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GNOME with Xmonad on Ubuntu 12.04

Xmonad is a minimalistic tiling window manager written and configured in Haskell. GNOME is a free and popular desktop environment for linux. GNOME with Xmonad is a wonderful combination of the two. This tutorial will go over how to install and get started using GNOME with Xmonad on Ubuntu 12.04.

Installing

Open up a terminal and install gnome-panel and xmonad:

sudo apt-get install gnome-panel xmonad

Now create the file ~/.xmonad/xmonad.hs with the following contents:

import XMonad
import XMonad.Config.Gnome

main = xmonad gnomeConfig

That's it!

Now log out. When you come to the login screen, you'll see a white circle.

Click on the white circle to see a list of your available desktop environments. Select "GNOME with Xmonad".

If all goes well, you should be greeted with an empty GNOME desktop.

Press Alt-Shift-Enter a couple of times and you should see a bunch of tiled terminals.

Getting Started

Now we've gotten GNOME with Xmonad up and running. To get started using your new desktop environment, check out the Xmonad tour and refer to this handy cheat sheet:

The commands I use most frequently are:

Alt-Shift-Enter # create new terminal
Alt-p           # launch application
Alt-Space       # change window layout
Alt-Tab         # switch window
Alt-b           # toggle GNOME menu bar and status bar

Extra: Exploring Files

Now that you've gotten situated, you might be wondering where GNOME and Xmonad are storing all their configuration files. Let's explore some of these files. Then, we'll use what we've learned to add a custom Xmonad icon to the little white circle when we select "GNOME with Xmonad" at the login screen.

First up, head over to /usr/share/xsessions. This directory contains the files that specify which desktop environments we can select when we log in.

michael@michael:/usr/share/xsessionsλ ls -1
gnome-classic.desktop
gnome.desktop
gnome-fallback.desktop
gnome-shell.desktop
gnome-xmonad.desktop
ubuntu-2d.desktop
ubuntu.desktop
xmonad.desktop

Let's take a look at gnome-xmonad.desktop.

michael@michael:/usr/share/xsessionsλ cat gnome-xmonad.desktop
[Desktop Entry]
Name=GNOME with Xmonad
Exec=gnome-session-xmonad
TryExec=gnome-session
Icon=
Type=Application

Let's take a peek at the gnome-session-xmonad command.

michael@michael:/usr/share/xsessionsλ which gnome-session-xmonad
/usr/bin/gnome-session-xmonad
michael@michael:/usr/share/xsessionsλ cat $(!!)
cat $(which gnome-session-xmonad)
#! /bin/sh
exec gnome-session --session xmonad "$@"

So gnome-xmonad.desktop executes gnome-session-xmonad which in turn calls gnome-session --session xmonad. So where's the xmonad gnome session? It's over in /usr/share/gnome-sessions/sessions.

michael@michael:/usr/share/gnome-session/sessionsλ ls -1
gnome-classic.session
gnome-fallback.session
gnome.session
ubuntu-2d.session
ubuntu.session
xmonad.session

Let's look at xmonad.session.

michael@michael:/usr/share/gnome-session/sessionsλ cat xmonad.session
[GNOME Session]
Name=Xmonad/GNOME
RequiredComponents=gnome-settings-daemon;gnome-panel;
RequiredProviders=windowmanager;
DefaultProvider-windowmanager=xmonad

Interesting! The line DefaultProvider-windowmanager=xmonad sets Xmonad as the default window manager.

Well, what about the icons in the little white circle? Those guys are located in /usr/share/unity-greeter.

michael@michael:/usr/share/unity-greeterλ ls -1
a11y.svg
arrow_left.png
arrow_right.png
cof.png
gnome_badge.png
kde_badge.png
logo.png
message.png
recovery_console_badge.png
ubuntu_badge.png
unknown_badge.png

Run eog unknown_badge.png and you'll see the familiar white circle. Head over here to download some extra badges. Place custom_gnome-xmonad_badge.png and custom_xmonad_badge.png in /usr/share/unity-greeter and you're good to go! Now, a nice Xmonad icon will appear in the little white circle when you log in with "GNOME with Xmonad"!