Dotfiles

A functional and beautified i3wm config for programming, studying and browsing, made primarily for arch based distros (Manjaro, Arch).

Note: A brief guide (& tips) to Manjaro and i3wm can also be found in the end.

Installation

To use the setup right away, the sync.sh file will come in handy.

• Create a repos folder in your home directory
• Clone this repository inside repos
• Run the script

$ cd $HOME
$ mkdir repos
$ cd repos
$ git clone https://github.com/Ariwor/dotfiles
$ cd dotfiles
$ bash sync.sh

Now your settings are symlinked in the respective directories and you can edit everything within dotfiles folder. The script will also install the below applications necessary for the setup to function properly.

Prerequisites

Some of the base packages installed with the execution of sync script:

rofi
feh
polybar
kitty
firefox
ranger
playerctl
maim
zathura
zathura-pdf-mupdf
adobe-source-code-pro-fonts

Screens

Based on/inspired by github/Stavrosfil

Newbie guide & tips

A brief guide, together with a list of common problems (& solutions) encountered by beginners, during Manjaro setup and i3wm configuration.

Dual-boot Manjaro/Windows 10

• Download Manjaro i3 edition from here.
• There is an excellent dual-boot step-by-step guide here.
• Consider your free disk space before separating root and /home partitions.
• For swap partition size make sure to check this.
• Make sure to update your packages, by running:

$ sudo pacman -Syu

• In case you run into errors when you update the packages in your system, such as: error: failed to commit transaction (invalid or corrupted package), clear your cache first before updating (to remove any partial installations) with:

$ sudo pacman -Sc

or

$ paccache -rvk0

Audio issues

• First thing you should run out of the box is:

$ sudo pacman -S pulseaudio

Enable TRIM (for SSD)

The fstrim.timer which will execute TRIM weekly:

$ sudo systemctl enable fstrim.timer
$ sudo systemctl start fstrim.timer

Nvidia graphics & screen tearing

• Install Nvidia drivers and configure Nvidia settings by following this guide.
• In addition to the above, if you encounter screen tearing, make sure to go in the Advanced tab in the X Server Display Configuration and check:
  • Force (Full) Composition Pipeline
• To fix potential screen tearing while using Firefox, go to about:config and set layers.acceleration.force-enabled = true (you can read more about this issue here and here)

Brightness control

• Pressing the assigned keyboard brightness keys and not affecting the screen brightness (although the brightness level values in the status bar change) is a commonly encountered issue (e.g. here).

• A fix that worked for me is described here and is the following:

  1. Open /etc/default/grub with your favorite editor:

  sudo atom /etc/default/grub

  2. Add video.use_native_backlight=1 here (inside ""):

  GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT=""

  3. Save & exit
  4. Run:

  sudo update-grub

  5. Restart i3

Workspace icons in the status bar

• First you need to install the awesome symbols, by running:

  sudo pacman -S awesome-terminal-fonts

• Browse for icons here and copy the Unicode Glyph from the ones you like in the i3 config file.

Lock- & Login- screen

• Install and configure betterlockscreen by following the instructions here.
• If you want to keep set $mode_system in your i3 config, add a betterlockscreen option (e.g. betterlockscreen -l dim) instead of blurlock in the /usr/bin/i3exit file.
• To change your login screen, use lightdm-settings and edit the "Background" option.

Multiple monitors

• Install autorandr that allows automatically switching of xrandr configurations
• Configure your monitors sequentially with xrandr
• After each configuration, save your profile with autorandr --save <profile>
• Use autorandr --change to load your config based on the connected devices

Razer peripherals

• Install the AUR openrazer package. A wiki guide can be found here and in GitHub.
• Install a graphical front-end, such as polychromatic. If any dependencies are not found, install them as well (for example nodejs-less).