ratpoison

[stbrock]

Ratpoison is a hardcore minimalist window manager. The author obviously detests the the rat, uh I mean mouse, and refers to other such programs as "window manglers." Ratpoison is designed for keyboard control. To experiment without redoing your .xinitrc, give the path as an argument to startx:

Code: [Select]

startx /usr/local/bin/ratpoison

It doesn't seem to stomp on anything else run this way.

Ratpoison opens to a blank screen. Ctrl-t is the prefix to execute commands. Start with Ctrl-t c to open a terminal. Run xmodmap for your device and any other initial scripts or commands you need, e.g., a power management program. Here are a few more initial commands.

Ctrl-t ?      command cheatsheet
Ctrl-t w      list windows
Ctrl-t s      split screen horizonally
Ctrl-t tab   move focus to next frame
Ctrl-t Ctrl-t  switch back to last window

If you primarily use your Zaurus for xterm, hnb, vim, mc, links, and so forth, Ratpoison has some real strengths. It allows you to run these applications completely full screen and quickly switch between them. The Z feels like a very fast computer with a much larger screen this way. Graphical programs such as dillo, firefox, and sylpheed run full screen and operate with keyboard shortcuts, e.g., Alt-f to open the files menu. Some available extensions for firefox reportedly make it quite usable. You can still pull out the stylus and click things if no one is looking. . . .

You can split the screen to compile, edit, debug, and other multiple uses if you want. This is probably great on a desktop machine, but doesn't seem (to me) as useful on the Z. There are quite a few customization options and several Ratpoison add-ons for capabilities such as popup menus and key bindings. You can load a graphic background and run transparent aterms if you must have a little bit of "look" but Ratpoison is about speed and efficiency and maximizing the amount of information you can get onto one screen.  

I compiled this to try it out myself, so I probably won't be too much help if you have difficulties. After this my initial ipk, I really appreciate the work of the pdaxrom folks and the others who contribute to the unstable feed. Hope it works.

[Moriarty]

Wow pretty neat stuff. I dont know if im hardcore enough to use it full time but it does seem very practical, especially if your willing to learn all the shortcuts and do a little customization. I really love all these cool window managers people are compiling and packaging up. Its great to have all these options.  Thanks for the hard work.

Also just as a side note if it complains about needing libhistory, you can get it from the readline package.

[projekt]

Hi, wow, this is exactly what I was looking for.. I am just learning linux so it's a real blessing just to be able to work with a simple gui like this and not get side tracked with tweaking openbox/fluxbox.

What I was wondering was, how do I enable the FN key under rp. I also would like to know how to make it run using just the startx command, I would like to get rid of openbox/matchbox all together. I think they are really horrible on such a small device. Thanks,

James

[busab]

ratpoison is my main window manager for two month on my computer, and i'm happy with it. I hardly use my trackball now.

I'm still looking for a web browser usable without a rat, like links/lynx but in graphical. For example a text navigation mode with links numbering in dillo.

[busab]

I've tested ratpoison on the zaurus, it lack of the fn button because the corgi.xmodmap wasn't loaded.
If you want to test it without modifying your .xinitrc, you have to execute this command once ratpoison is started (with CTRL+t !): xmodmap /etc/X11/kb/corgi.xmodmap

Does anybody know how to do a ctrl + right click in pdaxrom? for example to change some settings of the xterm?

[stbrock]

In response to several recent posts:

You should be able to edit corgi.xmodmap to assign ctrl+rclick, but I haven't tried it. A few odd combinations don't seem to work as advertised.  A mapping for FN1 to FN10 can be enabled by editing that file, but there are various compromises depending on which other programs you use a lot.  

links has a graphic mode that is okay. There is a Firefox extension to add more keyboard controls under development.

If you are using ratpoison, you very likely will want to run GNU screen as well.  

I'll try to gather and post some useful customizations for startup and so forth, but I'm away for a while so it'll be a couple of weeks probably.  For working in terminals, I've found ratpoison very efficient. It allows more effective use of the limited screen space on the Z than any other program I've seen. Most of the time I have a screen entirely full of text to work with, no wasted space. The title bars, borders, panels, and so forth that take up a very small portion of a standard monitor take up much too much on the Z in comparison to their utility. I prefer a key press to call up a custom menu or a tiny custom window if you really need to monitor something all the time.