Catbird Linux 2 certainly looks somewhat similar to version 1, which had the i3 window manager, and DWM is set up to work much as i3 did. As before, it is less of a Windows-like "point and click" system and more of a "hotkeys and motions" based system. You can slice through tasks very quickly indeed, once your hands have a bit of muscle memory. If you want to make your own changes to the setup, edit the Simple X Hot Key Daemon (SXHKD) configuration file or DWM config definitions..
When the boot process completes, you will see a basic desktop: wallpaper and
a status bar along the top edge of the screen. To open up a start menu use the
key combination
For example, Twitgrid appears in the menu; putting "twi" on the top line clears
out all of the other items. Hit the
Several applications are available without the need for Rofi. These are opened with combinations of hotkeys. These are often used, and quickly become second nature in muscle memory:
Nine workspaces are available, numbered 1 through 9. To open a workspace and
immediately go to it, use the hotkeys
To move a window from one workspace to another, you must make it the active
window first. Click it or navigate to it with the keyboard. Try opening a few
windows and navigating through them with
What about closing windows when you are finished with an application? Use
Your terminal emulator is different, though. It runs in Tmux, the terminal
multiplexer, and
There are times when you want a window open and an app working in it, but do
not want it to clutter your screen. Use the scratchpad, the invisible workspace
where you can put windows out of sight. To do it, use
To toggle the view of a window in the scratchpad, use
The windows are automatically arranged in two columns, similar to the well known "master and stack" arrangement. There is one large "master" window. If there is only one window in the workspace, it occupies the whole screen. If more windows are opened, the first one is resized to take slightly more than half of the area on the left and the second one occupies the right half. Subsequent new windows open in a vertical stack, dividing the right column equally. Thus, the master window keeps its half of the area as one column, but the other column contains all of the windows opened later.
Any of the small windows in the stack may be "promoted" to master by first
making it active, then using the hotkey combination
The column borders may be shifted to the left or right by adjusting the active
window with
Windows may be pulled up and out of the tiled layout and set to floating mode.
To float any window, first make it active by either clicking in it or navigating
to it with keys. Then, use the hotkeys
Use caution, because the floating window is not required to stay active. Open a new window or click on an existing tiled window, and that one becomes active, even with any number floating windows above it.
Floating windows are easily moved with the mouse. Hold the
To shut down or reboot your machine, you have some options. The most user
friendly way is to use the hotkey combination
In the application launcher (Rofi), running System Shutdown will open the exit dialogue. You can find it easily by entering "sy" in Rofi to filter out most of the other apps in the list.
To kill and restart the DWM window manager, use
Sometimes you may have problems with a troublesome application, or for another
reason you want to clear out the whole session, leave, and be logged back in.
Use
These are a few of many ways to interact with your computer through DWM and the hotkeys which have been set up for this system. They probably are not perfect for everyone, but they work well in most cases. To go further, consider setting up your own persistent Linux system and tweak the hotkeys and SXHKD or DWM defs for your own usage case.
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