[SOLVED] Problems with i3wm

stroudmw · 2021-05-06 10:29:23

I have tried to install i3wm on Devuan Beowulf. It's been pretty successful, but I have 2 niggling issues. What I've done is this:

- Ran the netinstall, and selected Standard System Utilities
- Selected sysvinit (which is the recommendation)

I then included beowulf-backports in /etc/apt/sources.list (but I really don't think that this is relevant - I just use it for up-to-date firmware and for LibreOffice, which I haven't got to yet)

I then installed the following:
- firmware-linux-nonfree, firmware-iwlwifi (from the backports)
- sudo (and then included my user in the sudoers file using visudo. I'm also in the sudo group)
- htop, lm-sensors, ufw, tlp, tlp-rdw (probably useless in my case), inxi
- xorg, lightdm, lightdm-gtk-greeter
- lxpolkit, lxappearance, lxsession (using --no-install-recommends)
- i3 (the metapackage), rofi
- thunar, terminator, nitrogen, firefox-esr, mpv (video player), deadbeef (music player), numix-icon-theme, oxygencursors
- compton, nm-tray, volumeicon-alsa, alsamixergui

The two problems I have are:
1) I have no sound. I'm sure that I've missed out something important in alsa, but I have no idea what. I've tried pipewire as well as pulseaudio (grasping at straws), but that didn't work, and I've now removed them.
NB: I have commented out autospawn=no in /etc/pulse/client.conf.d/00-disable-autospawn.conf

sudo alsactl init gives me this:
Found hardware: "HDA-Intel" "Intel Haswell HDMI" "HDA:80862807,80860101,00100000" "0x103c" "0x1942"
Hardware is initialized using a generic method

2) nm-tray works, but I don't have an icon. (Just a black box). I get "QSystemTrayIcon::setVisible: No Icon set". Google tells me that this is because nm-tray is looking in /usr/share/pixmaps instead of /usr/share/icons, but I have no idea how to fix this.

3) My touchpad "tap-to-click" isn't working, but I haven't spent any time trying to fix this yet: I'll get to it when I've sorted out my other problems!

Here is my basic system info:

System:    Host: constellation Kernel: 4.19.0-16-amd64 x86_64 bits: 64 Desktop: i3 4.16.1 Distro: Devuan GNU/Linux 3 (beowulf) 
Machine:   Type: Laptop System: Hewlett-Packard product: HP ProBook 450 G1 v: A3009DD10303 serial: <root required> 
           Mobo: Hewlett-Packard model: 1942 v: KBC Version 89.0E serial: <root required> BIOS: Hewlett-Packard 
           v: L74 Ver. 01.03 date: 09/27/2013 
Battery:   ID-1: BAT0 charge: 36.9 Wh condition: 39.3/39.3 Wh (100%) 
CPU:       Quad Core: Intel Core i7-4702MQ type: MT MCP speed: 1106 MHz min/max: 800/3200 MHz 
Graphics:  Device-1: Intel 4th Gen Core Processor Integrated Graphics driver: i915 v: kernel 
           Device-2: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD/ATI] Mars [Radeon HD 8670A/8670M/8750M] driver: radeon v: kernel 
           Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.20.4 driver: intel resolution: 1366x768~60Hz 
           OpenGL: renderer: Mesa DRI Intel Haswell Mobile v: 4.5 Mesa 18.3.6 
Network:   Device-1: Realtek RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet driver: r8169 
           Device-2: Qualcomm Atheros QCA9565 / AR9565 Wireless Network Adapter driver: ath9k 
           Device-3: Qualcomm Atheros AR3012 Bluetooth type: USB driver: usb-network 
Drives:    Local Storage: total: 931.51 GiB used: 787.84 GiB (84.6%) 
Info:      Processes: 171 Uptime: 26m Memory: 7.09 GiB used: 820.6 MiB (11.3%) Shell: bash inxi: 3.0.32

Any ideas would be appreciated. Thanks!

dice · 2021-05-06 13:37:15

is the sound unmuted in alsamixer ?

You left out your audio in the inxi.

use for audio only..

inxi -A

Last edited by dice (2021-05-06 13:37:38)

stroudmw · 2021-05-07 06:19:23

Thanks for your reply. Here's the result of inxi -A:

Audio:     Device-1: Intel Xeon E3-1200 v3/4th Gen Core Processor HD Audio driver: snd_hda_intel 
           Device-2: Intel 8 Series/C220 Series High Definition Audio driver: snd_hda_intel 
           Sound Server: ALSA v: k4.19.0-16-amd64

Muting isn't the issue: what I neglected to mention is that I have 2 lights on the keyboard: one for wifi, and the other for sound. The sound light isn't on. So, I'm missing something fundamental here.

stroudmw · 2021-05-07 07:31:11

Got it! I found the solution over at the arch forum. I had to create a file:

/etc/modprobe.d/default.conf

with the contents

options snd_hda_intel index=1

Then run

sudo alsactl init

I now have sound

stroudmw · 2021-05-07 07:49:24

I've also sorted out tap-to-click on my touch pad. Here is how I did it:

sudo apt install xinput

xinput list

which gave me this (in part - it's quite long)

⎡ Virtual core pointer                    	id=2	[master pointer  (3)]
⎜   ↳ Virtual core XTEST pointer              	id=4	[slave  pointer  (2)]
⎜   ↳ MOSART Semi. 2.4G Keyboard Mouse Mouse  	id=11	[slave  pointer  (2)]
⎜   ↳ MOSART Semi. 2.4G Keyboard Mouse Consumer Control	id=12	[slave  pointer  (2)]
⎜   ↳ SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad              	id=16	[slave  pointer  (2)]

I want device id=16 - the Synaptics TouchPad.

 xinput list-props 16

which gives me that device's properties:

Device 'SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad':
	Device Enabled (153):	1
	Coordinate Transformation Matrix (155):	1.000000, 0.000000, 0.000000, 0.000000, 1.000000, 0.000000, 0.000000, 0.000000, 1.000000
	libinput Tapping Enabled (306):	0

(again, a partial list, as it's quite long)

So, I need to change the property "Tapping Enabled (306)" from a 0 (off) to a 1 (on):

xinput set-prop 16 306 1

...and include it in my

~/.config/i3/config

to make it permanent:

exec --no-startup-id xinput set-prop 16 306 1 &

Now I've just got to figure out why I can't see the icon for nm-tray.

Last edited by stroudmw (2021-05-07 08:29:18)

stroudmw · 2021-05-07 08:19:18

...and I've found a fix for the nm-tray icon. I just copied the files over (although I'm sure there is a more elegant solution!)

 sudo cp /usr/share/icons/Numix/scalable/status/network* /usr/share/pixmaps/

I now have a rather brilliant i3wm installation running on Devuan Beowulf!

Head_on_a_Stick · 2021-05-07 13:29:46

stroudmw wrote:

options snd_hda_intel index=1

That will only work for certain types of soundcard. Getting PulseAudio running properly would have fixed things for you automagically because all that file does is set the default ALSA output device to the analogue card rather than the default HDMI device.

stroudmw wrote:

tap-to-click

For that you can use an X.Org configuration file to control either the (obsolete) xf86-input-synaptics or xf86-input-libinput drivers:

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Libinp … ation_file

That technique would work for all (non-Wayland) desktops and even on the login screen.

stroudmw wrote:

nm-tray icon

Have you tried changing the icon theme for the desktop? Edit ~/.gtkrc-2.0 & ~/.config/gtk-3.0/settings.ini directly or use something like lxappearance.

stroudmw · 2021-05-08 07:57:35

Thanks for your feedback. I think I'm going to start again from scratch... I agree with you re. using Pulseaudio. I had thought of giving Pipewire a try (and did install it briefly) but I'm not convinced that it's quite ready-for-prime-time yet. At least, not for someone with my skill level.

xf86-input-libinput: yes. That works, and perhaps I should've used it. I'm just used to using xinput. But your way is the more "elegant".

nm-tray: I've tried lxappearance... I use that, lxsession (to shutdown/reboot) as well as lxpolkit in all of my i3wm installs. However, I really battle to get it to work. Even now I've noticed that the icon has disappeared again!

When I do the re-install, I'll create another post if I still have problems. Or, maybe create a how-to about setting up i3wm in Devuan

The officially official Devuan Forum!

#1 2021-05-06 10:29:23

[SOLVED] Problems with i3wm

#2 2021-05-06 13:37:15

Re: [SOLVED] Problems with i3wm

#3 2021-05-07 06:19:23

Re: [SOLVED] Problems with i3wm

#4 2021-05-07 07:31:11

Re: [SOLVED] Problems with i3wm

#5 2021-05-07 07:49:24

Re: [SOLVED] Problems with i3wm

#6 2021-05-07 08:19:18

Re: [SOLVED] Problems with i3wm

#7 2021-05-07 13:29:46

Re: [SOLVED] Problems with i3wm

#8 2021-05-08 07:57:35

Re: [SOLVED] Problems with i3wm

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