I’ve always been used to my desktop WM setup – XFCE4 with the ‘taskbar’ at the top hosting my current open applications and another bar at the bottom with icons, menus and flashing lights etc. That is, until I stumbled across `set -o vi` in a bash/ksh shell. A collegue mention this to me and i’ve kept using it since – i’m a keen Vi addict and anything that replicates it is good in my book. For me, this opened a can of worms, as I then started talking about wmii. Upon recommendation, I installed it on the development box we have here at work (running Ubuntu Dapper, i386). From there, I often start an X session over ssh and did so this time to learn how to use wmii.

Ten minutes later, I was OK (ish) with the keyboard bindings, and was pretty happy i’d found a WM that did not require use of the mouse. I installed this on my IBM Thinkpad X31 as it has a 12″ screen and the smaller the windows the better. Check the following screenshot out; it shows two tagged areas – one containing my shells and the other containing anything IM (instant messaging) related, that’s GAIM and it’s various windows all under one area! Perfect!

You can learn more about WMII over at its website, wmii.suckless.org.
On an unrelated note, England were thrashed on the last day of the Ashes Test Series in Adelaide. England we’re at a slight advantage going into the final day; we only needed to hold our batting innings to force a draw. Sadly, the might of the Australian team managed to bowl us all out for 129, leaving them a small batting target of 168 to win. Typical English sports!