Ricing Series Part 2 - Installing bspwm

In the previous part of this series, I installed Arch Linux in a virtual machine. In this part, I will install my desktop environment of choice: bspwm

Install Xorg⌗

Before we install bspwm, we need to install xorg-server

sudo pacman -S xorg-server xorg-apps

Install Bspwm⌗

Next we will install the bspwm window manager and sxhkd for the X hotkey daemon

Install Bspwm/Sxhkd Configuration⌗

The example configuration files are located in /usr/share/doc/bspwm/examples/

Copy or install the bspwmrc from that directory into ~/.config/bspwm and the sxhkdrc into ~/.config/sxhdk

install -Dm755 /usr/share/doc/bspwm/examples/bspwmrc ~/.config/bspwm/bspwmrc
install -Dm644 /usr/share/doc/bspwm/examples/sxhkdrc ~/.config/sxhkd/sxhkdrc

Configure Sxhkd⌗

Edit the file at ~/.config/sxhkd/sxhkdrc

I prefer to use the alt key as my modifier key, so I will change most instances of super + to alt +

Additionally, I will change some of the default programs that will be launched from the keybinds. For example, the default terminal emulator is urxvt, while my terminal emulator of choice is kitty

Install Necessary Programs⌗

Before rebooting, it is extremely important to ensure that you at least have a working keybinding for launching a terminal emulator

In my case, I need to make sure that I have the kitty emulator installed and that it is either in the system path, or the path to the program is specified directly in the keybinding

Additionally, by default, bspwm uses dmenu as its application launcher, so ensure that you have dmenu or another application launcher such as rofi installed

sudo pacman -S kitty dmenu rofi

Install LightDM and Web Greeter⌗

While it is possible to launch bspwm from xorg, I prefer to use a display manager to make it easy to install and manage multiple desktop environments/window managers

The display manager I will use is: lightdm And I will use the web-greeter greeter for LightDM

Install LighDM⌗

sudo pacman -S lightdm

Install Web Greeter⌗

web-greeter is “A modern, visually appealing greeter for LightDm, that allows to create web based themes with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript”

We need to install this package from the AUR, and my preferred method is to use the paru AUR helper

Install Paru⌗

sudo pacman -S --needed base-devel git
git clone https://aur.archlinux.org/paru.git
cd paru
makepkg -si

Once paru is installed, run the following command to install the web-greeter package

paru -S web-greeter

Set Web Greeter Theme⌗

Change theme: dracula in the configuration file located at /etc/lightdm/web-greeter.yml

Set theme to dracula in the web-greeter configuration

Then set the web-greeter theme as the default theme to use for LightDM

Set web-greeter as default in lightdm configuration

After installing lightdm and a greeter, enable lightdm.service so LightDM will start at boot

sudo systemctl enable lightdm.service

Reboot⌗

Upon rebooting, you should be shown the default LightDM greeter and login page

After logging in, the screen will be blank and you will have to enter one of the hotkeys set up in Configure Sxhkd. For instance, alt + enter for me will launch the kity terminal