Xmonad dual screen setup

The pleasure of being able to harness the full power of Arch Linux together with a proper window manager far outweighs the inconvenience. The topic of X1 Carbon vs. Macbook is probably best left for another article though. I started with i3, as it is undoubtedly the most popular WM out there, and perhaps the most beginner-friendly.

In comparison to i3, the mental model adopted by XMonad is unexpectedly much more intuitive in several aspects, out of the box:. The above are only the beginning, as xmonad-contrib offers many ready-to-use modules which massively enhance the already great defaults. Layout algorithms are the fundamentals of any window manager. This layout adds tabs to the default Fullscreen layout.

This is the essential layout for multi-monitor setups, where each application automatically occupies the whole screen. This is a frequent use case I had in i3: Divide a window into two panes and cycle between applications within an individual pane. For example, I might have a tech talk playing in one pane, while alternatively programming with a code editor or taking notes with org-mode in the other pane.

The TwoPane layout achieves this by fixing the application in the main pane while allowing you to cycle through other applications in the secondary pane.

By default the split is vertical. However, just like the case in Tall layout, by simply mirroring the layout you can also make the split horizontal, as shown in the screenshot. The default Tall layout only allows for adjusting the ratio of the main split, i.

However, there might be a use case where you want to have one relatively large secondary pane e. Emacs and a relatively small secondary pane e.

ResizableTall extends Tall by allowing for the layout to be extended just fine. The screenshot shows both the ratio of the main split and that between the secondary panes adjusted. This layout will automatically split your focused window in two to make space for the newly created window.

I find the above listed layouts able to satisfy almost all of my daily needs for now. However, you can create much more complicated custom layouts by using modules such as Xmonad. Combo or Xmonad. This is an essential module for multi-monitor setups.

When multiple monitors are connected, the screen ids get assigned quite arbitrarily by default. This module provides the getScreen and viewScreen functions that help us do just that.

This achieves the same thing as that by i3gaps. You need to add an ewmh hook if you want to correctly use rofi to locate and switch to a running application by its name. Just import the module and then add ewmh as such:.

The process for doing this is documented here. Installing xmonad-config is a matter of backing up any xmonad configuration you may already have, cloning the git repository, and updating your PATH. Once xmonad-config is installed, you also need to ensure you can actually start xmonad.

The mechanism to do this varies based on each environment, but here are some instructions for some common login managers. After starting xmonad, use the following keyboard shortcuts to function in your new window manager. I recommend you print these out so that you don't get stranded once you logout and back in. This includes things like key bindings, colors, layouts, etc. You may need to have some basic understanding of Haskell in order to modify this file, but most people have no problems.

Scripts are provided to do things like take screenshots, start dmenu, or fix your multi-head layout after a fullscreen application may have turned off one of the screens. If your display setup is different, you need to edit the xmobar and stalonetray configurations provided, probably just to adjust the geometry of the bars for your resolution.

An example would be if you're using xmonad-config on a laptop with a lower resolution screen. In this example, you'd simply need to edit the geometries in xmobar-single. When you first clone xmonad-config, it is setup to use the single display configuration files. To switch between the single and dual display setups, you must edit xmonad-session-rc and xmonad. Learn more. Asked 10 years, 6 months ago.

Active 7 years, 2 months ago. Viewed 16k times. Improve this question. Bruno Pereira Multi-monitor navigation basics from the Xmonad FAQ : " When running with multiple monitors Xinerama, TwinView, xrandr , each screen has exactly one workspace visible. When xmonad starts, workspace 1 is on screen 1, workspace 2 is on screen 2, etc. When switching workspaces to one that is already visible, the current and visible workspaces are swapped.

Add a comment. Active Oldest Votes. Improve this answer. Community Bot 1. And if you don't know what --output s are available, try xrandr -q — Tarrasch. Rodrigo Martins de Oliveira Rodrigo Martins de Oliveira 5, 8 8 gold badges 36 36 silver badges 70 70 bronze badges. Sign up or log in Sign up using Google.