irwm is an X11 window manager designed for remote controls. It shows one window at time in full screen. It allows switching between them and opening new ones from a menu.

It can be started from a virtual terminal via either of the two following ways:

• xinit path/to/irwm
• startx path/to/irwm

Upon startup, irwm reads the configuration file .irwmrc or /etc/irwmrc, which contains the programs it initially launch and the ones that are shown in the program list so that the user can start them. File irwmrc is an example.

It can be controlled via the keyboard:

• alt-right: next window
• alt-left: previous window
• alt-tab: list of currently open windows, key 'c'=close, e='move to end'
• ctrl-tab: list of programs the user can launch
• ctrl-shift-tab: quit

The same functions can be performed from a remote control by passing option -l to irwm and adding to .lircrc the association between lirc keys and irwm commands. This is described in irwm man page irwm.1. File lircrc is an example.