Arch Linux

dcaspar

Member

Registered: 2020-08-12

Posts: 51

config files appear empty

Hi all,

This is my first install of Arch. I set up dwm last night and was able to do some basic things.
I started installing a few patches but then one broke due to conflicts with a previously installed patch.
I tried to fix it by editing the config.h file but got sidetracked changing some bindings (haha).. when I saved the file and reopened it to get back to what I was doing before I noticed the file is totally empty.
I double checked it in another program and it's still the same thing.
dwm itself works fine though.. so do the keybindings that were in my config.h file.
Any idea what could be causing this?

I could also just do a clean install of dwm to fix the broken patches and config files, if that's needed. However I'm kind of ignorant as to what's the best way even to do that.

Thanks for any help

cirrus

Member

From: Glasgow Scotland

Registered: 2012-08-24

Posts: 341

Website

Re: config files appear empty

As to why config files are empty, ensure you have permission to write to said file, using root to make install clean dwm will have root as owner. Reinstalling/ recompiling dwm takes no time at all and as you’ve already tried what patches apply correctly and which don’t it should be quite painless.
[edit]
This old blog post *might* be of some help, we recompile st in similar fashion
https://cirrusuk.wordpress.com/2017/01/ … u-or-rofi/

Last edited by cirrus (2020-08-12 17:50:28)

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Ancestoral Clan https://cirrus.freevar.com/mclean.html

dcaspar

Member

Registered: 2020-08-12

Posts: 51

Re: config files appear empty

Thanks for the reply.

I opened the config.h file both with sudo and without -- empty on both cases.
What's the best way to completely uninstall dwm and to delete config files?
Will sudo pacman -Rs dwm-6.2 do the trick?

[edit]
I just realized sudo pacman -Rs dwm-6.2 returns no target found.
I guess I'm missing something really basic..

Last edited by dcaspar (2020-08-12 18:06:56)

dcaspar

Member

Registered: 2020-08-12

Posts: 51

Re: config files appear empty

Figured it out.
Will post for anyone having similar issue.

I deleted the dwm-6.2 directory, recreated it from the tar.gz, then recomplied.

Trilby

Inspector Parrot

Registered: 2011-11-29

Posts: 30,518

Website

Re: config files appear empty

Once installed (in fact, once built) the config.h is not used anymore.  DWM does not use any runtime configuration files.

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"UNIX is simple and coherent" - Dennis Ritchie; "GNU's Not Unix" - Richard Stallman