for software used see software-list

the tiled window manager dwm handles the arrangement of xserver windows (screenshot), configured to draw no borders and a monospace font.

cursor blinking disabled for gtk2.0 and gtk3.0.

st with a screen session. st -e screen. ctrl+c creates new terminal buffers, ctrl+a n and ctrl+a n switch between them. using this, a terminal emulator that supports tabs is not necessary. font: "Gohu GohuFont:pixelsize=14:antialias=false"

important commands

• search: search for files containing a list of keywords and display file names
• searchl: search for files containing a list of keywords and display matching lines and filenames
• replacer: replace strings in text files
• ea: opens files in the emacs instance in the background. an emacs client is open in another screen window
• see also sph-script

xbindkeys to bind the most important commands to f keys. for example f1 is the web browser, f2 the file manager, f3 the terminal. f5 opens dmenu, a line appearing at the top of the screen to enter a program name to be run

~/.xbindkeysrc.scm

(xbindkey (quote (F1)) "firefox")
(xbindkey (quote (F2)) "thunar")
(xbindkey (quote (F3)) "st -e screen")
(xbindkey (quote (F5)) "dmenu_run")
(xbindkey (quote (F9)) "screenshot")

other programs are started using dmenu_run on f5

• collect-file: symlink (same filesystem) or copy (different filesystem) selected files into $HOME/collections/yyyy-mm-dd
• delete-if-empty: recursively delete empty files and directories
• group: a dialog pop-up and selected files ar moved in a new or existing directory with the given name
• move-up: move selected files into the parent directory
• prepend-video-tags: prepend resolution and framerate to video file names: 1080p60.video.mkv
• rate 1, rate 2, rate 3, rate 4, and rate 5: for moving files and directory structures under numeric rating directories
• splice: files of the selected directories are moved into the current directory and the selected directories are removed. duplicate file names are automatically renamed
• unpack: unpack archives with the unp utility

boot goes to the tty console login with disabled cursor blinking (how to turn that off, there is an aur package for that). when logging in, a luks partition or file /home/.{username} is decrypted and mounted to /home/{username} with the use of pam_mount. then ~/.bash_profile starts the xserver

~/.bash_profile

if [ "$(tty)" == /dev/tty1 ]
then
  exec startx
fi

~/.xinitrc

emacs --daemon
xmodmap /home/nonroot/.xmodmap
xbindkeys &
st -e screen &
restart-on-end -n 2 -- dwm

emacs is started in daemon mode so the slow startup happens only once and buffers are opened fast with emacsclient -tc which is set in $EDITOR and there is a shell script named e

#!/bin/sh
# pass all arguments to the editor program configured with the $EDITOR environment variable

$EDITOR "$@"

especially on single user systems i use a generic nonroot user. saves having to invent names, memorise them, rename them or keep them up to date on different systems

stored in a git repository with a file structure like this

data
  {hostname} ...
    {root-relative-full-paths}

symlinked to target destinations with "cp -rst / $PWD/data/hostname/*"

a simple prompt on its own line in magenta color that includes the basename of the current working directory

~
  echo test
test
~
  cd /usr/bin
bin
  ls guile
guile
bin

xmodmap to make the right shift-key work as the meta key for emacs and to disable the shift-lock key

~/.xmodmap

remove Lock = Caps_Lock
keysym Caps_Lock = Super_L
remove shift = Shift_R
add mod1 = Caps_Lock Shift_R
remove mod1 = Alt_L Alt_R
! add control = Alt_L Alt_R

a custom x11 keyboard-layout for the qgmlwb layout is used and a dead-key (a key that only modifies a subsequent key) for diaresis is on the circumflex key

qemu is free software and does not need additional kernel version dependent modules like virtualbox. such modules need to be recompiled for each kernel update, which happen every few weeks, and if a compatible version is not yet available then you are out of luck and would not be able update the kernel. the qemu instance is set up to offer a vnc interface, which also works at boot time. "remmina" is then used to connect to the virtual machines. network bridging and external hardware can be more difficult to set up, but less so in newer versions