bspwm Issues

Around September 2021 I built a new PC. I decided this would be my first main machine running Linux, and Linux only1, so I also decided I should make it look a little pretty.
So, out with dwm and it’s default statusbar and in with bspwm and Polybar. I’ve been using this setup (mirrored on my ThinkPad E4702) since then, but lately I’ve been running into the issue described here.

It’s the kind of issue that makes me want to rip my hair out, since I have no clue why it appears and how to fix it.

Since it started appearing more often I’ve thought about switching back to dwm. I’m actually kind of missing it, really. There are some minor things in bspwm I find too complicated, and I miss the simple stack layout of dwm.

What I’ll be missing in dwm is Polybar. Sure, I can just use it, but Polybar (without any patches) will be unable to show information about tags in dwm which irritates me a bit (and actually is the primary reason I decided to switch to bspwm in the first place).

The reason I want Polybar is because of statusbar icons. There is a patch for dwm but I’ve never managed to patch dwm with it.
Looks like it’s time to try again, as bspwm is (sadly) really getting on my nerves now.

  1. I had to install Windows as well because of gaming, but Linux is still the primary way I use my Desktop. ↩︎

  2. Back when I bought the E470 I didn’t know any better. I should have gotten a different model, and one without a GPU because what do I need a GPU in a Laptop for? ↩︎

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Posted on: March 12, 2022