Package:Qtile

Qtile

   Tip

We welcome improvements to this page. To edit this page, Create a Funtoo account. Then log in and then click here to edit this page. See our editing guidelines to becoming a wiki-editing pro.

   Warning

This document does not cover the current qtile ebuild that comes from the Gentoo portage tree. It covers this ebuild that will normally be merge to funtoo-overlay soon.

About Qtile

Qtile is a highly configurable tiling window manager distributed under MIT license. It handles both tiling and floating layouts. It is especially a good alternative to Awesome for those who are more used to Python than Lua. Indeed, Qtile is written and configured entirely in Python. So whether you are Python guru or whether you are learning Python for a few time, Qtile is an ideal choice to get your environment fit your needs and feel. If you don't know Python, you can still stuck to the default configuration or pick out one of the configuration examples but a basic understanding of Python language is recommended though.

Installation

root # emerge -av qtile

It is generally a good idea to enable the dbus useflag to deal with dbus messages. The widget-* useflags are only needed if you would like to include the given widgets. These widgets are included in Qtile, but require additional dependencies. Leaving widget-* useflags unset will remove the underlying widgets from qtile sources to avoid warnings about missing dependencies.

Very likely, you don't need to enable multiple python ABIs for qtile. To make your mind, here are the few things to know to choose the right ABI:

• Python 2.7 uses trollius, Python 3.3 uses asyncio, Python 3.4 has asyncio built-in.
• GoogleCalendar and Wlan widgets depend on packages that are python 2.7 only. If you plan to use one of these widgets, use python 2.7 ABI.

Once you've emerged qtile with the useflags and python ABI of your choice, you can skip to #Getting Started if you use a display manager. The following lines describe how to use qtile with Xinit.

In order to run qtile with xinit, add this line to your ~/.xinitrc:

   ~/.xinitrc

exec --sh-syntax --exit-with-session qtile

You might also want to pass ck-launch-session and/or dbus-launch if you want respectively ConsoleKit and/or dbus support (note that the latter requires the `dbus` useflag). Your ~/.xinitrc would then look like:

   ~/.xinitrc - with consolekit and dbus support

exec ck-launch-session dbus-launch --sh-syntax --exit-with-session qtile

And run xinit to launch qtile. You can also configure a display manager instead, but this is not covered in this document.

Getting Started