xubuntu with awesome on new toshiba laptop

[valentin-krasontovitsch]

pulled xubuntu iso from web.

setup flash drive on mac by renaming file to .dmg, formatting drive to fat (ms-dos) one partition with guid partition map, and running the usual dd if=file.dmg of=/dev/disk? bs=1m

setup ran smoothly, wifi working out of the box. partitioned one / and one swap partition.

installed awesome (remembers last session), fish, vim

installing chrome: setup key with

wget -q -O - https://dl-ssl.google.com/linux/linux_signing_key.pub | sudo apt-key add -

repository with

sudo sh -c 'echo "deb [arch=amd64] http://dl.google.com/linux/chrome/deb/ stable main" >> /etc/apt/sources.list.d/google.list'

finally update and install google-chrome-stable

[valentin-krasontovitsch]

can connect to wifis by running and using nm-applet. have to figure how to run it autostart - rc.lua of awesome?

[valentin-krasontovitsch]

made directory awesome in ~/.config/ and copied rc.lua there from /etc/xdg/awesome and did a chown val:val and chmod 664 on it

[valentin-krasontovitsch]

made fish default shell (effective after new login) by using

chsh -s `which fish`

[valentin-krasontovitsch]

installed ohmyfish following instructions from git repository:

curl -L https://github.com/oh-my-fish/oh-my-fish/raw/master/bin/install | fish

[valentin-krasontovitsch]

using xfce4-power-manager for battery manager (systray icon!) and screen brightness keys. figure out how to use function keys without function key? autostarting in rc.lua with awful.util.spawn_with_shell

[valentin-krasontovitsch]

little TODO list

• [ ] fix grub initial freeze and long delay
• [ ] fix flashing greeter
• [x] fix sensitivity of touch pad
• [x] fix scrolling speed (chrome?)
• [x] change colors in vim (dark blue and black don't work well together)
• [x] change terminal?

[valentin-krasontovitsch]

installing sublime text editor by

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:webupd8team/sublime-text-3
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install sublime-text-installer

[valentin-krasontovitsch]

installing okular

[valentin-krasontovitsch]

setting up ssh-key with

ssh-keygen -t rsa -b 4096 -C "your_email@example.com"

(with password!)

[valentin-krasontovitsch]

installing package xclip

[valentin-krasontovitsch]

added local ssh key to github account

[valentin-krasontovitsch]

made folder ~/Documents/math and cloned phd thesis rep with

git clone git@github.com:valentin-krasontovitsch/phd-thesis.git

compared github's key fingerprint to the offical now at their website

SHA256:nThbg6kXUpJWGl7E1IGOCspRomTxdCARLviKw6E5SY8

had to enter passphrase for ssh key, could avoid that with ssh-agent as in

eval $(ssh-agent -s)
ssh-add ~/.ssh/id_rsa

[valentin-krasontovitsch]

installing latex: texlive-latex-recommended

[valentin-krasontovitsch]

disabled synctex

installed texlive-latex-extra, texlive-math-extra (gotta get rid of that one), texlive-fonts-extra (will it help!? otherwise, uninstall!

[valentin-krasontovitsch]

inverted direction and changed speed of touchpad scrolling by

• making directory `/etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/
• copying /usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d/50-synaptics.conf to said folder
• add those lines in the Section "InputClass" Identifier "touchpad catchall":

Option "VertScrollDelta" "-55"
Option "HorizScrollDelta" "-55"

• (default value is 111)
• and rebooting

[valentin-krasontovitsch]

setting audio to over 100%: found out correct key names with xev, and proceeded to add following lines to rc.lua:

    awful.key({ }, "XF86AudioLowerVolume", function () awful.util.spawn("pactl set-sink-volume @DEFAULT_SINK@ -5%") end),
    awful.key({ }, "XF86AudioRaiseVolume", function () awful.util.spawn("pactl set-sink-volume @DEFAULT_SINK@ +5%") end),
    awful.key({ }, "XF86AudioMute", function () awful.util.spawn("amixer -D pulse sset Master 1+ toggle") end)

[valentin-krasontovitsch]

did something for policy so that xfce4-power-manager can go in hibernate. TODO add what you did

[valentin-krasontovitsch]

TODO check out session managers

[valentin-krasontovitsch]

installed spotify following these instructions on https://www.spotify.com/no/download/linux/

sudo apt-key adv --keyserver hkp://keyserver.ubuntu.com:80 --recv-keys BBEBDCB318AD50EC6865090613B00F1FD2C19886
echo deb http://repository.spotify.com stable non-free | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/spotify.list
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install spotify-client

trying out the older version spotify-client-0.9.17, as the newer 1.x version had this new look about it (probably more ads, less overview, ...)

... and it's not working. sticking to newer version.

[valentin-krasontovitsch]

ttys are for some reason blank. edited /etc/default/grub by

1. setting GRUB_TIMEOUT=3
2. uncommenting GRUB_TERMINAL=console and running update-grub, followed by a reboot.

[valentin-krasontovitsch]

change fish theme using oh-my-fish by choosing themes and installing them via omf install $THEME_NAME or just using omf theme $THEME_NAME if already installed (using fishy-drupal for now)

[valentin-krasontovitsch]

adjusted touchpad setting, namely sensitivity and horizontal two finger scrolling, as follows:

1. display input devices xinput list and record $INPUT_ID$ of touchpad
2. display properties with xinput list-props - we're interested in finger and noise cancellation
3. adjust using xinput set-prop $INPUT_ID$ $PROP_ID$ VALUE1 [VALUE2 ...] we used noise cancellation (301) values 40 40, two-finger scrolling (278) values 1 1, and finger (268) values 150, 150, 300 actually added these setting to /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/50-synaptics.conf, in the form of the following lines just under the other config from above:

        Option "HorizTwoFingerScroll" "1"
        Option "FingerLow" "150"
        Option "FingerHigh" "150"
        Option "FingerPress" "300"
        Option "HorizHysteresis" "40"
        Option "VertHysteresis" "40"

[valentin-krasontovitsch]

login session for lightdm set in ~/.dmrc via

Session=awesome

[valentin-krasontovitsch]

Setting the keyboard layouts:

setxkbmap -layout us,no,de,ir -option -option "grp:alt_shift_toggle,apple:badmap"

using english, norsk, german and farsi, emptying options and then setting alt+shift as toggle and swapping <> with `~ to make the latter more accessible (right next to left shift).

[valentin-krasontovitsch]

cannot believe it but i finally found a solution to the keyboard backlight problem on archlinux

the gist is

The backlight works correctly if it is configured on BIOS. toshiba_acpi kernel module add support for configuring the backlit of the keyboard. However, Fn-Z does not work. The modules can be changed in /sys/devices/LNXSYSTM:00/LNXSYBUS:00/TOS6208:00/kbd_backlight_mode with the modes: 2,8,16.

# tee /sys/devices/LNXSYSTM:00/LNXSYBUS:00/TOS6208:00/kbd_backlight_mode <<< 2

so that's literally the file for controlling it on my laptop, and the right values. you need to be root to write to that file though, so i created a script toggling the value

#!/bin/bash
# script for toggling keyboard backlight status between 2,8, and 16
SYSFILE=/sys/devices/LNXSYSTM:00/LNXSYBUS:00/TOS6208:00/kbd_backlight_mode
status=$(cat $SYSFILE)
if [ "$status" -eq "2" ]; then
  new_status=8
else
  new_status=$(( ($status+8) % 22 ))
fi
echo $new_status > $SYSFILE

and followed the instruction in this stackoverflow answer which basically says create a line in the sudoers file (or a custom file in the appropriate folder) to allow password-less execution of the script with sudo.

find the right key name with xev, put it in the rc.lua, and voila : D

[valentin-krasontovitsch]

screen was misteriously blanking after upgrading to disco dingo.

found these things on archlinux and followed the following instruction:

An example file /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/10-monitor.conf could look like this.

Section "Monitor"
    Identifier "LVDS0"
    Option "DPMS" "false"
EndSection

Section "ServerLayout"
    Identifier "ServerLayout0"
    Option "StandbyTime" "0"
    Option "SuspendTime" "0"
    Option "OffTime"     "0"
    Option "BlankTime"   "0"
EndSection

except that I set Option DPMS to true. restarting the session and running xset q to inspect the current state showed indeed that some values that had been not zero before were zero now. we'll have to wait and see if this is successful.