretty customizable. Icons in the bar could be added using icon fonts (look up +@fn=n; sequence in the manual) and colors could be changed using a +@fg=n; sequence. Here's the example of mine: i.imgur.com/jbUR8gH.png

Hello, Derek! Thank you for your review! Could you, please, make a video about the use of sandbox isolating programs (such as 'Firejail') one day? I just wonder, when do users need to use them?

Some Arco people are having fun getting it ready for eventual release, and I can't install it worth a shit yet, but that's how I learn. It just snaps me back to login. I'll figure it out when I figure it out, or when someone beats me to it. :) Edit: half-way to getting it running ... Bit of dry reading always helps. Second edit: Got it running.

Should this wm be recommended for new tiling window manager users? Because from what I see it is easier than i3wm

Hey DT, small trick, but you can save and quit on vim with :x rather than using :wq. Saves a keystroke!

I like that they have gone for easy customisation out of the box! Thanks for a good intro. Does spectrewm have the ability to spawn new windows as master, while pushing other windows down the stac? That is literally the only thing that keeps me using dwm as I'm sick of patching and the pretentiousness of suckless. But I don't understand how the dwm people seem to be the only TWM developers who agree with me that it makes little sense to pull up a window to do something only to have it spawn as a thin strip somewhere in the corner. Having to then bring that window to the master position just involves extra key presses. Personally I much prefer getting right into whatever I need to do, and then just hit mod+enter to bring back the previous window as master again.

Gotta try them all ;)

You're a great presenter. I love your channel. Is your linux setup native running on a PC machine? The fonts look very nice. Which distribution comes with all fonts and xserver looks nice yours? Thanks.

"I only hacked one it for a couple of hours" My gosh, the most I could spend trying to configure my i3-gaps install before getting confused and quitting was about 40 minutes"

DT, can you verify your website for brave rewards? I have been trying to send you some BAT, but brave says you are not verified yet so I keep end up giving all my BAT to Luke...

I've used this in the past and I've found that it's even lighter than DWM.

Thanks dt for the review. I wish for good dynamic window manager on Wayland.

Wohoo, finally dt found spectrwm. I use it since its called scrotum (oops scrotwm).

Please give a try on Golem window manager, who still runs on BSD platforms. Seems nice. Thank you for the good job.

10 yeara ago it was called scrotwm. I loved it just for the reason as it was not used by /r/unixporn

Whomever doesn't need at least green, yellow and red color in his status bar - doesnt really need status bar.The whole point of supporting shell scripts in the status bar is to raise alarms from the systems you are monitoring, VPN disconnected, disk space low, temperature high etc. Otherwise just gluing toyota clock under the monitor will do the trick. System-agnostic, survives formats and even works from simple AAA batteries.

The comment line about Scrotwm is there because it's name changed to the current one.

what is the name of the package that shows the rgb color table in the terminal?

Good video.

Interesting WM.

i don't understand this WM i just downloaded to try it. and i changed mod to mod4 and i did a little bit to it mainly uncommented lines but it's like the config doesn't work or something. i tried it with the .spectrwm and without the . and i looked up your config and i didn't see anything different with mine.

Compton AFAIK is deprecated. Its successor is picom.

Hey, DT, why super+shift+c? 🤣 why do you want 3 keys to do something that is soooooo much needed everyday? I'm really Super+Q kinda guy, and I always found super+shift+C like too long to be so much used. Explain your thoughts (because if I liked the C for close, I would happily give up on any app to have Super+C on its own. One is constantly closing windows!)

That background picture looks sick, can I find it somewhere

(9:19 a comment, DT, next time do a simple edit wit keyframes to zoom in for the few seconds that you need, even if its not native resolution, it will make the vídeos easier to enjoy)

Only downside I found was trying to have a system tray with it, I tried running Trayer but it would only show on one workspace.

How does it handle multiple monitors? And does it have a system tray?

I installed manjaro+xfce, and i want to switch from xfce to spectrwm. I downloaded spectrwm but when I choose it on login screen it's just show me black screen for a second and return to login screen. How can I fix it? (I already checked arch wiki: specrtwm and spectrwm github page)

@DistroTube I am finding BSPWM a little "laggy" in opening a new window and moving between workspaces. SpectrWM looks all round "snappier" when used on your machine, but I suspect your machine has quite a bit more grunt than the 4 year old i5-5200 that I am using as a testbed. I do like the BSPWM key bindings, they seem instinctive and would probably be preferable to the three-key combintions common in SpectrWM. What is the experience of others? Snappier than BSPWM? Have you reconfigured the keybindings to avoid the three-key fingerspread?

I am using kubuntu with a tiling script and one problem I found is some programs open extra windows that expect to be floating so they behave weird as they are forced to become large. Zotero a reference manager for libreofffice is one that opens a one-line window to input the reference you need. When you type it produces a list below or above the window of possible references that match your search. With tiling it becomes a proper window and can't use it properly

Hey, DT have you tried fff? It's a console file manager written in bash, greetings

Hey DT, can you make a video about penrose window manager. It's a dynamic wm based on Rust.

awesome. Does this have a lockscreen similar to i3lock (circle style) ?

I am just trying it. But is there a way for me to get my taskbar icons I had back? For e.g., my NextCloud client icon, Signal chat Icon which used to be in the taskbar are missing. Is there a way I could get them?

Wow.. where do you get these awesome wallpapers?

Are dwm-like tags available in spectrwm?

Installed arcolinuxd with basic set of programs. tried to start spectrwm but no luck. lightdm disabled no luck... xsession-errors shows "unable to load charset" bar font is terminus. I have no idea :)

It's a shame the default config file is not the same on ubuntu (everything commented out, not a single key binding...). I guess i'm going to start from yours.

Where did you get your wallpaper from?

I wanna know what terminal emulator is used here

Hi DT. Great video (as usual) is it possible to use polybar instead of the built-in bar? Thank you in advance.

Arco doesn't have Spectrwm edition. I'm shocked. :P

Me: *tries to start spectrwm* Spectrwm: hahahahahaa, I'll never open

Can anyone explain to me the difference between dynamic tiling and manual tiling window manager? .

Haskell is a great language!... Unpopular but great hahaha

I remember using spectrwm on my old Acer 10' netbook and it was pretty good for maximizing my screen real estate. One thing I had trouble with was setting the keybindings for switching my keyboard layout and getting it displayed in the bar. Any idea of how to do that easily? I remember having to write my own script for getting the current layout from an AUR package something like xkb or something like that. There must be an easier way.

Where can i find that colortest program/script?

My ubuntu 19.10 doesn't have spectrwm 3.3.0 in the upstream repo so here's what I did after downloading and untarring the release. sudo apt build-dep spectrwm; cd /path/to/spectrwm-3.3.0-source/linux; make; sudo make install

Does it have a binding to make a window "float" as in not tiled? In i3, the shortcut is $mod+Shift+space.

what would be a good way to install multiple window managers in parallel, to test them out as you do? and maybe being able to switch between them on login or similar

Why no ads on your video DT? I want you to get paid for your work.

I really want to learn haskell for xmonad but I like C too. Is Spectrwm extensible like xmonad? Because xmonad.hs more than a config file is a module that let you create your own twm, spectrwm config file looks more like i3 config file.

The default conf file after installing on ubuntu was pretty bare bones..

How is this WM compared to DWM?

Hello, I really enjoy your videos! I Have one question, I installed and got your config to test it, but even if my modkey is Mod4 (Windows Key), when I press Alt+up or Alt+down and it changes the current workspace. Since I have alt as shorcut for other softwares I use I would like to remove this behaviour, but I cannot seem to find this kyebinding in the configuration file, does the same happen to you? Thank you!

Scrot-wm hahaha. Genius.

The bar ends it for me. Back with Ice

You should try xwallpaper instead of nitrogen. It's much better

I'm using i3 right now but I gave spectrwm a try and I liked it but I got stuck when I couldn't launch nm-applet. I live in Venezuela and I have to switch my network from wired to wifi due to blackouts. I haven't found a way to get my network config icon working

Thanks for the video. I have a problem starting the wm. It will try to launch but will exit out with "cannot open display". Any ideas? I'm on Arch running i3.

hmm that resize mechanism at 13:34 looks interesting