suckless tools really do suck less.

10/10/2017

Over the last few days I have been exploring new applications to switch up my workflow as things have become stale and boring. The two changes I have made so far are with my window manager and terminal emulator.

Window manager: Formerly, and for a long time I used i3 as my window manager. Now I have made the switch to dwm. dwm in its default configuration is pretty great, however the last few days I have made some small changes and additions that really make it my own. Unlike i3, dwm uses a stacking layout. A stacking layout consists of two areas on your screen, a 'master' area and a 'stack'. A master area is a portion of the screen you are most often focussing on, for me, it is the left half of my screen. I generally keep one window in the master area. The stack is the right half of my screen and consists of the windows I want to see, yet don't need my full attention. This is often my IRC client and terminals.

Configuring dwm is done entirely inside a c header file and any changes need to be compiled, which means to apply them you need to restart X. This is at first annoying, however over time I have become use to it. It makes me double and triple check my changes, I like that. Terminal emulator: Previously, I was using lxterminal, now I have switched to st. The configuration workflow (like every other suckless tool) is the same as dwm. I don't have much to say for st yet as I have only just begun using it, however, so far my workflow is identical, all my shortcuts work (once added) and I am not having any difficulties.

Since originally writing this post I have adopted the use of two other suckless applications: surf and tabbed.

Surf is a minimalist web browser that comes with no bells and whistles. Like most other suckless applications modifications are made in the source files. This browser doesn't support tabs and is intended to be used one website at a time, however there is a way around this, sort of.

Tabbed is an application that allows multiple instances of an application to be controlled within one application, providing surf with tab like functionality.

Suckless applications are so far really high quality and everything I want.