_______________________________
INSTALLING STUMPWM ON FREEBSD
Nicolas Herry
_______________________________
2017/03/10
Table of Contents
_________________
1. Installing StumpWM on FreeBSD
.. 1. How to install StumpWM
..... 1. Install SBCL
..... 2. Install Quicklisp
..... 3. Install StumpWM
..... 4. Get emacs hook up to StumpWM sessions
..... 5. Configure your X session
1 Installing StumpWM on FreeBSD
===============================
There is an [excellent guide] describing in details how to
install [StumpWM] and start playing with it interactively through
emacs and SLIME. There are, however, a few things that have
changed since this guide has been written, or just some traps I
fell into that I thought I should describe as well.
[excellent guide]
<http://www.kaashif.co.uk/2015/06/28/hacking-stumpwm-with-common-lisp/>
[StumpWM] <http://stumpwm.github.io/>
1.1 How to install StumpWM
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The official documentation recommends checking out the code from
the repository, installing the dependencies with Quicklisp and
/configure-make-make-installing/ the source code. I used to do
just that for years and it works very well. However, before I
read the guide, I did not realise there was another option:
installing StumpWM itself through Quicklisp. That way, you obtain
a proper release (not just whatever current code happens to be in
GitHub), a clean installation in your Quicklisp repository and an
easy way to hook up an interactive session to it.
1.1.1 Install SBCL
------------------
The first step is indeed to install a Lisp compiler. David
Bjergaard, StumpWM's current maintainer and main developer [has
recently announced that only SBCL will be supported in the
future], which has the merit of cutting short the question of
which implementation to choose. There is a catch however: [there
used to be some problems with threading support for SBCL on
FreeBSD]. Everything is fine now, and one can now build SBCL and
get a multithreaded environment. Note that I said build: for some
reason, the pre-built packages don't have threading support
activated. The only option left to us is then to install the
port:
,----
| # cd /usr/ports/lang/sbcl
| # make sure you select Threading in the options
| # make config
| # make install
`----
As of writing, the above gets you SBCL version 1.3.13. Note that
as a test, I also downloaded the latest vanilla source code from
the official site (version 1.3.14), built and installed the thing
in a hierarchy in my home directory. This builds fine, including
multithreading, but I noted a difference where the Quicklisp
dependencies are stored: my sbcl 1.3.13 from ports put them in
`~/quicklisp', whereas the vanilla 1.3.14 put them in
`~/.quicklisp'. I haven't checked whether this is a change in the
defaults, or just some configuration option that differs between
the ports and the official release. Keep this in mind when you
set up emacs to load the slime-helper, for example. For the
remainder of this guide, I consider that sbcl was installed from
the ports and that quicklisp dependencies are written to
`~/quicklisp'.
[has recently announced that only SBCL will be supported in the
future]
<http://nongnu.13855.n7.nabble.com/StumpWM-1-0-0-Released-td219024.html>
[there used to be some problems with threading support for SBCL on
FreeBSD]
<https://bugs.freebsd.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id%3D184425>
1.1.2 Install Quicklisp
-----------------------
[Quicklisp] can be installed exactly as described by Kaashif
Hymabaccus:
,----
| $ curl -O https://beta.quicklisp.org/quicklisp.lisp
| $ sbcl --load /path/to/quicklisp.lisp
`----
And then in the REPL:
,----
| * (quicklisp-quickstart:install)
| * (ql:add-to-init-file)
`----
[Quicklisp] <https://www.quicklisp.org/beta/>
1.1.3 Install StumpWM
---------------------
There are two options here: either clone the official GitHub
repository and follow the instructions given in the manual, or
just trust Quicklisp to do the right thing and install
everything. I find the latter easier to manage in the long run:
Quicklisp installs all the dependencies, and is able to update
the project automatically and cleanly. No surprises with
dependencies or anything.
,----
| * (ql:quickload "stumpwm")
`----
This will install StumpWM along with its dependencies (that is,
`clx', `cl-ppcre' and `alexandria') and will proceed recursively
down the dependency chain to install everyting needed to run
StumpWM.
1.1.4 Get emacs hook up to StumpWM sessions
-------------------------------------------
A major aspect of Lisp development is the ability to connect to a
session and interact with it, modifying code straight on the live
system. In the case of StumpWM, this means the ability to
configure the whole system, adding or removing features and
behaviours, changing the keybindings and controlling the whole
Window manager from within emacs. All without restarting StumpWM,
just like you never have to restart emacs when you modify it.
The setup requires on the server side sbcl to create a swank
server and on the client side emacs to communicate with the Lisp
session through [SLIME]. Installing everything is made very
simple by Quicklisp.
In an sbcl REPL:
,----
| * (ql:quickload "swank")
| * (ql:quickload "quicklisp-slime-helper")
`----
You can then instruct StumpWM to create the server. Following the
good advice in the blog post, have it listen to port `4004'
instead of the standard `4005', so you won't connect to this
session by accident. In your `~/.stumpwmrc', write the following:
,----
| (in-package :stumpwm)
|
| (require :swank)
| (swank-loader:init)
| (swank:create-server :port 4004
| :style swank:*communication-style*
| :dont-close t)
|
`----
Now, in you emacs config, write the following:
,----
| (load (expand-file-name "~/quicklisp/slime-helper.el"))
`----
[SLIME] <https://common-lisp.net/project/slime/>
1.1.5 Configure your X session
------------------------------
Starting X in our case means starting sbcl and asking it to load
stumpwm. Create the file `startstumpwm' with the following
content:
,----
| (require :stumpwm)
| (stumpwm:stumpwm)
`----
I must confess here that since I've been using Unix, I've never
used anything like a Desktop Environment, which means that I
don't know how to tell KDE or Gnome to use StumpWM for windows
management. If, like me, you still rely on `startx' and friends,
write the following in your `~/.xinitrc':
,----
| exec sbcl --load ~/bin/startstumpwm --eval '(quit)'
`----
Note that we explictly ask sbcl to quit by passing
,----
| --eval '(quit)'
`----
Otherwise, after you quit StumpWM, sbcl would leave the REPL
open, and your X session would keep running forever. Again, it's
very possible this last bit isn't necessary if you start your X
session through other means.