Some notes on installing i3-wm on a minimal Debian system - and making it more user friendly.
By default, the Debian minimal install is … pretty minimal. There are some things I usually do to make life a bit easier.
First, add some system paths to the default PATH system variable for the root user:
su
echo "export PATH=$PATH:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin" >> ~/.bashrc
This will expose a lot of executables for you to run using just their names. For example shutdown -h now.
Second, make sure that you have the latest APT updates. Run the update and upgrade commands:
su
apt-get update
apt-get upgrade
Third, I like to use aptitude for package management, and sudo to run privileged commands as a regular user. So install those dependencies:
su
apt-get install aptitude sudo
Lastly, configure our regular user with sudo permissions:
su
sudoedit /etc/sudoers
And add the following line at the end of the file:
valera ALL=(ALL) ALL
NOTE: replace the username with the one you are using!
Install just the bare minimum - X11, the i3 window manager, a terminal, and the dmenu launcher (provided by suckless-tools):
sudo aptitude install xorg lxterminal i3-wm suckless-tools
For managing hardware brightness levels we will be using the tool brightnessctl:
sudo aptitude install brightnessctl
List devices with ability to change brightness:
sudo brightnessctl --list
Also take note of the maximum and minimum brightness values for each device. In my case, the monitor brightness device is intel_backlight. To set the brightness for the monitor to 100%:
sudo brightnessctl --device=intel_backlight set 852
To change software brightness level:
xrandr --output "eDP-1" --brightness "1.0"
You can pass some insane values like 50.0 - but it will mess up all colors. Software brightness level basically bumps up all non-black colors to white.
In my case, the keyboard brightness device is tpacpi::kbd_backlight. I can configure three different states for keyboard brightness:
sudo brightnessctl --device=tpacpi::kbd_backlight set 0
sudo brightnessctl --device=tpacpi::kbd_backlight set 1
sudo brightnessctl --device=tpacpi::kbd_backlight set 2
To get available screens and resolutions:
xrandr
Once you have the screen ID, and the desired resolution, you need to figure out the proper modeline. To get a modeline for a desired resolution:
gtf 1600 900 59.99
Now, everything is ready, you can issue the following commands:
xrandr --newmode "1600x900_59.99" 118.98 1600 1696 1864 2128 900 901 904 932 -HSync +Vsync
xrandr --addmode "eDP-1" "1600x900_59.99"
xrandr --output "eDP-1" --mode "1600x900_59.99"
Install PulseAudio and ALSA mixer GUI:
sudo aptitude install pulseaudio pulseaudio-utils pulseaudio-equalizer alsamixergui
Restart the system. Once up, you can inspect and change the volume using:
alsamixer
First - install the crypt package:
sudo aptitude install cryptsetup
Then start observing dmesg with:
sudo dmesg --human --follow
Plugin your physical USB device. In the dmesg logs, you will see the new device name, create a mount point:
sudo mkdir -p /media/valera/data
Open the LUKS encryption on the device:
sudo cryptsetup luksOpen /dev/sda1 CRYPT_USB
And mount:
sudo mount -t ext4 /dev/mapper/CRYPT_USB /media/valera/data
If all went well, unmount first:
sudo umount /media/valera/data
Then turn off LUKS:
sudo cryptsetup luksClose CRYPT_USB
Most USB devices need to be powered off (sent the disconnect command) before they can be unplugged. We can use udisks2 for this. First, install it:
sudo aptitude install udisks2
Then, once the filesystem is unmounted, you can issue the power-off command to the device:
sudo udisksctl power-off --block-device /dev/sda
If you are not using bluetooth, and it just slows down system startup, you can disable the systemd bluetooth service:
sudo systemctl disable bluetooth.service
And set AutoEnable to false in the file /etc/bluetooth/main.conf.
When you installed Debian, you probably configured a default WIFI connection to use during installation. Once rebooted into the installed system, you will find that WIFI works out of the box using that same connection. The WIFI ssid and password are stored in the file /etc/network/interfaces. On my system it looks something like this:
# This file describes the network interfaces available on your system
# and how to activate them. For more information, see interfaces(5).
source /etc/network/interfaces.d/*
# The loopback network interface
auto lo
iface lo inet loopback
# The primary network interface
allow-hotplug wlp4s0
iface wlp4s0 inet dhcp
wpa-ssid wifispot
wpa-psk 12345678
Also, you will have the wpa_cli command available as root. You can check the current status of the WIFI connection:
sudo wpa_cli status
I get something like this:
Selected interface 'wlp4s0'
bssid=5c:a6:a6:a6:a6:a6
freq=2427
ssid=wifispot
id=1
mode=station
wifi_generation=4
pairwise_cipher=CCMP
group_cipher=CCMP
key_mgmt=WPA2-PSK
wpa_state=COMPLETED
ip_address=192.168.0.99
p2p_device_address=7c:7c:7c:7c:7c:7c
address=2a:2a:2a:2a:2a:2a
uuid=90aaaaa97-5bb5-5cc5-8dd8-1e222222221e
You can scan for additional WIFI ssids via the command:
sudo iwlist "wlp4s0" scan | grep -i "essid\|address\|wpa\|auth\|cipher\|freq"
I am filtering for the relevant information I need using the grep command.
If you want to add a new WIFI network, best to use the text mode of the wpa_cli command. Just run it without any arguments:
sudo wpa_cli
You will enter the text command mode, where you can enter the following commands to add a new network (remember, we already have one network with ID 0, so we will create a new network with ID 1):
> scan
> scan_results
> add_network
> set_network 1 ssid "vodafone817E"
> set_network 1 psk "my-pass-phrase"
> enable_network 1
> reconnect
> status
> quit
Now you can switch between different networks:
sudo wpa_cli -i "wlp4s0" select_network 0
sudo wpa_cli -i "wlp4s0" select_network 1
If there are some connection issues - try:
sudo wpa_cli reconnect
sudo wpa_cli status
This howto is part of a larger collection of howtos maintained by the author (mostly for his own reference). The source code for the current howto in plain Markdown is available on GitHub. If you have a GitHub account, you can jump straight in, and suggest edits or improvements via the link at the bottom of the page (Improve this page).
made with ❤ by Valera Rozuvan