Preferred DE of the FreeBSD users

Which is your current DE or WM? If not listed please specify!

  • Total voters
    252
I switched countless times between different DEs and WMs and Wayland compositors. This is my second disease after Linux distro hopping, which FreeBSD cured me of.

My absolute favorite so far is herbstluftwm, using no compositor. It's unfairly little popular. I've almost completely figured out all of its settings, and I really like the way it works. As a panel, I use customized barpyrus, on which I have nothing but workspaces, current window title, and date. There's also a tray, but only so that I know which application I should turn it off in.

Second place in my heart is occupied by Xfce, and I respect all other projects as well, even the modern GNOME. It's really hard to make a confident choice when you have so many options. At the same time, much of what you can read about something is highly subjective and sometimes outdated or just plain wrong.
 
fvwm2
After using lxde and xfce for quite a while I figured out:
I don't need, and want no desktop-environment. A simple WM is quite enough for me.

I wanted to get rid of this waste-paper basket, config the menus completely, especially throw everything out I don't want, get rid of any redundancy, config my own windows-decors, remove and add buttons of my own in the title-bars...
- being able to configure everything myself.
And I will not struggle with cryptical named trees of config-files, written in XML.
(config files must not be in XML!)

Maybe there are other WMs which config is more comprehendable, but I'm in fvwm2 now,
got my config, am really quite satisfied with it, I don't care what others think if it does not look cool, and will continue using it, as long as... I don't know; when it's removed from the ports tree, which I hope and think will not happen in the next couple of years.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
%pupil -sceptical said:
fvwm2
...
will continue using it, as long as... when it's removed from the ports tree, which I hope and think will not happen in the next couple of years.
Click to expand...
Just keep a local copy of its source and (re)build as needed.
A while ago I forked DWM of ver. 6.0 locally, customized it, wrote a couple of my own layouts, and I don't care about newer versions (currently 6.5). I'm happy with what I have.
 
aragats said:
Just keep a local copy of its source and (re)build as needed.
Click to expand...
Doh! Yes, of course. Sometimes one does not think of most simplest things.
Thanks for the tip!

aragats said:
and I don't care about newer versions (currently 6.5). I'm happy with what I have.
Click to expand...
When it works, does the deed, and one is quite happy with it, why change?
If I need to get into another WM I had relearn everything for the config I want all over, again, and need to make a complete new config - again.

That's one of the things pissed me off with Windows.
With many updates, my config gone, all icons 'sorted' again, all settings set to default (especially those annoying sounds - at least newer versions of 7 finally had the 'shut-the-fuck-up'-check-box, so one didn't have to uncheck all those hundreds of boxes, again)
And with every new version, everything new (and more BS).

If you know what you want/need, config the DE/WM has to be done once.
After that, only small adaptions have to be made.
 
I swapped Xmonad for Mate. Here's why:
  • Mate is at least getting ready for Wayland, but Xmonad is very late with this and it is not clear at all whether they will be able to switch. I used Xmonad for 8 years, but Xmonad proved itself to be marginal because it did not switch to Wayland in time (like other WMs like Awesome WM). Xmonad has many hotkeys (which I personally defined). But you can't work in Tiling WM with a mouse. And these hotkeys conflict with Emacs. This is wrong, because Emacs is a much greater entity than any DE/WM.
  • By the way, there were some problems with the Haskell bindings for FreeBSD, and I couldn't always compile the latest version of Xmonad. So I didn't wait for the situation to get worse.
  • Mate is well adapted to FreeBSD, works absolutely without problems, is very stable (compared to Gnome/KDE). Perhaps this is due to its simplicity, the lack of significant modifications and the lack of unhealthy excessive attention from the community. Perhaps such a good adaptation is also connected with the fact that Mate is used in GhostBSD.
  • Mate can be configured in such a way that hotkeys will not conflict with Emacs at all. In other words, any hotkeys can be easily removed from Mate (by manually modifying the exported gconf file). Yes, I will just move the mouse or trackball, but at least nothing will interfere with my beloved Emacs. Other DEs such as KDE have a huge number of hotkeys that interfere with Emacs.
  • On FreeBSD you can install the minimal or full Mate meta package, and both are a fraction of the weight of Gnome or KDE.
  • Before switching to Mate from Xmonad, I tested the window managers Sway and Hyprland (specifically on FreeBSD). I was able to set up both, and they work really fast, which proves the advantages of Wayland. I also tested new-to-me GPU-accelerated terminals like Kitty/Alacritty in them, and these terminals also worked quite well in FreeBSD. However, there were many bugs in Sway/Hyprland. It was clear that they were not yet stable on FreeBSD.
  • I see that many people voted for XFCE, but in my opinion Gnome2/Mate were always prettier than XFCE. Nowadays XFCE is not such a lightweight DE anymore.
 
aragats said:
I switched from Xmonad to DWM many years ago, and DWM provides exactly the same functionality as Xmonad.
I haven't thought about Wayland, just discovered there exists DWM for Wayland.
Click to expand...
HI Mate, some dwl tutorials

codeberg.org

dwl

dwm for Wayland
codeberg.org codeberg.org

forums.freebsd.org

freebsd dwl wayland tiling window manager install

freebsd dwl wayland tiling window manager install with patches in a separate git branch. the reason why you need to build dwl on freebsd rather than using the port or packages is because the dwl package lets you set an variable called DWL_HOME_CONFIG that points to a dwl config.h file which...
forums.freebsd.org forums.freebsd.org

forums.freebsd.org

dwl setting up volume keys on freebsd with the mixer command

setting up the media volume keys on the dwl wayland tiling window manager using the mixer command to raise, lower and mute the volume update you dont need to import the xf86 header, dwl already imports a version we can use updated code /* commands */ static const char *volumeup[] = {...
forums.freebsd.org forums.freebsd.org

forums.freebsd.org

dwl warp your cursor to another display with wlrctl

dwl warp (move) your cursor to another display with a keyboard shortcut using wlrctl which doesnt need root permissions to move the cursor warping your cursor will move your cursor to another display and give that display focus, i also cover moving windows to another display as well...
forums.freebsd.org forums.freebsd.org

github.com

cerberus/dwl/dwl-freebsd.org at master · NapoleonWils0n/cerberus

cerberus code library. Contribute to NapoleonWils0n/cerberus development by creating an account on GitHub.
github.com github.com

github.com

cerberus/dwl at master · NapoleonWils0n/cerberus

cerberus code library. Contribute to NapoleonWils0n/cerberus development by creating an account on GitHub.
github.com github.com
 
aragats said:
I switched from Xmonad to DWM
Click to expand...
as I always say it's always worth just to read here.
Thanks for that link to suckless.org

My favorite quotes about engineering suite their philosophy exactly:
"Perfection is not reached when nothing can be added anymore,
but when there's nothing left can be skipped."
"As many as needed, as few as possible."

I'll be there a while reading, and reconsidering.... :cool:
That seems to be exactly my thing.
Thanks!
 
  • Thanks
Reactions: dnb
Couple of wayland wlroots apps id recommend

tofi

An extremely fast and simple dmenu / rofi replacement for wlroots-based Wayland
Click to expand...

github.com

GitHub - philj56/tofi: Tiny dynamic menu for Wayland

Tiny dynamic menu for Wayland. Contribute to philj56/tofi development by creating an account on GitHub.
github.com github.com

my tofi config

github.com

freebsd-dotfiles-xps/.config/tofi/config at master · NapoleonWils0n/freebsd-dotfiles-xps

freebsd dotfiles dell xps 15 2019. Contribute to NapoleonWils0n/freebsd-dotfiles-xps development by creating an account on GitHub.
github.com github.com

wlr-which-key

Keymap manager for wlroots-based compositors. Inspired by which-key.nvim.
Click to expand...

github.com

GitHub - MaxVerevkin/wlr-which-key: Keymap manager for wlroots-based compositors

Keymap manager for wlroots-based compositors. Contribute to MaxVerevkin/wlr-which-key development by creating an account on GitHub.
github.com github.com

my wlr-which-key config

github.com

freebsd-dotfiles-xps/.config/wlr-which-key/config.yaml at master · NapoleonWils0n/freebsd-dotfiles-xps

freebsd dotfiles dell xps 15 2019. Contribute to NapoleonWils0n/freebsd-dotfiles-xps development by creating an account on GitHub.
github.com github.com
 
For as long as i remember i used i3wm until i decided to use something different - Qtile. But as i switched my editors to neovim and its lua config so at some point i will try awesome wm but - i would love to try dwm shame i dont know C
 
You really don't need to know C to edit dwm's config file. I have a little page which goes through some basics, https://srobb.net/dwm.html and better yet, that page has a link to a really good tutorial on Debian forums that goes through config.h line by line. If you just stick with their default, it isn't bad either. Alt+Shift+Enter opens a terminal (st by default), alt+p opens dmenu so you can put in any command you choose, firefox opens on tag (similar to workspace) 9, which can be confusing, it's one thing I always change, but anyway, the configuration isn't hard, even for someone who doesn't know C, like myself (that is, I don't know C, I see include stdio.h and read it as Studio H, maybe because I was around during the days of Studio 54 in NYC). Of course, it depends what you're used to, and like. For example, I tried i3m and didn't like it much, but I was already so used to dwm that everything felt wrong. Which might be the case for you if you try dwm, it's just different than i3m.

(And I'm making assumptions here--it may be that you are thinking of totally rewriting source code and can do it with these others, but generally, with dwm, one just copies config.def.h to config.h and edits that, so I'm assuming that that's all we're talking about.)
 
aragats said:
Since Windows key is useless, I define it to be the main modifier key in config.h:
Code: 
#define MODKEY Mod4Mask
to use instead of Alt in all combinations.
Click to expand...
I think everyone defines Mod4 key for its correct use - modifier lol.

scottro said:
You really don't need to know C to edit dwm's config file. I have a little page which goes through some basics, https://srobb.net/dwm.html and better yet, that page has a link to a really good tutorial on Debian forums that goes through config.h line by line. If you just stick with their default, it isn't bad either. Alt+Shift+Enter opens a terminal (st by default), alt+p opens dmenu so you can put in any command you choose, firefox opens on tag (similar to workspace) 9, which can be confusing, it's one thing I always change, but anyway, the configuration isn't hard, even for someone who doesn't know C, like myself (that is, I don't know C, I see include stdio.h and read it as Studio H, maybe because I was around during the days of Studio 54 in NYC). Of course, it depends what you're used to, and like. For example, I tried i3m and didn't like it much, but I was already so used to dwm that everything felt wrong. Which might be the case for you if you try dwm, it's just different than i3m.

(And I'm making assumptions here--it may be that you are thinking of totally rewriting source code and can do it with these others, but generally, with dwm, one just copies config.def.h to config.h and edits that, so I'm assuming that that's all we're talking about.)
Click to expand...
I might gonna have a look at it a bit closer! as i have some test-beds to try dwm.
 
Yes, I use Mod4 as well, but was trying to keep things simple. Actually, if you use the port, there is an option to use Mod4 as mod key, rather than Alt in the port's config file, though I just use a custom config.h. (The Wayland version, dwl, also makes it easy to use Mod4, the syntax is slightly different, but it's right there in config.def.h
/* If you want to use the windows key for MODKEY, use WLR_MODIFIER_LOGO */
#define MODKEY WLR_MODIFIER_ALT
Click to expand...
GlitchyDot I highly recommend the Debian forum post linked to on my page--it's for an older version, but very little has changed, and as I said before, it goes through config.h line by line.
 
I join the users who want a FreeBSD system with a default desktop environment, I hope so, that would increase the market share of users using the system in the world, which would draw attention to advertising marketing and thus revenue for the foundation and survival of FreeBSD.
 
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