[xmonad] Vanilla Xmonad distribution

[Alexander Genaud]

Thanks for all the suggestions. Having had great success with
Gnome2-fallback in the past, I decided to try Mate out again with the
latest xmonad-contrib (is that what everyone means by latest xmonad from
darcs?).

I started with a fresh install of Linux Mint 17.1 with Mate, updated, etc.
I installed xmonad and cabal-install. I was not able to install
xmonad-contrib (command line details below). Any suggestions?

Additionally, I have the most basic xmonad.hs file, yet cannot re-compile
(Could not find package 'XMonad'). The xmonad-contrib is not available via
Mint's apt-get.

Mint's xmonad.desktop file is nearly identical to the config described
here: https://wiki.haskell.org/Xmonad/Using_xmonad_in_MATE . However, the
dconf suggestion does not work. Selecting 'Xmonad' from the GUI Login
displays the GHC/xmonad --recompile error again and otherwise presents a
blank xmonad session. I have no terminal, probably because I cannot compile
'terminal = "mate-terminal"' in xmonad.hs. Alt-Shift-Q works: logout.
Selecting 'gnome-xmonad.desktop' is equally useless (though technically
working).


> Sorry, but could you describe exactly what are the problems you
encountered?

With XFCE, I was able to get a semi-working system from a freshly installed
Xubuntu. In a vanilla XFCE session, 'xmonad --replace' from the command
line seems to work. But I could not start a fresh session with Xmonad. At
best, the panel would not display (although it was running) and there would
be a blank/transparent tile. I removed most Mate keyboard shortcuts, yet
Meta-Shift-Return only sometimes opened a terminal.

I was not able to get Cinnamon to work at all -- I don't recall the
specific issues.

I don't recall my earlier issues with Mint/Mate, but I've described several
issues above and some command line details below.



# apt-get install xmonad cabal-install

# xmonad --version
xmonad 0.11

# cabal --version
cabal-install version 1.16.0.2
using version 1.16.0 of the Cabal library

# cabal install xmonad-contrib
Resolving dependencies...
Configuring X11-1.6.1.2...
...etc...
checking X11/extensions/Xinerama.h usability... no
checking X11/extensions/Xinerama.h presence... no
checking for X11/extensions/Xinerama.h... no
WARNING: Xinerama headers not found. Building without Xinerama support
checking X11/extensions/Xrandr.h usability... no
checking X11/extensions/Xrandr.h presence... no
checking for X11/extensions/Xrandr.h... no
configure: error: X11/extensions/Xrandr.h (from libXrandr) is required
Failed to install X11-1.6.1.2
cabal: Error: some packages failed to install:
X11-1.6.1.2 failed during the configure step. The exception was:
ExitFailure 1
X11-xft-0.3.1 depends on X11-1.6.1.2 which failed to install.
xmonad-0.11 depends on X11-1.6.1.2 which failed to install.
xmonad-contrib-0.11.3 depends on X11-1.6.1.2 which failed to install.

The following did not help
# apt-get install xorg xinerama, libXrandr, X11-utils, etc

# Xorg -version
X.Org X Server 1.15.1
Release Date: 2014-04-13


$ cat xmonad.hs
import XMonad
main = xmonad defaultConfig { modMask = mod4Mask }


$ xmonad --recompile; cat xmonad.errors
xmonad.hs:1:8
Could not find module 'XMonad'
... etc ...


# apt-get install dconf-cli
$ dconf read /org/mate/session/required-components/windowmanager
(nothing)

$ dconf write /org/mate/session/required-components/windowmanager xmonad
error: 0-6:unknown keyword
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