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Xephyr

Xephyr is a nested X server that runs as an X application.

Instalation​

$ sudo pacman -S xorg-server-xephyr

Usage​

To run a nested X window, you will need to specify a new display:

$ Xephyr -br -ac -noreset -screen 800x600 :1

This will launch a new Xephyr window with a DISPLAY of ":1". In order to launch an application in that window, you would need to specify that display:

$ DISPLAY=:1 xterm

Launching window managers​

If you want to launch a specific WM, awesomewm for example, you would type:

$ DISPLAY=:1 awesome

Grabbing and un-grabbing user input​

Pressing Ctrl+Shift should lock/unlock your mouse pointer and your keystrokes inside Xephyr window exclusively if possible.

Other examples for situations where Xephyr can be useful​

  • A testing environment for an X application, or feature, in which the tester would like to keep working in their usual X environment, yet defending the other applications from failures of the application under test. Example script for running tested app(for examples window manager) inside Xephyr:
    xephyr.sh
    #!/bin/bash

    Xephyr -br -ac -reset -screen 1920x1080 :5 &
    sleep 1s
    export DISPLAY=:5
    $1 &
    To run awesomewm inside Xephyr you can run: 
    $ ./xephyr.sh awesome