While I can't answer your question about the source code, I can tell you that the non-root terminal issue you had, may have been solved by giving the user account a rbash shell instead of the default sh.

If you have ever wanted to try a tiling WM, I suggest you try Ion3 . It has great default key-bindings and a nice simple status bar. It is also compatible with dmenu . If you like tiling you may want to eventually try dwm . In order to be very useful it will need to have its source code edited with ...