dwl config

Last modification: 2025-06-16

My first rather serious linux system should be built on a Thinkpad x61s in 2023. Due to a lack in performence I thought about installing only the most minimal software on it.

So I came to see the famouse Thinkpad Arch combination. (I know and knew that it was not the most minimal os possible, but I was convinced) When trying to find the most minimal and fast window manager found the perfect fit: dwm.

dwm became my wm that just worked.

However as I continued to gain understanding of how Xorg works and as I understood the bloat in the X Window System , I found it hard to swich. On YouTube I came across dwl a project about translating dwl to work with wlroots.

Even though being familiar with the rather difficult to install dwm, I wasn’t able to even compile dwl. Now I understand and give you - the reader - a path to follow.


    ```bash 

git clone https://codeberg.org/dwl/dwl.git 

cd dwl 

git checkout v0.7 

make 

sudo make install 

```


```bash 

sudo dnf install \ 

  libinput libinput-devel \ 

  wayland wayland-devel \ 

  wlroots wlroots-devel \ 

  xkbcommon xkbcommon-devel \ 

  wayland-protocols-devel \ 

  pkgconf-pkg-config \ 

  meson ninja-build \ 

  gcc 

```


```bash 

git clone https://github.com/waycrate/wmenu.git 

cd wmenu 

meson setup build 

ninja -C build 

sudo ninja -C build install 

```

Edits in dwl source

Edits to sources/dwl/config.h:


```c 

static const char *termcmd[] = { "ghostty", NULL }; 

```


```c 

static const MonitorRule monrules[] = { 

    /* macbook m1 14" */ 

    { "eDP-1",    0.5f,  1,      2,    &layouts[0], WL_OUTPUT_TRANSFORM_NORMAL,   -1,  -1 }, 

}; 

```


```c 

static const struct xkb_rule_names xkb_rules = { 

    /* default: 

    .options = NULL, 

    */ 

    .layout = "de", 

    .variant = "latin1", 

}; 

```