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Emacs is my new window manager

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Emacs is My New Window Manager

Most companies that employ me, hand me a “work laptop” as I enter the building. Of course, I do not install personal software and keep a clear division between my “work like” and my “real life.”

However, I also don’t like to carry two computers just to jot down personal notes. My remedy is to install a virtualization system and create a “personal” virtual machine. (Building cloud software as my day job means I usually have a few VMs running all the time.)

Since I want this VM to have minimal impact on my work, I base it on a “Server” version of Ubuntu. however, I like some graphical features, so my most minimal after market installation approach is:

sudo apt-get install -y xinit

Since most of what I do is org-mode work, the next step is:

sudo apt-get install -y emacs

I have played with a lot of window managers, and while some claim to be unobtrusive and minimal, I really just want Emacs in full-screen mode (utilizing all screen estate possible).

To accomplish this, I create an .xinitrc file that contains only:

exec emacs

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