Tagged: i3

Exploring with Gentoo Linux (Part 3)

Part 3 - Setting up i3 Window Manager

It's been a couple of years since I started using Tiling Window Manager. I first started with Awesome because it's said that this window manager was somewhat between floating and tiling window manager. It uses Lua to configure the system. It's not the easiest language to learn, but not the most difficult one, either. I liked it but I found a bit cumbersome to arrange windows the way I wanted. So, I migrated over to i3.

Disclaimer:
The information in this site is the result of my researches in the Internet and of my experiences. This information below is solely used for my purpose and may not be suitable for others.

I love i3 for its simplicity and text based configuration file. It's fast, powerful and supports multi-monitors well. I don't think I can go back to any other Window Managers anymore.

X11:

Updated: Updated article about X11

To use i3 Window Manager, X Window System needs to be installed. # emerge --ask x11-base/xorg-drivers # emerge --ask x11-base/xorg-server

When the installation is finished, some environment variables will need to re-initialized before continuing. Source the profile with this command:# env-update # source /etc/profile

NVIDIA Driver:

Updated: Updated article about NVIDIA Driver

I have a rather old NVIDIA GeForce GTS 450. For some reasons, the latest drivers from the nvidia website always doesn't work even though it says its compatible with my graphic card. So, I use the one I know it works from before.# sh NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-390.116.run

i3 Window Manager:

The installation of i3wm is straight forward.# emerge --ask x11-wm/i3

After i3wm is successfully installed, we need a way to execute it and get into i3 window environment. To do this, ~/.xinitrc needs to be created. This is the file when startx and xinit are run and execute it. If this file is not present, startx run the default from /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc.$ nvim ~/.xinitrc ========== exec i3

Then, we need to update ~/.xinitrc to load ~/.Xresources automatically each time startx is executed so the config is loaded into urxvt.$ nvim ~/.xinitrc ========== [[ -f ~/.Xresources ]] && xrdb -merge -I$HOME ~/.Xresources exec i3

Rofi:

Rofi is a window switcher, run dialog, ssh-launcher and dmenu replacement that I've been using since the day I switched to i3 Window Manager.# emerge x11-misc/rofi

i3pystatus:

Installation of i3pystatus is straightforward. To display icons, I'd need Font Awesome installed.# emerge --ask media-fonts/fontawesome

Then, install pip, Python's package management system.# emerge --ask dev-python/pip

Using pip, i3pystatus can be installed. The --user option is needed because I'm installing it as a regular user. This will install it user's $HOME directory ($HOME/.local/): $ pip install --user i3pystatus

As mentioned before, i3pystatus was installed under $HOME/.local/bin/, this needs to be added to $PATH.

Finally, install some modules to display volume, memory usage, disk usage, network status, etc.

Updated: Updated article about Python Modules
$ pip install --user colour \ netifaces \ psutil

New: Pop-up Calendar Applet

gsimplecal:

I wanted a simple calendar applet to pop up when the date/time field in i3pystatus is clicked. What I was looking for is something simple, small, and lightweight calendar app, and narrowed down to Orage and gsimplecal. Orage is from XFCE, known its lightweight desktop environment, and gsimplecal is written in C++ using GTK for OpenBox. Both are simple and lightweight, but I decided to use gsimplecal because I can control its behavior from a config file.$ cd /tmp $ git clone git://github.com/dmedvinsky/gsimplecal.git $ cd gsimplecal $ ./autogen.sh $ ./configure $ make ... Unique.cpp:7:10: fatal error: sys/sysctl.h: No such file or directory 7 | #include <sys/sysctl.h> |

At this point, it failed on my system because sysctl.h is under /usr/include/linux/ directory. To fix this issue, simply edit the affected Unique.cpp under gsimplecal/src/ directory.

After correcting the path for the header file, re-run the make command and continue installing the app$ make $ make install

Then create a config file under ~/.config/gsimplecal/ and enter the following config values:$ mkdir ~/.config/gsimplecal $ cd ~/.config/gsimplecal/ $ nvim config ================== show_calendar = 1 show_timezones = 1 mark_today = 1 show_week_numbers = 1 close_on_unfocus = 0 external_viewer = sunbird \-showdate "%Y\-%m\-%d" clock_format = %a %d %b %H:%M force_lang = en_US.utf8 mainwindow_decorated = 0 mainwindow_keep_above = 1 mainwindow_sticky = 0 mainwindow_skip_taskbar = 1 mainwindow_resizable = 0 mainwindow_position = none mainwindow_xoffset = 1690 mainwindow_yoffset = 845 clock_label = Local clock_tz = clock_label = Tokyo clock_tz = :Asia/Tokyo clock_label = Taiwan clock_tz = :Asia/Taipei

The last step is to integrate gsimplecal to i3pystatus.$ nvim ~/.config/i3/pystatusconfig.py ================== ... status.register("clock", format="%b %e (%a) %H:%M %p ", color="#fffff3", interval=1, on_rightclick="gsimplecal", on_leftclick="gsimplecal", ) ...

That's all!
-gibb

Exploring with Gentoo Linux (Part 1)

Part 1 - Base System

In my previous post, I mentioned that my 10-year-old PC went haywire and upgraded some components to fix them. One of them was the main hard disk that had Slackware installed. I replaced it with a new SSD disk, hoping to get some speed in processing (my PC was so old that I'm not expecting much of speed boost). Since my primary drive needed a replacement, I had to install new OS on it. I was thinking of putting Slackware as usual but it got me thinking a bit. Its last release was 4 years ago. I love its simplicity and stable build but didn't feel like installing a 4-year-old OS.

Gentoo Linux

I've tried Debian, Arch, and Manjaro Linux before, but I always came back to Slackware before I knew it. While debating whether to put Slackware 14.2 again, I came across with Gentoo Linux. I knew the existance of Gentoo Linux and you'd need to compile every package, like Ports in FreeBSD. Well, I wanted to start a new so I decided to give it a try to see how I'd like it.

Disclaimer:
The information in this site is the result of my researches in the Internet and of my experiences. This information below is solely used for my purpose and may not be suitable for others.

Installation:

I wanted the set up of my work environment be the same as what I had before (See Building My Work Environment (Part 1)), so most of applications that'll be installed will be the same. At any rate, the installation of Gentoo was a bit of trial and error, and it took quite a while to get it installed. I'll leave the steps to its Handbook, but its installation procedure is not a menu driven, like other distos. It involes a lot of typings. It reminded me of the Arch Linux installation.

Even Slackware installation is a console menu based, so that makes a big difference between these two distros. I would think the installation procedure for Gentoo or Arch is more flexible.

Partition/filesystem Schemes:

I have this 256GB SSD as a primary disk and 1TB SATA disk for /home. The SSD disk was brand new so I partitioned it as follows with parted;

PartitionSizeFSDescription
/dev/sda12MiB-BIOS boot partition
/dev/sda2128MiBext2Boot partition
/dev/sda34295MiBSWAPSwap Partition
/dev/sda4239970MiBext4/ Partition
Updated: Updated article about Partition Schemes

For the secondary disk, I converted its partition table to gpt and created one partition for /home.

PartitionSizeFSDescription
/dev/sdb1953868MiBext4/home partition

This below is my /etc/fstab. I have /var/tmp and /var/tmp/portage as tmpfs. I took an advice from Portage TMPDIR on tmpfs in Gentoo wiki.

/dev/sda2/bootext2defaults,noatime0 2
/dev/sda3noneswapsw0 0
/dev/sda4/ext4noatime,errors=remount-ro0 1
/dev/sdb1/homeext4defaults1 2
tmpfs/tmptmpfsnoatime,nodev,nosuid,size=10G0 0
tmpfs/var/tmptmpfsrw,nosuid,noatime,nodev, size=15G,mode=17770 0
tmpfs/var/tmp/portage tmpfsrw,nosuid,noatime,nodev,size=15G, mode=775,uid=portage,gid=portage, x-mount.mkdir=7750 0
Updated: Updated article about /etc/fstab

SSD Optimization:

Some of websites mention the use of discard mount option in fstab, but as SSD from Gentoo wiki and Solid State Drive from Archwiki stated, using the discard mount option is called continuous TRIM and it's not recommended. Instead, it suggests to run fstrim periodically. So, that's what I did using cron.# crontab -e =================================== # Global variables SHELL=/bin/bash PATH=/sbin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin MAILTO=root HOME=/ # For details see man 5 crontab # Example of job definition: # .---------------- minute (0 - 59) # |  .------------- hour (0 - 23) # |  |  .---------- day of month (1 - 31) # |  |  |  .------- month (1 - 12) OR jan,feb,mar,apr ... # |  |  |  |  .---- day of week (0 - 6) (Sunday=0 or 7) OR sun,mon,tue,wed,thu,fri,sat # |  |  |  |  | # * * * * * user-name command to be executed 15 04 * * 6 /sbin/fstrim /

XDG cache on tmpfs:

Many X Window System programs, such as Chromium, Firefox, etc..., make frequent disk I/O every few seconds to cache. To reduce strains to SSD, the default cache location can be changed to tmpfs. The default cache location is ~/.cache and this is HDD for my case but I sent it to tmpfs anyway.# nvim /etc/profile.d/xdg_cache_home.sh ============================================ if [ $USER ]; then export XDG_CACHE_HOME="/tmp/${USER}/.cache" fi

make.conf:

/etc/portage/make.conf is used to customize the Portage environment for the entire system (not per package or user). The settings defined in this file will be applied to all packages that are being installed (or emerged). So far, these are my custom settings: # cat /etc/portage/make.conf ================== CFLAGS="-march=native -O2 -pipe" ... # The number of parallel make jobs that can be used MAKEOPTS="-j7" # USE flags USE="-emacs -kde -gnome -bluetooth alsa" # Language codes for US English and Japanese L10N="en en-US ja"

X11:

If startx can't be found, it most likely X11 didn't get installed. # emerge --ask x11-base/xorg-server

System Logger:

During the installation, I chose to install system logger (app-admin/sysklogd) and this may display the following messages in console:

sysklogd: /dev/xconsole: No such file or directory

When the message starts to appear, updating its configuration file should solve it. # nvim /etc/syslog.conf ============ ... #daemon.*;mail.*;\ # news.err;\ # *.=debug;*.=info;\ # *.=notice;*.=warn |/dev/xconsole

ALSA Issues:

I have another post with more details about issues with ALSA sound, but to sum it up,I need to enable SND_HDA_CODEC_CONEXANT in the kernel options. The HD-audio component apparently consists of two parts, the driver and codec, and correct options need to be enabled.

eix:

eix is a set of utilities for searching and diffing local ebuild repositories using a binary cache. This is used to audit installed packages for maintenance. Use eix Gentoo wiki for how to set it up. # emerge --ask app-portage/eix

New: Some system utilities are added below.

smartmontools:

smartmontools is a utility to read and monitor the S.M.A.R.T. (Self-Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Technology) information of ATA/SATA and SCSI/SAS drives. Use Gentoo wiki: smartmontools for how to set it up. # emerge --ask sys-apps/smartmontools

lshw:

lshw is a hardware detection utility to report various hardware components. # emerge --ask sys-apps/lshw

To display connected storage devices, run below command: # lshw -class disk -class storage ========================= ... *-scsi:0 physical id: 1 logical name: scsi0 capabilities: emulated *-disk description: ATA Disk product: Samsung SSD 860 physical id: 0.0.0 bus info: scsi@0:0.0.0 logical name: /dev/sda version: 1B6Q serial: S5GANE0MB00832Y size: 238GiB (256GB) capabilities: gpt-1.00 partitioned partitioned:gpt configuration: ansiversion=5 guid=2d257117-5180-48d2-be63-3222d90a37e9 logicalsectorsize=512 sectorsize=512 ... *-scsi:2 physical id: 3 logical name: scsi2 capabilities: emulated *-disk description: ATA Disk product: WDC WD10EZEX-75W vendor: Western Digital physical id: 0.0.0 bus info: scsi@2:0.0.0 logical name: /dev/sdb version: 7113 serial: WD-WCC6Y4PE55J2 size: 931GiB (1TB) capabilities: gpt-1.00 partitioned partitioned:gpt configuration: ansiversion=5 guid=189d3b93-af3e-47e2-8ed2-975eb9ed4ec0 logicalsectorsize=512 sectorsize=4096

Things To Be Installed:

Fonts:
  • font-awesome
  • Kochi (Japanese)
  • Inconsolata

Icons:
  • Faenza

File Manager:
  • pcmanfm
  • ranger

Music:
  • cmus - Console based music player

Terminal:
  • rxvt-unicode

Text Editor:
  • Neovim

Themes:
  • lxappearance - Change GTK based themes
  • nitrogen - Set wallpapers
  • My customized Morning Glory theme

Version Control:
  • git

Virtualization:
  • virtualbox

Web Browser:
  • chromium

Window Manager:
  • i3
  • i3pystatus - Replacement for i3status
  • rofi - Replacement for dmenu

Others:
  • scrot - Command line screen capture
  • neofetch - ASCII art to show logo and system info

That's all!
-gibb

Building My Work Environment (Part 6)

Part 6 - Let's type in Japanese

Now, we can view Japanese in terminal, let's try installing some input method framework. The CHANGES_AND_HINTS.TXT for Slackware64 14.2 suggests to use SCIM, but according to Arch wiki, SCIM is a dead project now. So, we'll try installing IBus.

Disclaimer:
The information in this site is the result of my researches in the Internet and of my experiences. This information below is solely used for my purpose and may not be suitable for others.

Installation:

Installation of ibus as well as its dependencies and Japanese engine, ibus-anthy, is no difficult tasks. If you are planning to input Japanese characters, you might consider installing ibus-qt as well. They are available from Slackbuilds.org as usual.

Configurations:

Once the installation is done, start the setup program to do some configurations.$ ibus-setup

All I changed was the keyboard shortcuts and input methods. For keyboard shortcuts, I was hoping Alt+Shift would just work but it didn't, so I changed it to Alt+Shift+space.

For input methods, I added Japanese - Anthy to enable Japanese input. You might have noticed that its icon is different from the default one. This is because I replaced its default icon with my own.

The configuration of ibus should be done now. You'll see a small EN icon in its systray. That confirms ibus is running now. Left click on the icon will show you the list available input methods, in this case, English and Japanese - Anthy.

.bashrc:

We need to tell the system that we are using ibus for alternate language inputs after logging out or shutdown. To do this, we update .bashrc and add some environment variables.$ nvim ~/.bashrc ----------------------------------------- ... export GTK_IM_MODULE=ibus export XMODIFIERS=@im=ibus export QT_IM_MODULE=ibus ...

i3/config:

Now, we need to start ibus each time we log into i3 window manager. To do this, we add ibus-autostart to at the end of i3's config file.$ nvim ~/.config/i3/config ----------------------------------------- ... exec --no-startup-id ibus-autostart

Japanese input is enabled and available for terminal as well.

Changing Default Anthy Icon:

I thought the default Anthy icon was not pretty and didn't like it. So, I decided to change it to my own. After searching for the icon in the system, I found it in /usr/share/ibus-anthy/icons/. It's called ibus-anthy.png. I used GIMP to create another icon and replaced it.

That's all!
-gibb

Building My Work Environment (Part 4)

Part 4 - De-Uglifying i3

There are many sites offer themes/themers for i3, like unix121's themer. But I like clean and simple, so I changed just a handful of components.

Disclaimer:
The information in this site is the result of my researches in the Internet and of my experiences. This information below is solely used for my purpose and may not be suitable for others.

gtk2 Theme

I imported my old gtk2 theme, Morning Glory from Openbox days. This theme can be applied using lxappearance.$ tar -xzvf MorningGlory.tar.gz -C ~/.themes/ ... $ lxappearance

Icons

I still use Faenza icon set. I recently found out that this icon set can be downloaded and installed from slackbuilds.org


Font Awesome Fonts/Icons

i3pystatus I installed in the Part 3 uses icons to display each component, like CPU and memory. For that, font awesome needs to be installed. The latest version at the time of this writing is 5.0.10. Download a zip file, unzip it, and copy otf files from the use-on-desktop folder to system appropriate directory.$ unzip fontawesome-free-5.0.10.zip ... $ cd fontawesome-free-5.0.10/use-on-desktop/ # cp *.otf /usr/share/fonts/OTF # mkfontdir /usr/share/fonts/{TTF,OTF} # mkfontscale /usr/share/fonts/{TTF,OTF} # fc-cache -fv Restart X

To check if the fonts were properly installed, run fc-list:$ fc-list | grep -i awesome ...

Ricty Font

Ricty is Japanese True Type font based on Inconsolata and Circle M+ 1m, optimized for the programming usage. Here is some benefits of using the font:

  • Use Inconsolata for the Latin character glyphs and "Circle M+ 1m" font for other glyphs.
  • Adjust the width of full-width and normal-width character glyphs to 2:1 ratio exactly full and half.
  • Design the comma, period, colon, semicolon and bracket character glyphs to differentiate each other clearly to prevent confusions.
  • Design the high visibility p-sound sign attached Kana character glyphs.
  • Design the En-dash and Em-dash glyphs show them as the broken line to prevent input failures for LaTeX.
  • It shows Em-size space as "box" character because Em-size space often prevents debugging since users usually miss it. With Ricty Diminished font, users can find and fix it easily.

The instruction on how to build Ricty is from this site.

Bash Environment

I changed the style and color of PS1 in .bashrc. PS1='\[\e[38;5;106m\]\A \[\e[38;5;210m\]\u\[\e[38;5;229m\]@\[\e[38;5;220m\]\h\[\e[38;5;252m\][\[\e[38;5;69m\]\w\[\e[38;5;252m\]]\n\[\e[47m\]\[\e[38;5;232m\]$\[\e[00m\] '


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~/.bashrc
=====

Color Scheme for ranger

ranger is a text-based file manager with vi/vim key-bindings. Since it's key stroke based, it's perfect for i3. I like my default color scheme. But you can change the color scheme by ~/.config/ranger/colorschemes/.
For syntax highlighting in ranger, I use highlight.


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~/.config/ranger/*
=====

Color Scheme for urxvt

The color scheme for urxvt is controlled from .Xresources. I'm currently using gruvbox.

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~/.Xresources
=====

rofi

rofi is a window switcher, application launcher, and dmenu replacement, currently maintained by Dave Davenport. It's lightweight and highly customized. My rasi theme file, dark_elements.rasi, and rofi config file are availble.


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~/.config/rofi/*
=====

i3lock

I created a bash file to take a screenshot, blur that image, insert a lock icon, and apply it to i3lock.


=====
~/Scripts/i3lock/lock_blur_i3.sh
~/Scripts/i3lock/lock_red.png
=====

In next article, let's talk about displaying Japanese characters in terminal.

That's all!
-gibb

Building My Work Environment (Part 3)

Part 3 - Oh, what's that Window Manager?

Openbox used to be my de facto window manager for my systems for years. You can see some of my posts related to Openbox here. I have nothing but praises for its lightweight and solid performance (Not to mention it's highly customizable).

Then, I learned about Tiling window manager by chance. Tiling WM is designed to arrange windows in a way that they don't overlap each other. Also, it supports key-bindings to operate around keystrokes instead of using a mouse. That reminded me of vi/vim editor. Those facts piqued my interest.

I first started using Awesome Window Manager because it was a tiling window manger but also supported the floating option, which somewhat gave me a peace of mind. Awesome wm was highly configurable from a configuration file written in lua language. I quickly got around and configured it the way I wanted. However, a few months after, I noticed some keybindings stopped working and/or didn't behave the ways they should.

Then, I moved onto i3 window manager. It was next logical thing to try this wm as I read so many positive inputs about it. No regrets. It's easier to configure than Awesome wm because its configuration file is plain text, and it just worked. I've been using it a little more than a few months but I don't think I could go back to Awesome wm or stacking/floating window manager like Openbox ever again!

Disclaimer:
The information in this site is the result of my researches in the Internet and of my experiences. This information below is solely used for my purpose and may not be suitable for others.

Installation:

Installation of i3wm isn't that difficult with Slackware. Go to slackbuilds.org, download all dependencies, and install them one by one.... Installation of dependencies ... $ tar -xzvf i3.tar.gz i3/ i3/slack-desc i3/README i3/i3.SlackBuild i3/i3.info i3/doinst.sh i3/xinitrc.i3 $ mv i3-4.15.tar.bz2 i3/ # cd i3/ # ./i3.SlackBuild ... Slackware package /tmp/i3-4.15-x86_64-1_SBo.tgz created. # installpkg /tmp/i3-4.15-x86_64-1_SBo.tgz ... Executing install script for i3-4.15-x86_64-1_SBo.tgz. Package i3-4.15-x86_64-1_SBo.tgz installed.

At the beginning, I referred i3 like vi/vim. It's just like that. If you know right key combinations, your productivity would increase. But if you are not familiar with it, it's just so hard to deal with. In my humble opinion, although its learning curve is steep, it's worth learning how to properly use it.

To set i3 as your default windows manager, you'd need to run xwmconfig. $ xwmconfig

Config File:

i3's config file is located at ~/.config/i3/config, and it's a plain text file. It should be fairly easy to understand because of all the comments there. One thing you do need to remember is to reload the config file with $Mod+Shift+r each time the file has been modified.
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~/.config/i3/config
=====

Status Bar:

By default, i3 does not offer a status bar unless you install one. I tried with i3blocks and configured it with mpd/ncmpcpp support and everything I wanted to show in my status bar on my notebook with Debian stretch; however, to install i3blocks on Slackware, you need to go through ridiculous number of dependencies. For that reason, I gave up on installing i3blocks. Instead, I installed i3pystatus. i3pystatus was so easy to set up and manage it because each piece is a module, and it didn't take me long to configure it as I wanted.

Before i3pystatus can properly display, some python modules need to be installed: $ pip3 install --upgrade pip ... $ pip3 install netifaces \ > psutil \ > colour ... $

The i3pystatus version I downloaded from slackbuilds.org is 3.35. I'm not sure if this problem only applies to this version but when memory usage is displayed with {used_mem}, it displays a negative value. After reading up on different forums, I figured out that its source code for mem.py did not support newer version of psutil. Within the code, to get the value of used memory, it was subtracting cached and buffers values from used value. This was ok for psutil version before 4.4.0. With newer psutil (> 4.4.0), getting the used value itself was good enough, I guess.

To prove my point, this is what's going on: $ python3 >>> import psutil >>> psutil.__version__ '5.4.5' >>> mem = psutil.virtual_memory() svmem(total=...) >>> print(mem.used - mem.cached - mem.buffers) <== This is what's done in the code -311427072 <== Gives a negative value >>> print(mem.used) <== For newer psutil version, this is all you need 301985792

Now, we need to edit the source code to take care of newer version for psutil. 1) Change 2nd line from this:from psutil import virtual_memory to: import psutil 2) On line 45 and 46, there is a piece of code to get used memory. That should be changed from:memory_usage = virtual_memory() used = memory_usage.used - memory_usage.cached - memory_usage.buffers to:memory_usage = psutil.virtual_memory() if psutil.version_info < (4, 4, 0): used = memory_usage.used - memory_usage.cached - memory_usage.buffers else: used = memory_usage.used This should take care of displaying a negative value for used memory in i3pystatus.

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~/.config/i3/i3pystatusconf.py
=====

Screen Lock:

I use i3lock to lock the screen. It's simple and customizable.

Shutdown, Reboot, and Logout:

The official way of getting out of i3 is to press $Mod+Shift+e simultaneously. This will show a message bar on top of the screen. Then click on yes, exit i3 to exit. I found this step a bit cumbersome. I could type sudo /sbin/shutdown -h now in a terminal but I'd need to open one if I'm in say web browser workspace. So, I created a i3 mode to handle key combinations to logout, lock screen, reboot, or shutdown (referenced Arch Linux Wiki).

For this to work, sudoer needs to be enabled for a regular user to run the shutdown or reboot command.# visudo ------------------------ [user_name] ALL=NOPASSWD: /sbin/shutdown,/sbin/reboot

In next article, let's talk about changing the look and feel of i3 window manager.

That's all!
-gibb