dwm is a minimalistic window manager. It manages windows in tiling and floating modes. Either mode can be applied dynamically, depending on the application in use and the task performed.
In tiling mode windows are managed in a master and stacking column. The master column contains the window which needs most attention at a time, whereas the stacking column contains all other windows in a stack. Dialog windows are managed floating, however.
In floating mode windows can be resized and moved freely. Windows are grouped by tags. All windows with a specific tag can be viewed at a time. But each window may contain more than one tag, which makes it visible in several views.
dwm consists of a small status bar which reads the text displayed from standard input, if written. It draws 1-pixel borders around windows to indicate the focus state. Unfocused windows contain a small bar in front of the window displaying the tags and the window title.
Key Features
- Very light on resources; only 20kb download:
- Has no Lua integration, no 9P support, no shell-based configuration, no remote control, and comes without any additional tools, such as for printing the selection or warping the mouse.
- Does not distinguish between layers: no floating or tiled layer.
- Based on tagging and dynamic window management.
- Customized by editing and recompiling its source code (the config.h file); no configuration files.
- Uses a combination of focus-follows-mouse and keyboard focus switch only.
- Uses 1-pixel borders to provide the maximum of screen real estate to clients. Small titlebars are only drawn in front of unfocused clients.
- Reads from standard input to print arbitrary status text (like the date, load, battery charge).
Website: dwm.suckless.org
Support: Mailing List
Developer: Anselm R. Garbe
License: MIT License
dwm is written in C. Learn C with our recommended free books and free tutorials.
Related Software
| Dynamic Window Managers | |
|---|---|
| Xmonad | Minimalist, tiling window manager written in Haskell |
| dwm | Manages windows in tiled, monocle and floating layouts |
| Qtile | Full-featured, hackable tiling window manager |
| spectrwm | Small dynamic tiling and reparenting window manager |
| LeftWM | Window manager for adventurers |
| awesome | Highly configurable, tiling window manager initially based on dwm code |
| wmii | Lightweight tabbed and tiled |
Read our verdict in the software roundup.
 Explore our comprehensive directory of recommended free and open source software. Our carefully curated collection spans every major software category.This directory is part of our ongoing series of informative articles for Linux enthusiasts. It features hundreds of detailed reviews, along with open source alternatives to proprietary solutions from major corporations such as Google, Microsoft, Apple, Adobe, IBM, Cisco, Oracle, and Autodesk. You’ll also find interesting projects to try, hardware coverage, free programming books and tutorials, and much more. Know a useful open source Linux program that we haven’t covered yet? Let us know by completing this form. |