Arch Linux

linux_piglet

Member

Registered: 2019-11-20

Posts: 3

Troubleshooting bspwm installation on fresh Arch install

Hi all,

I have just made a fresh arch install in a virtual machine and am trying to install bspwm as a window manager.

Currently, I run startx and am greeted with a black screen with no shortcuts working.

I have copied the example rc files from /usr/share/doc/bspwm/examples/ for both bspwm and sxhkd to their respective ~/.config directories.

I have copied the /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc file to ~/.xinitrc and removed twm & and all following lines, replacing it with the following:

sxhkd &
exec bspwm

I have installed the following packages:

xorg xorg-server xorg-xinit bspwm sxhkd rxvt-unicode dmenu noto-fonts xf86-video-intel xf86-input-keyboard xf86-input-mouse xterm xorg-xset xorg-xsetroot

in attempting to solve the issue.

If I set the bottom of ~/.xinitrc to the following I get a single urxvt terminal screen that when terminated is replaced by a usable xset mouse cursor on a black screen:

urxvt &
sxhkd &
exec bspwm

If I run startx as the root user I am greeted with two instances of urxvt in a master stack layout with full mouse functionality (cursor, however, is not xset). If startx is run as root user with urxvt & included in the ~/.xinitrc (of non-root wheel group user) the result is the same but with three instances of urxvt. It is worth noting that sxhkd shortcuts work in no instance.

It seems this user is experiencing a similar issue to me though his solution seems redundant as I am using vmware (and my peripherals are working perfectly outside of it and in other virtual machines) and also does not solve the issue for users other than root.

My ~/.profile file looks as follows:

XDG_CONFIG_HOME="$HOME/.config"
export XDG_CONFIG_HOME

Please find links to copies of all mentioned files below:

~/.config/sxhkd/sxhkdrc

~/.config/bspwm/bspwmrc

~/.xinitrc

~/.profile

If you need any other logs or files please request. I look forward to your help.

Thanks,

linux_piglet

Last edited by linux_piglet (2019-11-20 14:45:41)

2ManyDogs

Forum Fellow

Registered: 2012-01-15

Posts: 4,648

Re: Troubleshooting bspwm installation on fresh Arch install

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Bs … leshooting

Is bspwmrc marked executable?

Don't run startx as root -- that can cause problems and will not help you solve your issue.

linux_piglet

Member

Registered: 2019-11-20

Posts: 3

Re: Troubleshooting bspwm installation on fresh Arch install

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Bs … leshooting

Is bspwmrc marked executable?

Don't run startx as root -- that can cause problems and will not help you solve your issue.

Thanks for the quick response. Running `chmod 777` on ~/.config/bspwm/bspwmrc did not change anything.

V1del

Forum Moderator

Registered: 2012-10-16

Posts: 25,371

Re: Troubleshooting bspwm installation on fresh Arch install

Post a xorg.log from an user run.

linux_piglet

Member

Registered: 2019-11-20

Posts: 3

Re: Troubleshooting bspwm installation on fresh Arch install

Post a xorg.log from an user run.

Xorg.0.log
Xorg.0.log.old