Re: [HOWTO] Start X server manually instead of using a login manager

[Divan Santana]

Alex Kost <address@hidden> writes:

> Hello,
>
> People often ask how they can use startx/xinit on GuixSD.  It is
> possible, although it is not as easy as on other distros.  Hopefully,
> this tutorial will answer some questions on the subject.
>
> At first, a couple of points:
>
> - We will run X server with user privileges, so if something goes wrong,
>   look at the X log, which is placed at "~/.local/share/xorg/Xorg.N.log"
>   by default.
>
> - We will run "xinit", not "startx": the latter is just a wrapper that
>   does some preparations and runs "xinit".  (startx is a usual shell
>   script with a usual script's behavior: it does not like that Guix
>   violates Filesystem Hierarchy Standard, so it successfully fails to
>   start).
>
> Now the steps you need to do to use "xinit":
>
> 1. Install xinit, X server and required modules to some guix profile,
>    for example:
>
>      guix package -i xinit xorg-server xf86-input-libinput xf86-video-fbdev 
> xf86-video-nouveau
>
> 2. Make "~/.xinitrc" file.  If you don't know what its content should
>    be, just put "exec xterm" there, or even better read:
>
>      https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Xinit
>
> 3. Running "xinit" requires specifying multiple arguments, so you will
>    probably make an auxiliary script to run it.  This script will look
>    like this:
>
> --8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
> #!/bin/sh
>
> DIR=$HOME/.guix-profile
>
> $DIR/bin/xinit -- $DIR/bin/Xorg :0 vt1 -keeptty \
>                -configdir $DIR/share/X11/xorg.conf.d \
>                -modulepath $DIR/lib/xorg/modules
> --8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---
>
>   Note that using the current terminal ("vt1" in this case) and
>   "-keeptty" is required, otherwise X server refuses to start without
>   root privileges.
>
>   For testing purposes, you may change the above arguments to ":1 vt2",
>   switch to vt2 (Ctrl-Alt-F2) and run this script.
>
> 4. Finally (if the above script works), you can remove login manager
>    from your os services (if you use %desktop-services):
>
> --8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
> (use-modules
>  ;; ...
>  (srfi srfi-1)                  ; for 'remove'
>  (gnu services desktop)
>  (gnu services xorg))
>
> (operating-system
>   ;; ...
>   (services
>    (remove (lambda (service)
>              (eq? (service-kind service) slim-service-type))
>            %desktop-services)))
> --8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---

To help others, a few other notes.

To auto start x upon login one can do something like

--8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
            (mingetty-service (mingetty-configuration
                               (tty "tty1")
                               (auto-login "ds")))
--8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---

And this in you bashrc/zshrc.
--8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
if [[ ! $DISPLAY && $XDG_VTNR -eq 1 ]]; then
  exec $HOME/bin/startx.sh
fi
--8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---

Also I needed to set these in order for my icons to be detected
again. Failing to do so, the icons aren't found and some apps crash like
libreoffice.

--8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
export 
XDG_DATA_DIRS="/run/current-system/profile/share:$HOME/.guix-profile/share:/run/current-system/profile/share"
export 
XDG_CONFIG_DIRS="$HOME/.guix-profile/etc/xdg:/run/current-system/profile/etc/xdg"
export XDG_CONFIG_HOME="$HOME/.config"
export XDG_CACHE_HOME="$HOME/.cache"
export XDG_DATA_HOME="$HOME/.local/share"
--8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---

I'm still strangely getting this error when my terminals (termite)
launch since switching to this method:

tput: unknown terminal "xterm-termite"

Not sure why that is yet.