not sure what you're asking? it's a WM, you run it as a WM just like you would run any other x11 WMs like i3. you install it, you add it to your .xinitrc, you do startx from a TTY.
this post was submitted on 12 Nov 2025
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You might be able to run evilwm in a DE, but setting evilwm as a DE doesn't really make sense.
@sin_free_for_00_days@sopuli.xyz why do you say so ??
Well, I hope it doesn't sound patronizing, but evilwm is a window manager, and window manager =/= desktop environment. If you want a holistic DE, use gnome, kde, lxde, xfce, et al. Although they come with their own window managers, some will let you set a different window manager. I've never done this, but I have read it several places. If you want to use evilwm, and have something of a desktop environment, without going that route, it's going to be bespoke. That is, you'll have to figure out what app you want to run for various things (system tray, notifications, preferred apps for email, browsing, etc. I can't really think of what all you'd want to duplicate that experience as I haven't done it in well over a decade).
That probably didn't make sense. I use a window manager, and have for many years. I have a hotkey manager that I've used for a really long time, that allows shortcuts for programs I want to use. Also an application launcher. This gets me kinda close to a desktop type environment. If you want to do this, you'll have to spend some time over weeks/months/years figuring out what you want from your system and how you want it to work.
A basic way I've found to do this, separating the process from the window manager to make it easier to change if I want to, is create a startup file. Call it whatever. Mine is in ~/bin/. In that file just put the applications you want to run. This is what part of mine looks like:
│ File: ~/bin/startup
───────────────
1 │ #!/bin/bash
2 │
3 │ xbindkeys
4 │ ~/bin/cback.sh &
5 │ ~/bin/28h.sh &
6 │ ~/firefox/firefox &
7 │ telegram &
8 │ signal-desktop &
9 │ easyeffects &
10 │ alacritty -t "termfloat"&
11 │ warpd &
12 │ copyq &
13 │ redshift -l 33.64:-117.9 -b 1:0.7 &
14 │ remind -z -k'zenity --info --text=%s &' ~/.reminders
I'm sure there is a better way to do with within your chosen wm, or with systemd, but this has worked for me for well over a decade and although a bit clunky, it works. I really don't know if I've made things worse for you. Good luck.
@sin_free_for_00_days@sopuli.xyz thanks. You're really the person l had been looking for.
Initially, I would download MX Linux with xfce as the default de, and then l would gradually download evilwm, conky, vs codium and st along with zsh, fish, bash and dash would already be working.
That's how l'm envisioning my system at the moment.