FSDE

Overview

Logical Flow

• Display Manager sddm boots into X11 via a 'session' file from /usr/share/xsessions
• Session xinitrc configures input devices, screensaver/lockscreen timeout, pulseaudio error bell, x11.target hook (for user services depending on x11), runs dwm in a loop
  • Session provided by my custom dwm. See https://github.com/AeliusSaionji/abs/tree/master/dwm-git
• dwm itself sets environment vars for ~/.local/bin/dmenu via config.h
  • Rather than exporting a font just for dmenu in ~/.profile, dmenu will inherit the user configured font for dwm.
• dwm handles keyboard shortcuts, no need for xbindkeys
• ~/.local/bin/fondler.sh interprets many dwm keybinds
  • Default shell is sh/dash
• ~/.profile sets up the environment
  • Adds ~/.local/bin to $PATH
  • Exports various environment variables
• ~/.shinit (the configrc of sh/dash) is used to launch another shell
  • Launching our preferred interactive shell in this way has two benefits:
    1. The environment config becomes a permanent and portable part of the system, and users need not worry about correctly porting it to their preferred shell.
    2. Some arch startup scripts rely on an sh compatible shell interpretter, so it makes sense to drop into a secondary shell only after login.

Terminal: st https://github.com/AeliusSaionji/abs/tree/master/st-git

• MOD is Left Alt (not currently used by anything)
• Ctrl-Shift-l opens a dmenu based url launcher
• Ctrl-Shift-c copy to clipboard
• Ctrl-Shift-v pastes from clipboard
• terminal font: inconsolata
  • font recommended by diablo to consider: adobe source code pro

WM: dwm https://github.com/AeliusSaionji/abs/tree/master/dwm-git

• MOD is Windows key or the Appskey aka menukey
• MOD-Space activates dmenu via j4-dmenu-desktop, a shortcut/desktop launcher
• MOD-Alt-Space activates dmenu via ~/.local/bin/run-recent, a program launcher
• MOD-Shift-Enter launches the terminal, st
• MOD-Ctrl-Enter launches st in a popup window
• Open URLs: MOD-u opens selected text with ~/.local/bin/fondler.sh via xdg-open

Misc Notes

Automatic sleep / suspend

xfce, mate, lxqt, kde all have power managers you can install- but they seem to implement their own idle detection, and will put the computer to sleep in the middle of you watching a movie. In theory, the display manager should enable the X11 session to report to logind whether or not the current session is idle, and logind can perform idleactions. Seems like a nice official solution, but I can't get it to work at all. I think I found a better solution, though! Somehow, programs are correctly inhibiting the X11 screensaver. Not sure when this started working or by what mechanism, but this is the basis for how I handle sleeping. I wrote the script suspend-countdown.sh, to be used by xss-lock. My "screensaver" is just a script that shows a countdown and puts the computer to sleep when finished. xss-lock takes care of all the complicated aspects and this works flawlsesly. xss-lock also of course ensures that the lockscreen is activated whenever the computer goes to sleep. Do configure lidswitch and powerbutton actions by logind, because you want laptops to go to sleep even while in the display manager. I begrudgingly installed mate-power-manager, because it's the only power manager that lets you configure it to NOT do things. The only thing it needs to do is hibernate the PC when the battery is at critical level. However, you must also configure it to handle the lidswitch and powerbutton because it inhibits logind's handling of these (after leaving the display manager of course). I tried to write udev rules and scripts for this in years past, but using shell scripting to create a generic solution for different devices which might have multiple batteries turned out to be pretty complicated. Also udev rules kind of suck. So, I let someone else do the work. Last, on systems for which you have enabled hibernation, you can make use of suspend-then-hibernate. Configure the delay in /etc/systemd/sleep.conf and symlimk sudo ln -s /usr/lib/systemd/system/systemd-suspend-then-hibernate.service /etc/systemd/system/systemd-suspend.service to make sure this always happens even when just 'suspend' is invoked.

suspend-countdown.sh and xss-lock and xset

Behavior and syntax of xss-lock combined with xset: xset s [seconds before notifier runs] [seconds before systemctl suspend] This is repurposing the ancient outmoded concept of xset s [timeout] [cycle]. The 2nd arg starts counting AFTER the 1st arg, eg. xset s 2 5 would run the countdown script in 2s and suspend the system in 7s. xss-lock will kill the script upon any user activity.

As mentioned, the script starts at [timeout] and will use libnotify to count down to [cycle], which is when the system will be suspended. The countdown will not start if audio is playing, specifically as a workaround for plexmediaplayer which doesn't inhibit the screensaver (the only app I know of which doesn't have this worked out ;-_-). Also that's default behavior for Windows and other DEs, so the idea is not unconventional. Previously I would just send key F24 to keep the system awake while audio is playing, but this wasn't the best solution becuse plexmediaplayer annoyingly responds to any and all keypresses. So, I make use of xset s reset, which appears to be the cleanest option.

Autostarting X11 programs with systemd services

Somehow the X11 display is unavailable early in the startup process and many services will fail to start, or start but not actually function as intended. The solution I have come up for this is to just create an override for every such service. In the .xinitrc we manually start x11.target, which is a target of my own creation. Create overrides for all problem services to ensure they do not start until x11.target is started by running systemctl --user edit whatever.service and adding the following to the file:

[Unit]
Requisite=x11.target

[Install]
WantedBy=x11.target

Transparency

I'm using inactive window transparency from compton. Every window which is not focused will be transparent. Create exclusions on the fly with Mod-e. I've done this because I like seeing my wallpaper and because I also find dwm's rendering of the active window not easy to spot. All it does is change the color of the window border. So, I've eliminated the border entirely (set to 0 pixels) and rely on transparency to highlight which window is the active window. I also set a pretty hard glow around the active window to really make it clear.

Transparency Notes

• qiv doesn't set the background wallpaper in a way that works with transparency
  • I no longer use qiv at all, but this note is useful
• st has transparency compiled in from the source (via a patch)
  • the patch breaks ranger's image previews
  • hopefully st will get libsixel soon, and both will work
• compton is newer than xcompmgr, use compton

Necessities & Deps

• aur/j4-dmenu-desktop
  • primary launcher
• aur/mimeo
  • xdg-open sucks
• aur/xdg-utils-mimeo
  • xdg-open sucks
  • this replaces xdg-utils
• aur/xiccd
  • Apply monitor color profiles
• compton
  • handles transparency and flashy effects
• dash
• dex
  • Handles .desktop-style startup files
• dmenu
• dunst
  • displays popup notifications
• feh
  • sets the wallpaper
• libnotify
• lxappearance
  • set gtk, mouse themes
• mate-power-manager
  • low battery actions, maybe battery stats?
• perl-file-mimeinfo
  • without this, xdg-open uses 'file' to decide what a file is, which sucks
• slock
• sound-theme-freedesktop
• tlp
  • install and forget power manager; need to enable systemd service though
• ttf-dejavu
  • browsers
• ttf-hanazono
  • everything else and maybe jpn letters?
• ttf-inconsolata
  • terminal
• udevil
  • mount everything as a user, automount devices
• xf86-input-synaptics
  • can't configure touchpad without this
  • try dumping for libinput
• xorg-xbacklight
• xorg-xprop
  • trans-exempt script
• xorg-xsetroot
  • dwm statusbar
• xorg-xwininfo
  • used by popterm and potentially other scripts
• xclip
  • fondler.sh url launching
  • ranger
• xss-lock
  • for running slock when appropriate.
  • script relies on this to suspend-on-idle

Good Software

• ranger
  • file manager
• sxiv
  • image viewer
• zathura
  • pdf / other viewer

systemctl enables

• enable fstrim.timer for SSDs maybe
• enable tlp for laptop power saving
• missing a lot here

Device Considerations

Talim

• Mute key is hardwired to mute the speaker, no need to bind it.
• libva-intel-driver-g45-h264 - video hw decoding for ancient gpu

NERV

• Using pulseaudio to set default soundcard

Misc

Extract .deb

• Extract contents of .deb
• ar vx package.deb
• tar xf data.tar.gz

Programs I'll never remember

• baobab
  • awesome disk usage visualizer
• dconf-editor
  • config editor for a wide variety of programs (gtk or kde config database?)
• fbgrab
  • VT screenshot
• fbv
  • VT image viewer
• okular
  • touch friendly, bloated, feature complete pdf/etc viewer
• unclutter-xfixes-git
  • hide mouse cursor after timeout

Files I'll never remember

• ~/.config/user-dirs.dirs for telling firefox to not make the Desktop folder

Identify Hardlinks

ls -i = inode #, find -inum <#>
find -printf "%n %p\n" %n is number of hardlinks
find -samefile <file>

Samba share mounting

There are a few ways- topmost entry is what I'm currently trialing

1. udevil cp /etc/udevil/udevil.conf /etc/udevil/udevil-user-aelius.conf add cifs to allowed_types, add credentials=/etc/cifs_creds to default_options_cifs touch /etc/udevil/cifs_aelius && chmod 600 /etc/udevil/cifs_aelius, newline separated username= password= udevil mount //server/mount
2. smbnetfs Makes the WORKGROUP domain generally browseable, but permissions are all wrong
3. Use fstab to auto mount predefined shares upon accessing, and auto unmount after idle timeout https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Fstab#Automount_with_systemd https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Samba#Add_Share_to_.2Fetc.2Ffstab //server/share /mntpoint cifs credentials=file,uid=localLinuxUser,gid=users,noauto,x-systemd.automount,x-systemd.idle-timeout=1min,x-systemd.requires=network-online.target 0 0 Unless uid and gid are set, root will own the mount and all files noauto prevents mounting at boot and mounting with mount -a x-systemd.automount apparently mounts the entry when someone tries to access the mount point x-systemd.idle-timeout=1min unmounts the entry when the mount point has not been touched in 1 minute x-systemd.device-timeout does not apply to cifs

Skype for linux won't stay logged in

Install gnome-keyring

Synclient can't connect to synaptics driver

Install xf86-input-evdev, uninstall xf86-input-libinput (which overrides synptics). xorg-server depends on at least one of those, you can't uninstall one without having the other installed.

Scripting

I've taken to just using test statements combined with && and || in place of if- partially because it takes up less lines, partially because I have this untested notion that it might be more efficient to execute. I should look into that. Something to remember is that it cannot replace if in all scenarios, particularly when using functions. ["$false"] && ["$(function_1)"] || ["$(function_2)"] This may seem obvious, but my sleep deprived self had a hard time understanding why both of those functions were being executed. Actually I still don't know why; I think that first $false should fail the left side of the || immediately. Well, if the $false wasn't there, it makes sense that function_1 would be executed- it has to be tested to see if it returns 1 or 0. An if statement must be used here to protect the functions from being treated as part of the conditional evaluation. Similarly, while that above example would work fine if it doesn't matter that both sides of the || are executed, another problem we run into is bad return codes. If a test statement returns 1, so does the entire script. While this doesn't hurt anything, a script which runs successfully shouldn't be spitting out nonzero returns; an if statement will allow better control of the return codes.

tmux vs dvtm vs st scrollback patch

st has no scrollback, and it doesn't gracefully handle the window being resized (which is pretty crazy coming from developers who make a dynamic tiling window manager????). Specifically, buffer content is deleted if no longer shown, which is why the st scrollback patch doesn't cut it. A multiplexer is necessary. I want to use dvtm, but the project has been abandoned. There are rendering bugs. Rarely- there are crashes. The dev wants to scrap his own code and just use some other emulator backend, but hasn't made any progress on this in years. Which is a shame- I love dvtm. I especially love that "copy mode" just opens the scrollback in your $EDITOR. Maybe one day someone will revive the project. Until then, tmux it is.