Arch Linux

M4ldoror

Member

Registered: 2017-11-05

Posts: 5

Problem installing i3 on sddm

Hi guys, I just tried to install i3 on my arch . I was using Plasma .
The installation was fine but when I try to login on the connection screen (sddm login ) the screen freeze.
I can see the i3 bar , move my cursor, but login screen theme stays .
I have found a similar topic but nobody answer so I decided to post a new one .
Thanks !

jasonwryan

Anarchist

From: .nz

Registered: 2009-05-09

Posts: 30,424

Website

Re: Problem installing i3 on sddm

Read your journal and log for clues.

Moving to NC...

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circleface

Member

Registered: 2012-05-26

Posts: 639

Re: Problem installing i3 on sddm

Can you start i3 with startx? (.xinitrc)  There have been many threads lately about sddm being broken and not working for a lot of people.

M4ldoror

Member

Registered: 2017-11-05

Posts: 5

Re: Problem installing i3 on sddm

I'm using plasma with sddm now. I tried to startx but it doesnt work , I dont think it is configured well to work.
Should I disable sddm and configured xinit with i3 ?
I'm a novice user sorry...

jasonwryan

Anarchist

From: .nz

Registered: 2009-05-09

Posts: 30,424

Website

Re: Problem installing i3 on sddm

How did you install Arch?

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2ManyDogs

Forum Fellow

Registered: 2012-01-15

Posts: 4,645

Re: Problem installing i3 on sddm

How did you install Arch?

(edit) snaked again.

Last edited by 2ManyDogs (2017-11-21 14:18:44)

M4ldoror

Member

Registered: 2017-11-05

Posts: 5

Re: Problem installing i3 on sddm

I installed it from a usb boot . I followed the arch wiki .
What do you mean ?

seth

Member

Registered: 2012-09-03

Posts: 51,143

Re: Problem installing i3 on sddm

They mean "I dont think it is configured well to work" is not a question that fits somebody who installed arch following the wiki.
*Nothing* in arch "is configured well to work", the idea is that *you* configure arch as *you* want it to be configured.

=> https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Xinitrc

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M4ldoror

Member

Registered: 2017-11-05

Posts: 5

Re: Problem installing i3 on sddm

First I want to say that everything work perfectly with plasma and sddm , with my configuration . Three partition , / , home, and a boot .  Sddm as display manager .
Somebody on the french arch irc told me that it could come from sddm , so I decided to change themes, after that disable it and try  lightdm, still not working  .
Be pedagog ,guys I'm not a longterm user, I still have a lot of things to learn  , be gentle .

Eugene

Member

From: Adelaide, AU

Registered: 2012-11-02

Posts: 13

Re: Problem installing i3 on sddm

Hi M4ldoror,
These are various ways how people are trying to say you - RTFM.
IMHO that's not completely fair in this case - documentation for SDDM is almost non-existent.

You could start your quest from

man sddm

There is not too much there, except two command line options and "SEE ALSO" section.
But you could dig into directories under "FILES" section and read these files, trying to understand what do they do when run.
If you read

man sddm.conf

as per "SEE ALSO" section, then you could have a look at /etc/sddm.conf (or /etc/sddm.conf.d/sddm.conf) file and notice SessionDir options.
If you have a look in that directory, you should see i3.desktop file there, otherwise you could not select i3 from SDDM and you need to install missing i3 packages.
Reading config file further, you could find reference to /usr/share/sddm/scripts/Xsession file and there you could see references to various X11 files, including $HOME/.xsession, which would allow you to "hardcode" your i3 or KDE or whatever DM you like at this time of the day.
Some useful information can be found in logs - one location could be found in config file, another would be /var/log/Xorg.0.log (I presume you use display :0).

Dynamic way, however, would be just to select "i3" as your session, when you are at SDDM login screen.

I have got three themes -
"Elarun" theme - session can be selected in dropdown at the top-left of the screen
"Breeze" - session selector is in bottom-left corner.
"Maldives" - session selector is on the login dialog

First two themes are quite obscure - it looks like they intentionally tried to hide that session selector in plain sight.

If you could not find session selector, try to change the theme, I reckon some of them were buggy or location for session selection was too obscure.
It can be done in "System Settings" from KDE menu -> Workspace -> Startup and Shutdown -> Login Screen (SDDM).

Good luck.