Provided by: herbstluftwm_0.5.3-1_amd64 
NAME
herbstluftwm-tutorial - A tutorial introduction to herbstluftwm
DESCRIPTION
This tutorial includes how to create a basic herbstluftwm setup and introduces the major herbstluftwm
features. This tutorial neither covers all features nor specifies the mentioned features entirely; see
herbstluftwm(1) for a compact and more complete description.
BASIC INSTALLATION
This describes two alternate installation methods. In any case, you also have to install the
dependencies. Beside the standard libraries (GLib, XLib) which are found on nearly any system, you should
install dzen2 (as current as possible) which is needed by the default panel.sh.
Via the package manager
You always should prefer installing herbstluftwm via your package manager on your system. It should be
called herbstluftwm.
After installing it, the default configuration file has to be copied to your home directory:
mkdir -p ~/.config/herbstluftwm
cp /etc/xdg/herbstluftwm/autostart ~/.config/herbstluftwm/
You also should activate the tab completion for herbstclient. In case of bash, you can either activate
the tab completion in general or source the herbstclient-completion from the bash_completion.d directory
in your bashrc. In case of zsh the tab-completion normally is activated already (if not, consider
activating it).
As usual you can define herbstluftwm as your window manager by either selecting herbstluftwm in your
login manager or by starting it in your ~/.xinitrc, mostly by writing to your xinitrc (or .xsession on
some systems):
# start herbstluftwm in locked mode (it will be unlocked at the end of your
# autostart)
exec herbstluftwm --locked
After logging in the next time, you will get a default herbstluftwm session.
Directly from git
If there is no package for your platform or if you want to use the current git version, then you can pull
directly from the main repository:
git clone git://git.cs.fau.de/hlwm herbstluftwm
cd herbstluftwm
# if you want to use the stable version of herbstluftwm, then type:
# git checkout stable
# you can switch back to the development version anytime by:
# git checkout master
make # build the binaries
# install files
mkdir -p ~/bin
# you also have to put $HOME/bin to your path, e.g. by:
echo 'export PATH=$PATH:$HOME/bin' >> ~/.bashrc # or to your zshrc, etc...
ln -s `pwd`/herbstluftwm ~/bin/
ln -s `pwd`/herbstclient ~/bin/
# copy the configuration
mkdir -p ~/.config/herbstluftwm/
cp share/autostart ~/.config/herbstluftwm/
cp share/panel.sh ~/.config/herbstluftwm/
• If you are using bash, then source the bash completion file in your ~/.bashrc
source path-to/herbstluftwm/share/herbstclient-completion
• If you are using zsh, then copy the share/_herbstclient file to the appropriate zsh-completion
directory.
Each time, there is an update, you have to do the following steps in your herbstluftwm directory:
git pull
make
You also can switch to another branch (e.g. stable for the current release or master for the development
version), by doing this in your herbstluftwm directory:
git checkout desiredbranch # insert the branch here
make cleandeps
make
FIRST STEPS
After starting herbstluftwm the screen is filled with a green background initially, which indicates, that
there is only one large frame. A frame is a container where actual windows can be placed or which can be
split into two frames.
Start an xterm by pressing Alt-Return, which will fill your entire screen.
Client
The only way to communicate to herbstluftwm is by using the client application called herbstclient. Its
usual syntax is: herbstclient COMMAND [ARGUMENTS]. This calls a certain COMMAND within your running
herbstluftwm instance, causes some effect (which depends on the given ARGUMENTS). This produces some
output which is printed by herbstclient and lets herbstclient exit with a exit-code (e.g. 0 for success)
like many other UNIX tools:
shell COMMANDS,
\ COMMAND, ARGUMENTS
\ ARGUMENTS .---------.
\ / \
V / V
herbstclient herbstluftwm
/ ^ /
/ output, \ /
/ exit-code '---------'
V output,
shell/terminal exit-code
The most simple command only prints the herbstluftwm version:
$ # lines prefixed with $ describes what to type, other lines describe the
$ # typical output
$ # Type: her<tab>c<tab> ve<tab>
$ herbstclient version
herbstluftwm 0.4.1 (built on Aug 30 2012)
$ herbstclient set window_border_active_color red
$ # now the window border turned red
The configuration of herbstluftwm only is done by calling commands via herbstclient. So the only
configuration file is the autostart which is placed at ~/.config/herbstluftwm/ and which is a sequence of
those herbstclient calls.
Open it in your favourite text editor and replace the Mod-line by this to use the Super-key (or also
called Windows-key) as the main modifier:
# Mod=Mod1 # use alt as the main modifier
Mod=Mod4 # use Super as the main modifier
After saving the autostart file, you have to reload the configuration:
# the following line is identical to directly calling:
# ~/.config/herbstluftwm/autostart
herbstclient reload
Now you may notice that the red border color of your terminal turned green again, because the color is
set in the default autostart. That’s the typical configuration workflow:
1. Try some new settings in the command line
2. Add them to the autostart file
3. Press Mod-Shift-r which calls the reload command or directly execute the autostart file from your
shell to get the error messages if something went wrong.
herbstluftwm 0.5.3 2013-12-25 HERBSTLUFTWM-TUTORI(7)