[SOLVED] i3 on new install fails to use symlinked config

wonn · 2024-06-04 18:39:38

I'm trying to set up a new Arch install as a fairly new user, and I'm getting hung up on the process of setting up a display manager. I've installed ly and done what little configuration I can see is necessary, and I can get to the login screen just fine, but after logging in the screen goes black and stays black. It's not a driver issue, since if I just do 'sudo xinit i3' it starts an i3 session as root just fine. It must be something in the ly > xorg chain that I don't understand - possibly my .xinitrc is wrong somehow, or possibly ly doesn't know to trigger it, or both. Currently .xinitrc contains

#!/bin/bash

exec i3

It's been difficult piecing together exactly how the chain of processes from starting the ly service through starting i3 inside an X session is supposed to be set up. Anyone have suggestions on what to try to fix it or diagnose it?

(Post title edited to reflect actual problem)

Last edited by wonn (2024-06-05 13:27:11)

gromit · 2024-06-04 20:51:21

Could you expand a little bit on the configuration part that you did for ly?
Did you enable ly? Whats the output of "file /etc/systemd/system/display-manager.service" ?

wonn · 2024-06-04 20:57:36

The configuration that I remember consisted of uncommenting a line about ~/.xinitrc in /etc/ly/config.ini, and creating an .xinitrc and adding that text to it. I didn't enable ly because I wanted to ensure that if it breaks completely the system will still boot into a shell, and that's probably why 'etc/systemd/system/display-manager.service' apparently doesn't exist. If it's the case that it *must* be enabled and not simply started to function correctly, that might be the issue!

seth · 2024-06-04 20:58:03

1. do you see a mousecorsor along the "black"? an unconfigured i3 will hardly show you anything more
2. "sudo xinit" might have left you w/ some root owned files in your $HOME…

find $HOME -user root

wonn · 2024-06-04 21:05:27

Ah, I do have a mouse cursor, and it looks like the i3 watch cursor, so I guess the problem is instead that my i3 config is somehow broken. I'm using the same i3 config that I'm using as I type this on the other OS on this machine, simply cloned from a private git repository and symlinked to ~/.config/i3. Everything *looks* like it should function; it seems more like i3 isn't using the config file, though I imagine if it just didn't recognise the config file it would start up the new install options process, which it did when running xinit as root. I tried to use a symlink to set up my keyboard layout and that utterly failed until I just copied the file instead of linking it; maybe that's the issue somehow?

(I didn't notice the mouse cursor because I've also got a TV hooked up to this machine, and the cursor was displayed on the TV part of the view field while the TV is off. To answer your second question, no, the root user owns nothing in the relevant home directory.)

Last edited by wonn (2024-06-04 21:09:12)

seth · 2024-06-04 21:11:25

"exec xterm" and start i3 from there to hopefully get some errors?

wonn · 2024-06-04 23:25:43

Yeah, the problem 100% was a mix of 1) me not noticing that i3 was starting just fine and 2) my i3 config trying to run a bunch of packages that weren't yet installed. Thank y'all for having me check simple things

seth · 2024-06-05 06:36:15

\o/
Please always remember to mark resolved threads by editing your initial posts subject - so others will know that there's no task left, but maybe a solution to find.
Thanks.

wonn · 2024-06-05 13:27:59

I avoided doing it immediately because there weren't enough characters available to write it without altering the rest of the title, but I have done so now. The thread title character limit is quite low here!

Arch Linux

#1 2024-06-04 18:39:38

[SOLVED] i3 on new install fails to use symlinked config

#2 2024-06-04 20:51:21

Re: [SOLVED] i3 on new install fails to use symlinked config

#3 2024-06-04 20:57:36

Re: [SOLVED] i3 on new install fails to use symlinked config

#4 2024-06-04 20:58:03

Re: [SOLVED] i3 on new install fails to use symlinked config

#5 2024-06-04 21:05:27

Re: [SOLVED] i3 on new install fails to use symlinked config

#6 2024-06-04 21:11:25

Re: [SOLVED] i3 on new install fails to use symlinked config

#7 2024-06-04 23:25:43

Re: [SOLVED] i3 on new install fails to use symlinked config

#8 2024-06-05 06:36:15

Re: [SOLVED] i3 on new install fails to use symlinked config

#9 2024-06-05 13:27:59

Re: [SOLVED] i3 on new install fails to use symlinked config

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