dotfiles/notes/further_installation/futher_installation_linux.md

6.3 KiB

Linux

Fonts

Many scripts assume you have access to Meslo LGM NerdFont. These can be replaced easily with any other nerd font. Other fonts may lack support for the right character set

$ mv -i downloaded-fonts/* ~/.local/share/fonts
# mv -i downloaded-fonts/* /usr/local/share/fonts

See the ArchWiki for more information. TexLive downloads a lot of additional fonts by default too

xRemap

Remapping keys is done through xremap. Despite the name, it works flawlessly on Wayland, at least in Sway

Depending on your environment, you need to install a different binary, all of which are available through cargo. For example cargo install xremap --features sway. Check here for more options.

If you're using systemd, run the following:

# ln -s ~/.configs_pointer/xremap/config{_console,}.yml
# mkdir -p /etc/xremap
# ln -s {~/.configs_pointer,/etc}/xremap/config.yml
# cp ~/.configs_pointer/systemd/xremap.service /etc/systemd/system/xremap.service
# cp ~/.cargo/bin/xremap /usr/local/bin/xremap
# systemctl enable xremap.service
# systemctl start xremap.service
# switch_keyboards.sh pc

You can toggle between Mac-style keyboard and standard keyboard with switch_keyboards.sh see the doc-comment vi $(which switch_keyboards.sh) for more information

sway/config acts as a hotkey daemon and wtype can synthesize input

Sway

To run sway, install the sway and swaylock packages. Both configs reference default_wallpaper.png in their respective directories. Put your wallpaper there or change the corresponding config file

If sway is acting up, try setting/unsetting WAYLAND_DISPLAY and SWAYSOCK. swaymsg also takes an -s option which can specify the socket manually

Sway doesn't adjust the gamma on external displays. Compared to MacOS, everything looks very washed-out and low contrast. Using wl-sunset with -t 4000 -T 6500 -g 0.9 brings MacOS-like gamma curves

For more information about sway, read the i3 User's Guide. Particularly chapters 3 and 4 are very important for sway

Multilingual input (fcitx)

IME-style inputs require a complicated setup on wayland. The method described here unfortunately scales like Xwayland. That is to say it's very blurry on a HiDPI display. Also, IMEs don't work in Alacritty yet. Consider foot terminal if this is important

If you only need an IME in Chromium, Google Input Tools is a pretty decent solution. It scales properly on wayland and doesn't require a spotty setup. However, it doesn't work in the search bar and makes network calls for kanji lookups, which can be really slow

Otherwise you can use fcitx5. Choose a supported IME based on what language you need here. For the example below we'll install Mozc

please pacman -S fcitx5 fcitx5-configtool fcitx5-gtk fcitx5-qt fcitx5-mozc
please pacman -S gtk4 # For Chromium support

Next add these lines to /etc/environment

GTK_IM_MODULE=fcitx
QT_IM_MODULE=fcitx
XMODIFIERS=@im=fcitx
MOZ_ENABLE_WAYLAND=1

Currently, Chromium will only interface with fcitx5 when it's running on the non-default gtk4. Add --gtk-version=4 to ~/.config/chromium-flags.conf. As of writing, this breaks Chromium's built-in file manager, the one for picking files. Use Firefox for a better fcitx5 experience

Open fcitx5-configtool to set the required keyboards and change the global hotkey. For Mozc, you'd move the Mozc keyboard to the left. Not the other Japanese keyboards, those are not IME-based

You may need to reboot wayland or possibly the entire system. Fcitx5 will now be available will the following command. Consider adding the following to sway/config if you want it on startup, or use <M-i> to toggle in on/off

fcitx5 -d --replace

AV1 media

AV1 is the hottest new codec on the block, providing compression levels better than h265. I've seen it 200x smaller than png, with the same resolution and color space

To store images as avif, use magick convert my_image_name.{png,avif}. viu has no support for avif. imv supports it out of the box. vimiv requires a qt plugin for support:

please pacman -S libavif
# Get the latest release from below, for example
# https://github.com/novomesk/qt-avif-image-plugin/releases/latest
curl -LO 'https://github.com/novomesk/qt-avif-image-plugin/archive/refs/tags/v0.5.0.tar.gz'
tar xf qt-avif-image-plugin-0.5.0.tar.gz
cd qt-avif-image-plugin-0.5.0
./build_libqavif_dynamic.sh
please make install

Chromium

Chromium does not support screen sharing by default on wayland. To add support go into chrome://flags and enable the "WebRTC PipeWire support" flag. Next download the following a reboot to allow screen sharing

please pacman -S xdg-desktop-portal-wlr libpipewire02

Consider disabling "Continue running background apps when Chromium is closed" in settings

Fix the default fonts in chrome://settings/fonts. These are the fallback fonts

For the really daring, change your download location to /dev/shm. This is a ramdisk which clears all its content on reboot

Firefox

Firefox will start on xorg by default, unless the MOZ_ENABLE_WAYLAND=1 environment variable is set. Incognito is enabled through the --private-window flag

Firefox uses about:config stored in ~/.mozilla/firefox/<random-hash>.default-release/prefs.js. These are the equivalent of Chromium flags. For these configs, simply switch ui.key.menuAccessKeyFocuses to false, to avoid conflicts with xremap

Backlights

Laptops usually control the backlight via apci. One program to control this is light. By default light requires the use of root privileges to modify devices. Use systemd rules and the video group to allow unprivileged users to run it normally:

curl -LO 'https://raw.githubusercontent.com/haikarainen/light/master/90-backlight.rules'
please mkdir -p /usr/lib/udev/rules.d
please cp 90-backlight.rules /usr/lib/udev/rules.d
# Add your user to the video group
please usermod -aG video emiliko