_______________________________

                  INSTALLING STUMPWM ON FREEBSD

                          Nicolas Herry
                 _______________________________


                           2017/03/10


Table of Contents
_________________

1. Installing StumpWM on FreeBSD
. 1. How to install StumpWM
.... 1. Install SBCL
.... 2. Install Quicklisp
.... 3. Install StumpWM
.... 4. Get emacs hook up to StumpWM sessions
.... 5. Configure your X session





1 Installing StumpWM on FreeBSD
===============================

 There is an [excellent guide] describing in details how to
 install [StumpWM] and start playing with it interactively through
 emacs and SLIME. There are, however, a few things that have
 changed since this guide has been written, or just some traps I
 fell into that I thought I should describe as well.


[excellent guide]
<http://www.kaashif.co.uk/2015/06/28/hacking-stumpwm-with-common-lisp/>

[StumpWM] <http://stumpwm.github.io/>

1.1 How to install StumpWM
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 The official documentation recommends checking out the code from
 the repository, installing the dependencies with Quicklisp and
 /configure-make-make-installing/ the source code. I used to do
 just that for years and it works very well. However, before I
 read the guide, I did not realise there was another option:
 installing StumpWM itself through Quicklisp. That way, you obtain
 a proper release (not just whatever current code happens to be in
 GitHub), a clean installation in your Quicklisp repository and an
 easy way to hook up an interactive session to it.


1.1.1 Install SBCL
------------------

 The first step is indeed to install a Lisp compiler. David
 Bjergaard, StumpWM's current maintainer and main developer [has
 recently announced that only SBCL will be supported in the
 future], which has the merit of cutting short the question of
 which implementation to choose. There is a catch however: [there
 used to be some problems with threading support for SBCL on
 FreeBSD]. Everything is fine now, and one can now build SBCL and
 get a multithreaded environment. Note that I said build: for some
 reason, the pre-built packages don't have threading support
 activated. The only option left to us is then to install the
 port:

 ,----
 | # cd /usr/ports/lang/sbcl
 | # make sure you select Threading in the options
 | # make config
 | # make install
 `----

 As of writing, the above gets you SBCL version 1.3.13. Note that
 as a test, I also downloaded the latest vanilla source code from
 the official site (version 1.3.14), built and installed the thing
 in a hierarchy in my home directory. This builds fine, including
 multithreading, but I noted a difference where the Quicklisp
 dependencies are stored: my sbcl 1.3.13 from ports put them in
 `~/quicklisp', whereas the vanilla 1.3.14 put them in
 `~/.quicklisp'. I haven't checked whether this is a change in the
 defaults, or just some configuration option that differs between
 the ports and the official release. Keep this in mind when you
 set up emacs to load the slime-helper, for example. For the
 remainder of this guide, I consider that sbcl was installed from
 the ports and that quicklisp dependencies are written to
 `~/quicklisp'.


[has recently announced that only SBCL will be supported in the
future]
<http://nongnu.13855.n7.nabble.com/StumpWM-1-0-0-Released-td219024.html>

[there used to be some problems with threading support for SBCL on
FreeBSD]
<https://bugs.freebsd.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id%3D184425>


1.1.2 Install Quicklisp
-----------------------

 [Quicklisp] can be installed exactly as described by Kaashif
 Hymabaccus:

 ,----
 | $ curl -O https://beta.quicklisp.org/quicklisp.lisp
 | $ sbcl --load /path/to/quicklisp.lisp
 `----

 And then in the REPL:

 ,----
 | * (quicklisp-quickstart:install)
 | * (ql:add-to-init-file)
 `----


[Quicklisp] <https://www.quicklisp.org/beta/>


1.1.3 Install StumpWM
---------------------

 There are two options here: either clone the official GitHub
 repository and follow the instructions given in the manual, or
 just trust Quicklisp to do the right thing and install
 everything. I find the latter easier to manage in the long run:
 Quicklisp installs all the dependencies, and is able to update
 the project automatically and cleanly. No surprises with
 dependencies or anything.

 ,----
 | * (ql:quickload "stumpwm")
 `----

 This will install StumpWM along with its dependencies (that is,
 `clx', `cl-ppcre' and `alexandria') and will proceed recursively
 down the dependency chain to install everyting needed to run
 StumpWM.


1.1.4 Get emacs hook up to StumpWM sessions
-------------------------------------------

 A major aspect of Lisp development is the ability to connect to a
 session and interact with it, modifying code straight on the live
 system. In the case of StumpWM, this means the ability to
 configure the whole system, adding or removing features and
 behaviours, changing the keybindings and controlling the whole
 Window manager from within emacs. All without restarting StumpWM,
 just like you never have to restart emacs when you modify it.

 The setup requires on the server side sbcl to create a swank
 server and on the client side emacs to communicate with the Lisp
 session through [SLIME]. Installing everything is made very
 simple by Quicklisp.

 In an sbcl REPL:

 ,----
 | * (ql:quickload "swank")
 | * (ql:quickload "quicklisp-slime-helper")
 `----

 You can then instruct StumpWM to create the server. Following the
 good advice in the blog post, have it listen to port `4004'
 instead of the standard `4005', so you won't connect to this
 session by accident. In your `~/.stumpwmrc', write the following:

 ,----
 | (in-package :stumpwm)
 |
 | (require :swank)
 | (swank-loader:init)
 | (swank:create-server :port 4004
 |                      :style swank:*communication-style*
 |                      :dont-close t)
 |
 `----

 Now, in you emacs config, write the following:

 ,----
 | (load (expand-file-name "~/quicklisp/slime-helper.el"))
 `----


[SLIME] <https://common-lisp.net/project/slime/>


1.1.5 Configure your X session
------------------------------

 Starting X in our case means starting sbcl and asking it to load
 stumpwm. Create the file `startstumpwm' with the following
 content:

 ,----
 | (require :stumpwm)
 | (stumpwm:stumpwm)
 `----

 I must confess here that since I've been using Unix, I've never
 used anything like a Desktop Environment, which means that I
 don't know how to tell KDE or Gnome to use StumpWM for windows
 management. If, like me, you still rely on `startx' and friends,
 write the following in your `~/.xinitrc':

 ,----
 | exec sbcl --load ~/bin/startstumpwm --eval '(quit)'
 `----

 Note that we explictly ask sbcl to quit by passing
 ,----
 | --eval '(quit)'
 `----
 Otherwise, after you quit StumpWM, sbcl would leave the REPL
 open, and your X session would keep running forever. Again, it's
 very possible this last bit isn't necessary if you start your X
 session through other means.

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