Basic installation and configuration of xmonad for beginner

Xmonad is a dynamically tiling X11 Window Manager (WM) that is written and configured in Haskell. A great WM that offers full control / ability to customize it any way we like (theoretically there's no limit). But I do not know why it does not offer even a little basic configuration to run properly after installation like i3wm do, so here I share basic instructions that are easy to follow even for beginners so as not to experience the difficulties I encountered before.

Fig1. - xmonad

Follow these instructions via terminal emulator. But before we get started, first of all this example has been done on Debian GNU / Linux 9.3 (stretch) x86_64 with zsh 5.3.1 as shell and for dotfiles you can find it in github.com

	# Install the required applications
	# xmonad : a minimalist tiling window manager, written in Haskell.
	# xmobar : a lightweight text-based status bar, designed to work with (but not limited to) xmonad.
	# stalonetray : a stand-alone system tray (notification area).
	# suckless-tools : to provides dmenu (a generic menu).
	# xscreensaver : a modular screen saver and locker.
	# feh : to show desktop wallpaper.
	# xfce4-power-manager : a power manager with features: (1) show battery level status, (2) auto suspend, etc.
	# compton : a compositor, can be used to make the background of the terminal to be transparent and reveal desktop wallpaper.
	# volumeicon : lightweight ALSA volume icon for the systray.
	# pcmanfm : a GTK+ based file manager.
	# xfce4-terminal : A lightweight terminal emulator that works well with compton for a transparent background and supports 256 colors.
	# xfce4-appfinder : Application finder, works like a start menu.
	$ sudo apt-get install xmonad xmobar stalonetray suckless-tools xscreensaver
	$ sudo apt-get install feh xfce4-power-manager compton volumeicon pcmanfm xfce4-terminal xfce4-appfinder
	# create configuration for xmobar
	$ nano ~/.xmobarrc
	# create configuration for stalonetray
	$ nano ~/.stalonetrayrc
	# create configuration for xmonad
	$ mkdir ~/.xmonad && cd ~/.xmonad
	$ nano xmonad.hs
	# create simple scripts for ending sessions easily with options such as: shutdown, restart, logoff, lock, hibernate
	$ nano ~/.xmonad/dmenu-session-end.sh
	# edit .xsessionrc to create xmonad and other applications needed to start automatically during the login / start session
	$ nano ~/.xsessionrc
	# now restart the computer and when login do not forget to select xmonad

view raw installing-xmonad.txt hosted with ❤ by GitHub

That's it. This article is not to show what and why, but how to do it quickly without much trouble. If you want a more detailed explanation you can check the references I use below.

References:
1. beginners-guide-to-xmonad
2. wiki.haskell.org/Xmonad
3. Graphics-X11-Types
4. bbs.archlinux.org

Thank you for reading this article. If anything is unclear, do not hesitate to ask, but do not expect much because I myself do not really dig deep enough for this wm.