fmartingr.com/content/blog/2016-04-27-penguin-trials-after-two-weeks/contents.lr

title: The penguin trials after two weeks
---
body:

It's been two weeks already and I will make a quick post with two subjects:
the stuff broken that needed to be fixed (from my point of view) and
improvements to the workstation that made my life easier.

After other two weeks I will post a summary with the good and bad parts.

<!-- readmore -->

## Stuff fixed

### Lightdm black screen

After the first reboot the first problem appeared, the lightdm login window
was a black screen (accepting input but showing nothing). I remember that from
not so long ago when I tried to install linux on my home computer and that
happened, luckily it had a solution, I just needed to install `lightdm-gtk-
greeter` and replace it at the lightdm configuration.

``` text
# /etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf
# ...
greeter-session=lightdm-gtk-greeter
# ...
```

### Better font rendering for i3

The default fonts for the i3bar and so on are a bit clunky for my personal
taste so I changed the rendering from `pango` to `xft` and now it looks nice.

``` text
font xft:monospace 8
```

### Better font rendering system wide (ala. OS X)

One of my worst problems with linux is the font rendering. Everything looks
worse than on OS X, that's a fact. Even people using linux desktops say it
when looking text on a OS X machine. Luckily I found `infinality`, a patch for
the font rendering in the freetype2 package that left my fonts almost
_Macish_.

I just installed the `infinality-bundle` following [the official ArchLinux
Wiki entry](https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Infinality) on the subject
and used the setup for the _Soft of OS X_ appareance editing the
`/etc/profile.d/infinality-settings.sh` using the `ultimate5` configuration.

``` text
export INFINALITY_FT="ultimate5"
```

Just restart X to the settings to take effect. I haven't seen problems with
the infinality patch until now.

## Improvements over the base system

### Adding some background with feh

The most basic stuff! I don't really know if there's another way to do this
but looking around I found that using `feh` you can just point to an image
file and use that as wallpaper.

Just adding this to my i3 config file:

``` text
exec_always feh --bg ~/.config/i3/wallpaper.png
```

I want to improve it having a script that will iterate over png images inside
a folder and using one at random but since I don't need fancy stuff this will
work for now.

### Running stuff when I log in

To start programs when you log in at your session adding them to your i3
configuration seems like the way to go:

``` text
# Startup programs
exec dropbox
```

### Adding a lock screen with i3lock

Another thing I missed a lot. When I leave my desk I lock my computer so no
one can, just say, put a David Hasselhoff wallpaper on it or something, so
with `i3lock`, `scrut`, a bash script and a key binding I have a very nice
screen locker in place!

``` text
#!/bin/sh

# Take screenshot
scrot /tmp/lockscreen.png

# Pixellate
mogrify -scale 10% -scale 1000% /tmp/lockscreen.png

# Lock screen with the image
i3lock -i /tmp/lockscreen.png
```

And in the i3 config file:

``` text
bindsym $mod+l ~/.config/i3/i3lock.sh
```

### More integrated notifications with dunst

Since the default desktop environment I installed was xfce4, the notifications
being shown was from them and it were horrible. Instead of that I installed
[dunst](https://github.com/knopwob/dunst).

![dunst notifications](dunst.png)

They are not the best looking notifications but are well integrated with the
system design and are highly customizable, they will change soon enough :)

### Using the media keys for volume with alsa mixer

This was easy since I just need to bind the X media volume up and down to the
alsa mixer control app so I can use the keyboard to control the system volume
easily.

``` text
# Media keys
bindsym XF86AudioRaiseVolume exec amixer -q set Master 4%+ unmute
bindsym XF86AudioLowerVolume exec amixer -q set Master 4%- unmute
```

### Using the media keys for media players with playerctl

By default my system didn't recognize the media keys for
play/pause/back/forward for any player but this was the easiest of them all.
Just installed `playerctl` and every app I used until now worked out of the
box. Even the forward/backwards keys for `mpv` which wasn't working for mpv
with mps-youtube on OS X are functional on my linux box!

``` text
# Media player controls
bindsym XF86AudioPlay exec playerctl play-pause
# bindsym XF86AudioPause exec playerctl pause
bindsym XF86AudioNext exec playerctl next
bindsym XF86AudioPrev exec playerctl previous
```

### Removing the title bars for the windows

That was space I didn't need, it may seem stupid but... how often do you look
at the titlebar of the app you're using? Some like the browsers didn't even
have one! So I've removed the titlebars and left only 2px borders for the
application windows.

``` text
# Windows without titlebars
for_window [class="^.*"] border pixel 2
```

### Auto enable floating for pop-up windows

It was really annoying watching a google login window take half of the desktop
just for a moment to login into a service, so every window with the role of
popup is now floating by default.

``` text
# Browser popups floating
for_window [window_role="pop-up"] floating enable
```

### Using a custom i3bar with i3pystatus

Since most of the default information the i3bar was unnecesary I found out
about i3pystatus that allows you to use python modules to customize the i3bar
at will. Below are my config file and the i3bar.py I use for it.

``` python
from i3pystatus import Status
from i3pystatus.updates import pacman, yaourt


status = Status()

# Pacman/Yaourt updates
status.register("updates",
                format="Updates: {count}",
                format_no_updates="No updates",
                backends=[pacman.Pacman(), yaourt.Yaourt()])

# Displays clock like this:
status.register("clock",
                format="%a %-d %b %H:%M",)

# CPU
status.register('cpu_usage')

# Memory
status.register('mem',
                format='{used_mem}/{total_mem}')

# Shows the average load of the last minute and the last 5 minutes
# (the default value for format is used)
status.register("load", color='#00ff00')

# Shows the address and up/down state of enp6s0
status.register("network",
                interface="enp6s0",
                format_up="{v4cidr}")

# Shows disk usage of /
status.register("disk",
                path="/",
                format="{used}/{total}G [{avail}G]",)

# Shows pulseaudio default sink volume
status.register("pulseaudio",
                format="♪{volume}",)

status.run()
```

``` text
# .config/i3/config
bar {
    status_command ~/.config/i3/i3bar.py
    position up
}
```

### Hide the mouse cursor when not needed

Using i3 I rely on the keyboard a lot, so much that sometimes my wireless
mouse turn itself off to save battery due to inactivity. That said, it's
really annoying for me having the cursor over text I'm writing or just sitting
there when I don't need it so I installed
[unclutter](https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/unclutter) and running it on
startup was very relieving.

``` bash
# .config/i3/unclutter.sh
#!/bin/bash
unclutter &
```

``` text
# .config/i3/config
exec ~/.config/i3/unclutter.sh
```

## What's next?

There are still two weeks pending and even after all this tweaks the
customization is far from over! There are still stuff I miss a lot, like:

  * Easily take screenshots with keybinds.
  * Better window switching.
  * Better dmenu launcher
  * Prevent the screenshoter from drawing the area selector on the screenshot taken. (**xfce4-screenshoter**)
  * `ctrl`+`e`/`a` for end and start of line global keybinds.
  * Use the scratchpad more and try to improve it.

See ya in two weeks!

---
pub_date: 2016-04-27
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_template: blog-post.html