My Emacs and other configurations for Linux

This is the set of files that powers my day-to-day computing experience. GNU Emacs is its centrepiece, with other programs providing ancillary functionalities. In some cases, such as with the configurations for Vim, all relevant files are carried over from my pre-Emacs days and are maintained as a contingency plan or in case I need to revisit some old setup.

Do not track my dotfiles (rolling, unstable, and untested)

Ceci n'est pas une distribution Emacs.

This repo functions as a laboratory of experimentation for my computing environment. What I do with Emacs or any other program in the GNU/Linux milieu that forms part of my dotfiles is only meant to work for me. As such, I offer no support whatsoever to those tracking this repository and may introduce breaking changes without prior notice.

This is all to say that you understand the risks associated with tracking an ever-changing project that does not enjoy widespread testing and whose target audience is only me. If you are fine with that and are willing to assume responsibility for any possible breakage, then please feel welcome to follow along. You can always open an issue here or contribute any fixes, if you will.

Emacs setup

I do not recommend you reproduce my Emacs setup because I do not design it as a distribution for other people. If you insist though, the files are in the emacs directory. Add them to your home directory with:

/path/to/prot-dotfiles $ stow -t "$HOME" emacs

This will create symlinks to my configuration files inside the ~/.emacs.d directory. My custom libraries are in the directory prot-lisp while the configuration modules (where we tweak variables, assign key bindings, etc.) are in the directory prot-emacs-modules.

The modules are loaded from the init.el. Each module defines the packages to install/load. My setup auto-installs packages. This will happen the first time you start up Emacs.

Read the file prot-emacs.org for further information on the anatomy of my Emacs setup.

If you make changes to the dotfiles, such as by moving things around, run stow again with the -R flag:

/path/to/prot-dotfiles $ stow -t "$HOME" -R emacs

Window managers

My tiling window managers for Xorg are bspwm, herbstluftwm, and i3 (in no particular order). They are all configured to be almost the same: they share settings for the wallpaper, system panel, theme, keyboard layout, and display compositor. All settings are in the xorg-twm directory ("twm" stands for "tiling window manager"). What differentiates the window managers is their individual features.

• bspwm: I have been using it for years and consider it top-notch. It is minimal, stable, and scriptable. Use this if you prefer automatic tiling. It does not have layout features out-of-the-box, such as a tabbed layout: it can place windows in tiles or float them.

• herbstluftwm (hlwm): herbstluftwm prioritises manual tiling methods. It has the concept of "frames", which are rectangles that include regular app windows. Each frame has its own dimensions are layout. For example, it is possible to have a frame where windows are vertically layed out one below the other and another frame with a tabbed layout. What makes this even more appealing, is the ease with which a workspace can be preconfigured (or dymanically adjusted) to a given arrangement of frames and their layouts. I think herbstluftwm is optimal for screens wider than the the regular 1920x1080. Otherwise, the manual tiling method adds cognitive load that the user does not have while using bspwm.

• i3 (or i3wm): The first tiling window manager I ever used (circa 2017). The reason I abandoned it back in the day in favour of bspwm is because its default tiling method requires manual intervention to change the split direction. On a small laptop monitor, I prefer this to be done automatically, hence bspwm. Though on a wide monitor, I typically keep the split direction constant. i3 has the concept of the "container" (same as the herbstluftwm "frame"), which can be set to stacked, tabbed, or tiled layouts. As such, i3 is somewhere between bspwm and herbstluftwm. Choose according to your needs.

Check the xtwm-key-binding-cheatsheet.md file for an overview of their key bindings.

When I have a video call or record a video of my desktop session, I always use herbstluftwm because of its ability to support virtual monitors. Otherwise I oscillate between bspwm and i3, depending on the machine I am using.

What about Wayland? I have experimented with it on GNOME where it works fine. I even have some configurations for tiling compositors, but am not happy with those. The Wayland ecosystem is not ready yet for my use-case: I am missing something like sxhkd and certain applications do not work properly on it, such screen sharing. I will check again some time over the medium term, as Wayland seems inevitable.

Copying

Unless otherwise noted, all code herein is distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License Version 3 or later.