FTFL.CA/blog

Setting up StumpWM on FreeBSD

% sudo pkg install stumpwm

1. The FreeBSD SBCL port, lang/sbcl, lags behind upstream so I recommend installing SBCL directly from source. However, you'll temporarily need to install the FreeBSD package to bootstrap the latest version.

   % sudo pkg install sbcl
   % export SBCL_HOME=/usr/local/lib/sbcl # or equivalent for your shell
   

2. Download and extract the latest version of SBCL. In the top directory of the source run the commands below to install it.

   % sh make.sh
   % export SBCL_HOME=~/local/lib/sbcl
   % INSTALL_ROOT=~/local sh install.sh
   

   Set SBCL_HOME to ~/local/lib/sbcl in the appropriate startup location for your shell (e.g. ~/.zshrc).
3. You can get rid of the old SBCL FreeBSD package.

   % sudo pkg delete sbcl
   

4. Here's a condensed version of the instructions on the StumpWM wiki to get going with quicklisp and install StumpWM's prerequisites.

   % fetch http://beta.quicklisp.org/quicklisp.lisp
   % sbcl --load quicklisp.lisp
   * (quicklisp-quickstart:install :path ".quicklisp/")
   * (ql:add-to-init-file)
   * (ql:quickload "alexandria")
   * (ql:quickload "clx")
   * (ql:quickload "cl-ppcre")
   * (ql:quickload "quicklisp-slime-helper") ;; optional to hack StumpWM while it's running
   * (quit)
   

5. Clone or pull the latest StumpWM code from git.

   % git clone https://github.com/stumpwm/stumpwm.git ~/scm/stumpwm.git
   

6. Enter ~/scm/stumpwm.git/ and compile the stumpwm binary.

   % autoconf
   % ./configure
   % gmake
   % cp stumpwm ~/local/bin
   

7. If you installed the optional slime-helper above, you need to add some configuration to your emacs initialization file,

   (load (expand-file-name "~/.quicklisp/slime-helper.el"))
   (setq inferior-lisp-program "~/local/bin/sbcl")
   

   and a few lines to ~/.stumpwmrc.

   (require 'swank)
   (swank:create-server :dont-close t)
   

8. If you want a customized mode-line, there are some modules that work with FreeBSD.