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Awesome (window manager)

 

 
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Awesome (window manager)
 
 
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awesome is a dynamic window manager
Window manager

A window manager is computer software that controls the placement and appearance of window within a windowing system in a graphical user interface....
 for the X Window System
X Window System

The X Window System is a computing software system and network protocol that provides a graphical user interface for networked computers. It implements the X Window System protocols and architecture and provides windowing system on raster graphics Visual display units and manages Keyboard and pointing device control functions....
. Its development began in September 2007 as a fork of dwm
DWM

The acronym DWM can stand for:*Desktop Window Manager - A compositing window manager included with Microsoft Windows*Deutsche Waffen und Munitionsfabriken...
. It aims at being extremely small and fast and supports multiple layouts such as floating, tiling
Tiling window manager

In computing, a tiling window manager is a window manager with an organization of the screen into mutually non-overlapping frames, as opposed to the more popular approach of coordinate-based stacking of overlapping objects that tries to fully emulate the desktop metaphor....
, and maximized. Like many other tiling window manager
Tiling window manager

In computing, a tiling window manager is a window manager with an organization of the screen into mutually non-overlapping frames, as opposed to the more popular approach of coordinate-based stacking of overlapping objects that tries to fully emulate the desktop metaphor....
s, it strives to make it possible for the user to productively manage windows without the use of the mouse.

awesome is distributed on a wide range of Unix-like operating systems, including Arch Linux
Arch Linux

Arch Linux is a Linux distribution intended to be lightweight and simple. The design approach of the development team focuses on "simplicity", elegance, code correctness and Minimalism ....
, Debian
Debian

Debian GNU/Linux is one of the most popular and influential computer operating systems composed of free software and open source software....
, Ubuntu, Gentoo
Gentoo Linux

Gentoo is a computer operating system built on top of the Linux Kernel and based on the Portage package management system. It is distributed as Free software....
, FreeBSD
FreeBSD

FreeBSD is a Unix-like free software operating system descended from AT&T Unix via the Berkeley Software Distribution branch through the 386BSD and Berkeley Software Distribution#4.4BSD and descendants operating systems....
, NetBSD
NetBSD

NetBSD is a freely redistributable, open source version of the Unix-derivative Berkeley Software Distribution computer operating system. It was the second open source BSD descendant to be formally released, after 386BSD, and continues to be actively developed....
 and OpenBSD
OpenBSD

OpenBSD is a Unix-like computer operating system descended from Berkeley Software Distribution , a Unix derivative developed at the University of California, Berkeley....
.

The 3.0 version, released September 18, 2008, uses the XCB
XCB

In computing, XCB is a C binding for the X Window System. It is implemented as free software and aims to replace Xlib. The project was started in 2001 by Bart Massey....
 library to communicate with the X server, making awesome the first window manager to use this library instead of Xlib
Xlib

Xlib is an X Window System protocol client library in the C . It contains subroutines for interacting with an X Server . These functions allow programmers to write programs without knowing the details of the protocol ....
.






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Encyclopedia


awesome is a dynamic window manager
Window manager

A window manager is computer software that controls the placement and appearance of window within a windowing system in a graphical user interface....
 for the X Window System
X Window System

The X Window System is a computing software system and network protocol that provides a graphical user interface for networked computers. It implements the X Window System protocols and architecture and provides windowing system on raster graphics Visual display units and manages Keyboard and pointing device control functions....
. Its development began in September 2007 as a fork of dwm
DWM

The acronym DWM can stand for:*Desktop Window Manager - A compositing window manager included with Microsoft Windows*Deutsche Waffen und Munitionsfabriken...
. It aims at being extremely small and fast and supports multiple layouts such as floating, tiling
Tiling window manager

In computing, a tiling window manager is a window manager with an organization of the screen into mutually non-overlapping frames, as opposed to the more popular approach of coordinate-based stacking of overlapping objects that tries to fully emulate the desktop metaphor....
, and maximized. Like many other tiling window manager
Tiling window manager

In computing, a tiling window manager is a window manager with an organization of the screen into mutually non-overlapping frames, as opposed to the more popular approach of coordinate-based stacking of overlapping objects that tries to fully emulate the desktop metaphor....
s, it strives to make it possible for the user to productively manage windows without the use of the mouse.

awesome is distributed on a wide range of Unix-like operating systems, including Arch Linux
Arch Linux

Arch Linux is a Linux distribution intended to be lightweight and simple. The design approach of the development team focuses on "simplicity", elegance, code correctness and Minimalism ....
, Debian
Debian

Debian GNU/Linux is one of the most popular and influential computer operating systems composed of free software and open source software....
, Ubuntu, Gentoo
Gentoo Linux

Gentoo is a computer operating system built on top of the Linux Kernel and based on the Portage package management system. It is distributed as Free software....
, FreeBSD
FreeBSD

FreeBSD is a Unix-like free software operating system descended from AT&T Unix via the Berkeley Software Distribution branch through the 386BSD and Berkeley Software Distribution#4.4BSD and descendants operating systems....
, NetBSD
NetBSD

NetBSD is a freely redistributable, open source version of the Unix-derivative Berkeley Software Distribution computer operating system. It was the second open source BSD descendant to be formally released, after 386BSD, and continues to be actively developed....
 and OpenBSD
OpenBSD

OpenBSD is a Unix-like computer operating system descended from Berkeley Software Distribution , a Unix derivative developed at the University of California, Berkeley....
.

The 3.0 version, released September 18, 2008, uses the XCB
XCB

In computing, XCB is a C binding for the X Window System. It is implemented as free software and aims to replace Xlib. The project was started in 2001 by Bart Massey....
 library to communicate with the X server, making awesome the first window manager to use this library instead of Xlib
Xlib

Xlib is an X Window System protocol client library in the C . It contains subroutines for interacting with an X Server . These functions allow programmers to write programs without knowing the details of the protocol ....
. It also supports the pango
Pango

Pango is a free software and open source software computing library for rendering internationalized texts in high quality. Different font backends can be used, allowing cross-platform support....
 markup language, and D-Bus
D-Bus

D-Bus is a simple inter-process communication system for software applications to communicate with one another. D-Bus was heavily influenced by KDE2–3's DCOP system and has replaced it in the KDE 4 release; it is supported on Linux, Microsoft Windows and Apple OS X operating systems and is used by Qt 4 and GNOME....
 for communication.

The name of the window manager is intended to be autological.

Features

  • Multiple and per screen status bars, including a variety of widgets (text and icon boxes, graphs, progress bars, and so on).
  • Zero mouse dependency. Keyboard accelerated desktop environment.
  • Multihead support (XRandR, Xinerama
    Xinerama

    Xinerama is an extension to the X Window System which enables Multi-monitor X applications and window managers to use two or more physical displays as one large virtual display....
     or Zaphod mode).
  • EWMH
    Extended Window Manager Hints

    Extended Window Manager Hints, aka NetWM or Net WM, is an X Window System standard for X window manager. It defines various interactions between window managers, utilities, and applications, all part of an entire desktop environment....
     support.
  • Real transparency support (using Composite extension and xcompmgr).
  • Customized entirely through editing a Lua script configuration file.
  • Each function for manipulating the environment is bindable to keys/ mouse buttons and executable remotely via a socket (awesome-client).


Licensing

awesome is free software licensed under the GNU General Public License
GNU General Public License

The GNU General Public License is a widely used free software license, originally written by Richard Stallman for the GNU project. The GPL is the most popular and well-known example of the type of strong copyleft license that requires derived works to be available under the same copyleft....
 version 2.

See also

  • dwm
    DWM

    The acronym DWM can stand for:*Desktop Window Manager - A compositing window manager included with Microsoft Windows*Deutsche Waffen und Munitionsfabriken...
  • wmii
    Wmii

    wmii is a dynamic tiling window manager window manager for X11. It supports classic and dynamic window management with extended Computer keyboard, computer mouse, and filesystem based remote control....
  • StumpWM
    Stumpwm

    StumpWM is a tiling window manager for POSIX-compliant Unix-like operating systems running the X Window System. It started as a rewrite of the ratpoison window manager....
  • Ion (window manager)
  • Tiling window manager
    Tiling window manager

    In computing, a tiling window manager is a window manager with an organization of the screen into mutually non-overlapping frames, as opposed to the more popular approach of coordinate-based stacking of overlapping objects that tries to fully emulate the desktop metaphor....
  • XMonad
    Xmonad

    xmonad is a tiling window manager for the X Window System, written in the Functional programming Haskell .Begun in March 2007, it is similar to dwm, larswm, Stumpwm and other members of the tiling window manager family, in that it strives to make it possible for the user to productively manage windows without the use of the Mouse ....


External links