Sometime while I was in graduate school, I started using the notion window manager. (Actually, at the time, I think it was ion3.) Notion is a tiling window manager that is geared towards keyboard usage instead of mouse usage. But let's be honest: I've been using notion for so long that I simply prefer it over anything else.
Notion, like most minor window managers, is a bit spartan. It does not provide
a desktop environment. It really just manages windows. There are some
features of a desktop environment that I don't need, such as a launcher. I know
all the commands that I use; I don't need a GUI to list them for me. But it's
often the little things that get you, such as locking the screen, or using the
media keys on your keyboard to adjust the volume. I used to be (more of) a hardcore nerd
and relished in my ability to craft a super-complex .xsessionrc file with all
kinds of bells, whistles and utilities connected as if with duct tape. But as I
grow older, sometimes I just want my computer to work.
For a long while now, I've found that running notion alongside GNOME for "desktop stuff" to work pretty well. For a long time, I followed an old Wiki post about how to combine GNOME with Awesome WM. This worked really welll with GNOME 2.
Many people say that you can't use GNOME 3 with window managers other than GNOME
Shell. I've actually had pretty good luck copying the Ubuntu gnome-session and
replacing Gnome Shell with notion. The above Awesome WM Wiki also shows how to
do it. Unfortunately, I've found that some features do not work, such as the
keyboard media keys, much to my dismay. Do media keys matter that much? Yes,
yes, they do. This apparently broke when GNOME Shell started binding the media
keys instead of gnome-settings-daemon. There
used to be a gnome-fallback-media-keys-helper utility around that would
simulate this behavior, but it seems to have disappeared.
As I was trying to fix this problem, I came across a blog post and an unrelated but similar github repo both describing how to use the i3 window manager with GNOME. TLDR: GNOME Flashback is a still supported variant of GNOME that is explicitly designed to support third-party window managers. Whereas GNOME Shell incorporates both the window manager and other stuff such as handling media keys, GNOME Flashback has the "other stuff" in a separate component that is designed to be used with a window manager such as metacity. But it works just fine with notion! Best of all, both my media keys and screen locking work. Hurray!
Because I hate setting up stuff like this, I've actually been hard at work packaging up my Linux computer configuration into reusable ansible components. It takes a little longer than doing it manually of course, but it's not too bad and it's pretty easy to read. I'm making my notion role available here in case anyone wants to try out my setup. Most of the logic is here if you are curious what is involved. Below are a few snippets to show how Ansible makes it relatively easy to manipulate configuration files.
# Same thing, but for gnome-flashback
- name: Copy gnome-flashback-metacity.session to notion-gnome-flashback.session
copy:
src: /usr/share/gnome-session/sessions/gnome-flashback-metacity.session
dest: /usr/share/gnome-session/sessions/notion-gnome-flashback.session
- name: 'notion-gnome-flashback.session: Change metacity to notion and add stalonetray'
replace:
path: /usr/share/gnome-session/sessions/notion-gnome-flashback.session
regexp: 'metacity'
replace: notion;stalonetray
- name: 'notion-gnome-flashback.session: Remove gnome-panel'
replace:
path: /usr/share/gnome-session/sessions/notion-gnome-flashback.session
regexp: ';gnome-panel'
- name: Symlink systemd target for notion-gnome-flashback session to gnome-flashback-metacity session
file:
src: /usr/lib/systemd/user/gnome-session@gnome-flashback-metacity.target.d
dest: /usr/lib/systemd/user/gnome-session@notion-gnome-flashback.target.d
state: link
- name: Install gconf override for notion-gnome-flashback
copy:
src: notion-gnome-flashback.gschema.override
dest: /usr/share/glib-2.0/schemas/01_notion-gnome-flashback.gschema.override
notify: Compile glib schemas- name: Set META
lineinfile:
path: /usr/local/etc/notion/cfg_notion.lua
regexp: '^--META='
line: META="Mod4+"
backup: true
- name: Set ALTMETA
lineinfile:
path: /usr/local/etc/notion/cfg_notion.lua
regexp: '^--ALTMETA='
line: ALTMETA="Mod1+"
backup: true
- name: Disable mod_dock
lineinfile:
path: /usr/local/etc/notion/cfg_defaults.lua
state: absent
line: 'dopath("mod_dock")'
backup: true
- name: Enable mod_statusbar
lineinfile:
path: /usr/local/etc/notion/cfg_notion.lua
regexp: '^--dopath("mod_statusbar")'
line: 'dopath("mod_statusbar")'
backup: trueSometimes it is necessary to use a bleeding edge Linux kernel such as
drm-intel-next to debug hardware issues. In this post, I'll discuss how to do
this on Ubuntu Jammy.
Ubuntu has a pretty cool automated mainline kernel build
system that also tracks branches like
drm-tip and drm-intel-next. Sadly, it's usually based off whatever Ubuntu
release is under development, and may not be compatible with the most recent LTS
release. This is currently the case with Ubuntu Jammy.
I want to run drm-intel-next, which is available
here. But if you
attempt to install this kernel on Jammy, and have DKMS modules, you'll run into
an error because Jammy's glibc version is too old. The solution is to build the
kernel from scratch. But since there aren't any source debs, and there doesn't
really seem to be any documentation, I always forget how to do this.
So here's how to do it. The first step is that we'll checkout the kernel source from git. Right now, at the top of the drm-intel-next mainlage page it says:
To obtain the source from which they are built fetch the commit below:
git://git.launchpad.net/~ubuntu-kernel-test/ubuntu/+source/linux/+git/mainline-crack cod/mainline/cod/tip/drm-intel-next/2023-10-13
So we'll do that:
~/kernels $ git clone --depth 1 -b cod/mainline/cod/tip/drm-intel-next/2023-10-13 https://git.launchpad.net/~ubuntu-kernel-test/ubuntu/+source/linux/+git/mainline-crack drm-intel-next
Cloning into 'drm-intel-next'...
remote: Enumerating objects: 86818, done.
remote: Counting objects: 100% (86818/86818), done.
remote: Compressing objects: 100% (82631/82631), done.
remote: Total 86818 (delta 10525), reused 21994 (delta 3264)
Receiving objects: 100% (86818/86818), 234.75 MiB | 2.67 MiB/s, done.
Resolving deltas: 100% (10525/10525), done.
Note: switching to '458311d2d5e13220df5f8b10e444c7252ac338ce'.
You are in 'detached HEAD' state. You can look around, make experimental
changes and commit them, and you can discard any commits you make in this
state without impacting any branches by switching back to a branch.
If you want to create a new branch to retain commits you create, you may
do so (now or later) by using -c with the switch command. Example:
git switch -c <new-branch-name>
Or undo this operation with:
git switch -
Turn off this advice by setting config variable advice.detachedHead to false
Updating files: 100% (81938/81938), done.Side note: The --depth 1 will speed the clone up, because we don't really care
about the entire git history.
Next, cd drm-intel-next.
As a sanity check, verify that the debian directory, which contains the Ubuntu
build scripts, is present.
To start, you need to run fakeroot debian/rules clean which will generate a
few files including debian/changelog.
Next, run fakeroot debian/rules binary and wait a few seconds. I got an error:
~/k/drm-intel-next $ fakeroot debian/rules binary
[... snip ...]
make ARCH=x86 CROSS_COMPILE=x86_64-linux-gnu- HOSTCC=x86_64-linux-gnu-gcc-13 CC=x86_64-linux-gnu-gcc-13 KERNELVERSION=6.6.0-060600rc2drmintelnext20231013- CONFIG_DEBUG_SECTION_MISMATCH=y KBUILD_BUILD_VERSION="202310130203" LOCALVERSION= localver-extra= CFLAGS_MODULE="-DPKG_ABI=060600rc2drmintelnext20231013" PYTHON=python3 O=/home/ed/kernels/drm-intel-next/debian/tmp-headers INSTALL_HDR_PATH=/home/ed/kernels/drm-intel-next/debian/linux-libc-dev/usr -j16 headers_install
make[1]: Entering directory '/home/ed/kernels/drm-intel-next'
make[2]: Entering directory '/home/ed/kernels/drm-intel-next/debian/tmp-headers'
HOSTCC scripts/basic/fixdep
/bin/sh: 1: x86_64-linux-gnu-gcc-13: not found
make[4]: *** [/home/ed/kernels/drm-intel-next/scripts/Makefile.host:114: scripts/basic/fixdep] Error 127
make[3]: *** [/home/ed/kernels/drm-intel-next/Makefile:633: scripts_basic] Error 2
make[2]: *** [/home/ed/kernels/drm-intel-next/Makefile:234: __sub-make] Error 2
make[2]: Leaving directory '/home/ed/kernels/drm-intel-next/debian/tmp-headers'
make[1]: *** [Makefile:234: __sub-make] Error 2
make[1]: Leaving directory '/home/ed/kernels/drm-intel-next'
make: *** [debian/rules.d/2-binary-arch.mk:559: install-arch-headers] Error 2Naturally, gcc-13 isn't available on Jammy. This is why I hate computers.
gcc-13 appears hard-coded into the build scripts:
~/k/drm-intel-next $ fgrep -R gcc-13 .
./init/Kconfig:# It's still broken in gcc-13, so no upper bound yet.
./debian/control: gcc-13, gcc-13-aarch64-linux-gnu [arm64] <cross>, gcc-13-arm-linux-gnueabihf [armhf] <cross>, gcc-13-powerpc64le-linux-gnu [ppc64el] <cross>, gcc-13-riscv64-linux-gnu [riscv64] <cross>, gcc-13-s390x-linux-gnu [s390x] <cross>, gcc-13-x86-64-linux-gnu [amd64] <cross>,
./debian/rules.d/0-common-vars.mk:export gcc?=gcc-13
./debian.master/config/annotations:CONFIG_CC_VERSION_TEXT policy<{'amd64': '"x86_64-linux-gnu-gcc-13 (Ubuntu 13.2.0-4ubuntu3) 13.2.0"', 'arm64': '"aarch64-linux-gnu-gcc-13 (Ubuntu 13.2.0-4ubuntu3) 13.2.0"', 'armhf': '"arm-linux-gnueabihf-gcc-13 (Ubuntu 13.2.0-4ubuntu3) 13.2.0"', 'ppc64el': '"powerpc64le-linux-gnu-gcc-13 (Ubuntu 13.2.0-4ubuntu3) 13.2.0"', 'riscv64': '"riscv64-linux-gnu-gcc-13 (Ubuntu 13.2.0-4ubuntu3) 13.2.0"', 's390x': '"s390x-linux-gnu-gcc-13 (Ubuntu 13.2.0-4ubuntu3) 13.2.0"'}>Well, let's change them to gcc-12 and see what happens. Be prepared to wait a lot longer this time...
~/k/drm-intel-next $ sed -i -e 's/gcc-13/gcc-12/g' debian/{control,rules.d/0-common-vars.mk} debian.master/config/annotations
~/k/drm-intel-next $ fakeroot debian/rules binary
[... lots of kernel compilation output ...]
# Compress kernel modules
find debian/linux-image-unsigned-6.6.0-060600rc2drmintelnext20231013-generic -name '*.ko' -print0 | xargs -0 -n1 -P 16 zstd -19 --quiet --rm
stdout is a console, aborting
make: *** [debian/rules.d/2-binary-arch.mk:622: binary-generic] Error 123Well, that's annoying. It seems that the general build logic calls zstd to
compress any found files. But if none are found, then the rule fails. Perhaps
newer versions of zstd don't fail when called on no arguments. Anyway, apply
the following patch to use xargs -r to fix this:
--- a/debian/rules.d/2-binary-arch.mk
+++ b/debian/rules.d/2-binary-arch.mk
@@ -568,7 +568,7 @@ define dh_all
dh_installdocs -p$(1)
dh_compress -p$(1)
# Compress kernel modules
- find debian/$(1) -name '*.ko' -print0 | xargs -0 -n1 -P $(CONCURRENCY_LEVEL) zstd -19 --quiet --rm
+ find debian/$(1) -name '*.ko' -print0 | xargs -r -0 -n1 -P $(CONCURRENCY_LEVEL) zstd -19 --quiet --rm
dh_fixperms -p$(1) -X/boot/
dh_shlibdeps -p$(1) $(shlibdeps_opts)
dh_installdeb -p$(1)Re-run fakeroot debian/rules binary and if all goes well, you should end up
with a bunch of .deb files in the parent directory, and something like:
~/k/drm-intel-next $ fakeroot debian/rules binary
[... lots of kernel compilation output ...]
dpkg-deb: building package 'linux-source-6.6.0' in '../linux-source-6.6.0_6.6.0-060600rc2drmintelnext20231013.202310130203_all.deb'.
dpkg-deb: building package 'linux-headers-6.6.0-060600rc2drmintelnext20231013' in '../linux-headers-6.6.0-060600rc2drmintelnext20231013_6.6.0-060600rc2drmintelnext20231013.202310130203_all.deb'.
dpkg-deb: building package 'linux-tools-common' in '../linux-tools-common_6.6.0-060600rc2drmintelnext20231013.202310130203_all.deb'.
dpkg-deb: building package 'linux-cloud-tools-common' in '../linux-cloud-tools-common_6.6.0-060600rc2drmintelnext20231013.202310130203_all.deb'.
dpkg-deb: building package 'linux-tools-host' in '../linux-tools-host_6.6.0-060600rc2drmintelnext20231013.202310130203_all.deb'.
dpkg-deb: building package 'linux-doc' in '../linux-doc_6.6.0-060600rc2drmintelnext20231013.202310130203_all.deb'.Now install the desired packages with sudo dpkg -i <paths to .deb files>.
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