Posts tagged "wmii" « SaltyCrane Blog

Wmii Python script to monitor remote machines

Date: 2009-12-22 | Modified: 2010-03-05 | Tags: linux, python, ssh, ubuntu, urxvt, wmii

I like to monitor our web servers by ssh'ing into the remote machine and watching "top", tailing log files, etc. Normally, I open a terminal, ssh into the remote machine, run the monitoring command (e.g. "top"), then repeat for the rest of the remote machines. Then I adjust the window sizes so I can see everything at once.

My window manager, wmii, is great for tiling a bunch of windows at once. It is also scriptable with Python, so I wrote a Python script to create my web server monitoring view. Below is my script. I also put ...

Install wmii snapshot 20090703 on Ubuntu Jaunty

Date: 2009-07-13 | Modified: 2009-07-14 | Tags: linux, preferences, python, ubuntu, wmii | 4 Comments

On Friday I installed the latest snapshot of wmii, the lightweight, tiling, dynamic, scriptable, keyboard navigatable window manager. (See my wmii tag for more posts about wmii.) Wmii orangizes windows into columns. Traditionally there has been three modes for each column: default, stack, and max. "Default" shows all windows in a column. "Stack" shows only one window at a time with the title bars of the other windows showing. "Max" shows only one window without any other titlebars. I usually use two columns each in stack mode. To navigate windows, I use Mod4+j/k to move among windows in ...

Scripting wmii column widths with Python

Date: 2009-04-12 | Modified: 2009-12-22 | Tags: linux, python, softwaretools, ubuntu, wmii | 3 Comments

I mentioned in my previous post on using wmii with Gnome that I had written a script for resizing the column widths in wmii. This is the followup post. Note, I am using the 20080520 snapshot of wmii. This doesn't work with wmii 3.6 (as Marco commented below).

To incrementally change window sizes, I use the following in my ~/.wmii-3.5/wmiirc file:

	Key $MODKEY-y
		# shrink horizontally
		wmiir xwrite /tag/sel/ctl grow sel sel right -10
		wmiir xwrite /tag/sel/ctl grow sel sel left -10
	Key $MODKEY-u
		# grow horizontally
		wmiir xwrite /tag/sel/ctl grow sel ...

Using wmii with Gnome

Date: 2009-03-19 | Tags: linux, preferences, softwaretools, ubuntu, wmii | 2 Comments

Thanks to Glyph, I can now use wmii as the window manager for Gnome. I like wmii because it makes good use of screen real estate, is keyboard-navigatable, is scriptable1, and uses minimal resources2.

It is possible to use gnome-panel within wmii-- just press MOD+P gnome-panel RET. And you can manually fine tune your .xinitrc or .xsession by adding your required stuff such as gnome-power-manager and nm-applet. (This is what I had been doing (and may continue to do depending on how this full on Gnome thing works out ...

Install wmii snapshot

Date: 2008-07-29 | Modified: 2008-08-01 | Tags: linux, softwaretools, ubuntu, wmii

These are my notes for installing wmii snapshot in my home directory on Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy.

Download the latest snapshot (wmii+ixp-20080520) from the wmii homepage and save it to ~/incoming.

Untar the snapshot.

$ cd ~/incoming
$ tar -zxvf wmii+ixp-20080520.tgz

Install prerequisites:

$ sudo apt-get install build-essential xorg-dev

$ sudo apt-get install dwm-tools

Build: (I left the defaults for everything during make config except for the path. I changed this to a temporary directory, ~/tmp/wmii.)
```
$ cd ~/incoming/wmii+ixp-20080520
$ make config
$ make 
$ make install
```
Move bin, etc, lib, and share to a new wmii directory.
```
$ mkdir ~/lib/wmii
$ mv ...
```

Install coLinux (and Ubuntu Hardy) on Win XP using Slirp to internet and TAP to host behind a corporate firewall/proxy server

Date: 2008-04-14 | Modified: 2008-09-07 | Tags: colinux, cygwin, linux, softwaretools, ubuntu, wmii | 2 Comments

coLinux allows you to run a full Linux distribution, such as Ubuntu Hardy, on top of Windows at near native speeds. It runs as a single Windows process with its own specially allocated address space. The guest linux system can run from either a separate disk partition or from a single file on your Windows filesystem.

My initial impression of coLinux was so positive, I had planned to name this post, Goodbye Cygwin, hello coLinux. After 2 months of using coLinux, I still am using Cygwin a little bit. Despite being slow, (almost unbearably slow with my company's mandatory ...

My software tools list

Date: 2007-08-10 | Modified: 2010-05-28 | Tags: android, c_cplusplus, colinux, conkeror, cygwin, django, eclipse, emacs, keyboard, linux, mercurial, preferences, python, softwaretools, subversion, ubuntu, urxvt, wide, wmii | 6 Comments

Inspired by Mark Pilgrim's 2006 Essentials list, below is a list of my current software tools. If you notice a lot of "I switched from ..." statements, keep in mind that I am a programmer who likes shiny things.

Other lists¶

Mark Pilgrim's Essentials, 2008 edition
Adam Gomaa's Essentials (2008)
Here is a 2010 update for Mark Pilgrim. After 2 and a half years, I still have several items in common: Ubuntu running rxvt-unicode and Emacs 23, the Unicomp keyboard, an Android phone, Gmail, Google Reader, Google Docs, and Pandora.

Contents¶

Operating System: Ubuntu / Windows
Window Manager: wmii ...

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