Installation

[SlidingHorn]

So I'm messing around in a minimal Debian VM that I started as just a server, but I wanted to play with installing a minimal graphical interface to it....this sounds like the perfect candidate to launch xorg......

The issue is, I don't know what make PREFIX=/usr DESTDIR=staged install means. I'm assuming I'll need build-essentials, but beyond that:

• Do I need to download this to anywhere specific?
• Do I just cd into that directory and enter that exactly?
• Once I log into my user account, will I just need to enter the command sx and X will go?
• Also curious what the sxrc file is supposed to look like

Thanks in advance for whatever patience you can spare for a noob.

P.S. If I'm able to grasp this, I'd be glad to attempt to write some documentation for your wiki tab for other less experienced folks

[eli-schwartz]

The issue is, I don't know what make PREFIX=/usr DESTDIR=staged install means. I'm assuming I'll need build-essentials, but beyond that:

You do not know what make install is?

Also curious what the sxrc file is supposed to look like

It is the sx version of an xinitrc and you can simply move an existing xinitrc into place to be your sxrc.

Note this is described in the man page: https://man.archlinux.org/man/sx.1#EXAMPLES

[SlidingHorn]

You do not know what make install is?

not entirely - I've used it before to build applications from source that I needed, but I'm usually starting from a much more "prebuilt" system whereas I'm currently dabbling in a VM that is essentially the very base debian system with nothing else.

I made it quite clear in my post that I'm new at this.

It is the sx version of an xinitrc and you can simply move an existing xinitrc into place to be your sxrc.

Gotcha, thank you for that

Note this is described in the man page: https://man.archlinux.org/man/sx.1#EXAMPLES

I'm not an arch user - though I do try to consult the arch wiki where applicable. I tried to find an entry on the wiki for sx but didn't find one. I'll take a look at the man page link you gave though.

Thanks

[eli-schwartz]

The man page from https://github.com/Earnestly/sx/blob/master/sx.1 is hard to read in the github UI ;) but I do package sx for Arch so its man page is available in our online manpages index. :)

sx uses the standard make install incantation, so there is nothing specific to this project about how to accomplish that. I don't know what challenges your VM barebones install might pose, but if "build-essentials" includes the "make" program you should be fine.

https://www.gnu.org/prep/standards/html_node/DESTDIR.html#DESTDIR is the traditional package manager approach to installing, you don't need to use it.

make PREFIX=/usr is because this software doesn't use a configure script, so you don't need to first run ./configure --prefix=/usr.

[Earnestly]

• Do I need to download this to anywhere specific?
• Do I just cd into that directory and enter that exactly?

No, for your purposes it should be adequate to just run ./sx locally without needing to use make or do any installation.

• Once I log into my user account, will I just need to enter the command sx and X will go?

Yes although if nothing is provided for the X server itself to run, such as a window manager, you will find it exiting immediately after it has started.

• Also curious what the sxrc file is supposed to look like

Like an .xinitrc as @eli-schwartz mentioned earlier. It is the default executable that sx will use if none are provided as argument, e.g. sx i3. Thus an sxrc can be any executable which provides something for the X server to maintain after it has started.

[SlidingHorn]

I've managed to get it installed (with working man page and everything) in a couple different VMs, so I'm going to close this.

Thanks for your guidance, folks!