[Nix-dev] xmonad

[Bas van Dijk]

Hello,

I'm not satisfied with how xmonad is integrated with nixos.

The issue is that xmonad isn't only a windowmanager but is also used
to start applications (via key bindings). That is why the recommended
way ( http://xmonad.org/tour.html ) of starting xmonad is by running
it as the last command in your ~/.xsession. That also has the
advantage that when you close xmonad (by M-shift-q) you come back to
the loginmanager.

I can't figure out how the set the xserver options: sessionType,
windowManager and sessionStarter to create this situation.

Then I read in upstart-jobs/xserver.nix that the users ~/.xsession is
also sourced. So I thought I can just put `xmonad` in my ~/.xsession
and it should just work.

However when reading further I see that after sourcing the users
~/.xsession other commands (windowmanager and sessionCmd) are
executed. I don't like that because when I close xmonad I expect to
return to the loginmanager.

So I modified xserver.nix so that when ~/.xsession exists it is
executed and nothing else:

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
root at nixos /etc/nixos/nixos # svn diff upstart-jobs/xserver.nix
Index: upstart-jobs/xserver.nix
===================================================================
--- upstart-jobs/xserver.nix	(revision 13157)
+++ upstart-jobs/xserver.nix	(working copy)
@@ -221,7 +221,7 @@
     ### Allow user to override system-wide configuration
     if test -f ~/.xsession; then
         source ~/.xsession;
-    fi
+    else


     ### Start a window manager.
@@ -299,7 +299,7 @@
       done

     ''}
-
+    fi
   ''; # */
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Is this a good solution to my problem?

regards,

Bas