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Arch Linux Operating System

I started using Linux distributions in the mid 90's. In the age of Windows 95 -still rocking the floppy disks- I was experimenting with Red Hat Linux and Debian. In 2004 I moved to Mac OS X and it was cool for a while. But then in 2013, I realised I was trapped. I became an Apple Victim. I needed to buy the iPhone to be compatible with the Macbook Pro and also the play music with iTunes and iThis and iThat and iWantedtogetthef@ckoutofthere. So fed up of the lack of freedom, I went back to Linux. I am now using Arch Linux, a rolling release distribution. And I think I will stay like this for a while. Arch Linux is not for beginners though.

The display manager

I chose a console display manager called ly with a custom /etc/ly/config.ini and a modifyed language file. Somehow modifying /etc/ly/lang/en.ini did not have any effect, so I created a copy called /etc/ly/lang/en2.ini and called it from the config file.

Since I did not like the original console font I modified /etc/vconsole.conf to use Lat2-Terminus16 with 8859-1 font map and also have the colemak keyboard layout system wide.

KEYMAP=colemak
FONT=Lat2-Terminus16
FONT_MAP=8859-1

To use that font from from the early userspace I make sure I use the consolefont hook in /etc/mkinitcpio.conf. Also load the graphics driver module (in my case intel) earlier in Early KMS start to avoid font changes/flickering/glitches. To apply these changes rebuild with your kernel preset sudo mkinitcpio -p linux (check your kernel presets in ls /etc/mkinitcpio.d). Then reboot.

The Window Manager

In the past, I used XFCE for a long time with compiz. XFCE is very lightweight and compiz has many cool effects. But maybe biased from my 8-bit age, I use mostly command line tools. For that reason I swapped my window manager to i3wm. Actually an i3 fork with gaps.

The program launcher I use is rofi with some themes.

The bar I use in i3 is polybar

TODO For lock screen I have key combo that triggers a script that pixelates the current screen.

I am currently exploring the move to sway https://swaywm.org/

Terminal emulator

I am using URxvt kitty.

Cursor theme

I downloaded Bibata Ice cursor theme and placed it /usr/share/icons/ and then call it in ~/.Xresources

Xcursor.theme: Bibata Ice

But somehow is not loading in i3wm. When I execute fix_xcursor it does not get the full name:

[irix@hal ~]$ fix_xcursor
setting cursortheme "Bibata"

Does not matter if I use single or double quotes. The name of the cursor theme is set by /usr/share/icons/Bibata_Ice/index.theme file:

[Icon Theme]
Name=Bibata Ice
Comment=Light Bibata Cursor Theme
Name[ar]=Bibata Ice
Name[bg]=Bibata Ice
...

Virtual Machines

Unfortunately my Full Spectrum Laser controller only works in Windows Operating system. It became bothering to restart the computer to use the laser so I run Windows 7 in qemu. Here's how:

  • Install the qemu and samba packages and have a Windows install image on hand.
  • Make a qcow2 image qemu-img create -f qcow2 win7.img 20G
  • qemu-system-x86_64 -hda win7.img -cdrom win7sp1u64.iso -boot d -enable-kvm -cpu host -smp 2 -m 3G -vga std -net nic,model=e1000 -net user,smb=/home/unix -usbdevice tablet
  • The shared folders will be located at \\10.0.2.4\qemu