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Topic: xinitrc missing from /etc/X11/xinit, bspwm doesn't start

Hello, I'm trying to install bspwm on my system, but it doesn't really work. I installed xenocara-xinit, put exec bspwm in ~/.xinitrc, but the main xinitrc is empty. When i try to start bspwm with just exec bspwm from the tty, it just logs me out with no error messages, if i try to start it with just bspwm i get the message "The server closed connection: can't parse display string". I put my user in the video, wheel, audio, etc. groups, so that shouldn't be an issue. I think i also installed every xenocara dependency and package. If i try starting bspwm with slim, I get the error message "Failed to execute login command". Xsession and Xsession.d are also not present in the /etc/X11 folder. No configs for bspwm are missing from ~/.config folder either, i tried loading the defaults and my own configuration too, with no change. I also installed lumina and the extra packages, because i thought that might grab some missing dependencies, but that doesn't start either. Using startx doesn't work too but I expected that if exec bspwm doesnt work. I also tried changing some things in /etc/slim.conf, like changing the login_cmd line from "exec /bin/sh - ~/.xinitrc %session" to "exec /bin/sh -login /usr/share/slim/Xsession %session", no change with that either. I might just be dumb and missing something very basic, but I have no idea what it is.

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Re: xinitrc missing from /etc/X11/xinit, bspwm doesn't start

I think you are searching at the wrong point: First you should look if any x-session would be able to start. From what you have described it seems you are missing drivers or / and configuration from the installed x-server. So it would help if you either also give more insights about your used hardware or search especially there. Please also remember: Using Hyperbola in combination with AMD and / or Nvidia is not going in a better state.

Hyperbola is a complete free and libre system, so we are not support non-free drivers.

Human being in favor with clear principles and so also for freedom in soft- and hardware!

Certainly anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit injustices: For a life of every being full with peace and kindness, including diversity and freedom. Capitalism is destroying our minds, the planet itself and the universe in the end!

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Re: xinitrc missing from /etc/X11/xinit, bspwm doesn't start

throgh wrote:

I think you are searching at the wrong point: First you should look if any x-session would be able to start. From what you have described it seems you are missing drivers or / and configuration from the installed x-server. So it would help if you either also give more insights about your used hardware or search especially there. Please also remember: Using Hyperbola in combination with AMD and / or Nvidia is not going in a better state.

Hyperbola is a complete free and libre system, so we are not support non-free drivers.

I'm using a librebooted thinkpad x200, so i don't think its a hardware compatibility issue. I tried openbox, bspwm and lumina, none of them could start. I also installed the xenocara-video-intel package, so video drivers aren't missing either.

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Re: xinitrc missing from /etc/X11/xinit, bspwm doesn't start

I also tried reverting the settings i made in slim.conf that i talked about before, and if I do that I no longer get the message "Failed to execute login command", slim just locks up and I have to switch ttys and kill it.

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Re: xinitrc missing from /etc/X11/xinit, bspwm doesn't start

I'm using the same comparable hardware: Then the first check is done. Next: Did you install xenocara-server only? Or did you install xenocara as group? I woudl recommend installing xenocara. Also your .xinitrc:

chmod +x .xinitrc
Human being in favor with clear principles and so also for freedom in soft- and hardware!

Certainly anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit injustices: For a life of every being full with peace and kindness, including diversity and freedom. Capitalism is destroying our minds, the planet itself and the universe in the end!

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Re: xinitrc missing from /etc/X11/xinit, bspwm doesn't start

For slim: You can use the following ...

doas rc-update add slim default

If you get the a common login shown the x-server is starting.

Human being in favor with clear principles and so also for freedom in soft- and hardware!

Certainly anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit injustices: For a life of every being full with peace and kindness, including diversity and freedom. Capitalism is destroying our minds, the planet itself and the universe in the end!

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Re: xinitrc missing from /etc/X11/xinit, bspwm doesn't start

Changing your slim.conf the way you have done is not working. So you better use it the way with a local .xinitrc

Human being in favor with clear principles and so also for freedom in soft- and hardware!

Certainly anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit injustices: For a life of every being full with peace and kindness, including diversity and freedom. Capitalism is destroying our minds, the planet itself and the universe in the end!

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Re: xinitrc missing from /etc/X11/xinit, bspwm doesn't start

throgh wrote:

I'm using the same comparable hardware: Then the first check is done. Next: Did you install xenocara-server only? Or did you install xenocara as group? I woudl recommend installing xenocara. Also your .xinitrc:

chmod +x .xinitrc

I installed everything with pacman -S xorg, and other dependencies by installing lumina + xenocara-video-intel + other xenocara packages. My .xinitrc is executable, that's not the issue either. Starting bspwm from the tty with exec bspwm logs me out with no error messages and just typing in bspwm gives me "The server closed connection: can't parse display string" and doesnt start. The issue might have something to do with that. Using startx gives me no output and doesnt do anything. I'm pretty sure I have everything necessary installed. I've worked with xenocara on openbsd before on this same laptop (using xfce4 and bspwm) with no issues, so I really don't know what might be the issue.

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Re: xinitrc missing from /etc/X11/xinit, bspwm doesn't start

throgh wrote:

For slim: You can use the following ...

doas rc-update add slim default

If you get the a common login shown the x-server is starting.

The common login starts, i reverted the changes in my slim.conf, but bspwm or anything else still doesnt start. Slim is added to startup and starts when I boot too.

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Re: xinitrc missing from /etc/X11/xinit, bspwm doesn't start

When slim starts, there is no issue with the x-server itself. It would be bspwm then which needs attention: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Bspwm

Human being in favor with clear principles and so also for freedom in soft- and hardware!

Certainly anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit injustices: For a life of every being full with peace and kindness, including diversity and freedom. Capitalism is destroying our minds, the planet itself and the universe in the end!

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Re: xinitrc missing from /etc/X11/xinit, bspwm doesn't start

throgh wrote:

When slim starts, there is no issue with the x-server itself. It would be bspwm then which needs attention: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Bspwm

It's not just bspwm, it's every other window manager too, lumina, fluxbox, openbox, icewm, none of them start, from the tty or through slim

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Re: xinitrc missing from /etc/X11/xinit, bspwm doesn't start

radiatorman wrote:
throgh wrote:

When slim starts, there is no issue with the x-server itself. It would be bspwm then which needs attention: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Bspwm

It's not just bspwm, it's every other window manager too, lumina, fluxbox, openbox, icewm, none of them start, from the tty or through slim

The only error i got is "The server closed connection: can't parse display string" from bspwm, but I found no fixes for that

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Re: xinitrc missing from /etc/X11/xinit, bspwm doesn't start

radiatorman wrote:
throgh wrote:

When slim starts, there is no issue with the x-server itself. It would be bspwm then which needs attention: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Bspwm

It's not just bspwm, it's every other window manager too, lumina, fluxbox, openbox, icewm, none of them start, from the tty or through slim

Tried starting picom separately too, I got an error "(date) (time) main FATAL ERROR Can't open display."

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Re: xinitrc missing from /etc/X11/xinit, bspwm doesn't start

Again: If there is no error when starting slim, there is no error in x-server first. It depends on how you have modified your slim-configuration and starting the followed up window-manager in your .xinitrc. I have installed several window-managers and test them continuous. When your .xinitrc is set to be executable, there should be no issue. And you would not be able to start picom when you have not a working x-server.

Human being in favor with clear principles and so also for freedom in soft- and hardware!

Certainly anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit injustices: For a life of every being full with peace and kindness, including diversity and freedom. Capitalism is destroying our minds, the planet itself and the universe in the end!

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Re: xinitrc missing from /etc/X11/xinit, bspwm doesn't start

throgh wrote:

Again: If there is no error when starting slim, there is no error in x-server first. It depends on how you have modified your slim-configuration and starting the followed up window-manager in your .xinitrc. I have installed several window-managers and test them continuous. When your .xinitrc is set to be executable, there should be no issue. And you would not be able to start picom when you have not a working x-server.

At this point I'm pretty sure it's not an issue with .xinitrc, I'm getting a new error message from bspwm: "The server closed the connection: socket, pipe or stream error".

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Re: xinitrc missing from /etc/X11/xinit, bspwm doesn't start

Okay, let's restart as it seems there is something severe missing in the installation. How did you install Hyperbola? Using the reference-installation here? https://wiki.hyperbola.info/doku.php?id … stallation

Also: Did you use stable? Or did you use testing? Which mirror?

Human being in favor with clear principles and so also for freedom in soft- and hardware!

Certainly anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit injustices: For a life of every being full with peace and kindness, including diversity and freedom. Capitalism is destroying our minds, the planet itself and the universe in the end!

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Re: xinitrc missing from /etc/X11/xinit, bspwm doesn't start

throgh wrote:

Okay, let's restart as it seems there is something severe missing in the installation. How did you install Hyperbola? Using the reference-installation here? https://wiki.hyperbola.info/doku.php?id … stallation

Also: Did you use stable? Or did you use testing? Which mirror?

Stable, 0.4.3, by mirrors, do you mean which mirrors are in my /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist? I have the 1st 2 netherlands mirrors and the lithuanian one. I'm not using the development or darknet mirrors. I somewhat followed the reference install guide, but I mostly did it the way i usually do it with arch. Partitioned it, separate boot partition, encrypted lvm for root and home. Pacstrapped it like usual, installed grub like usual. Everything worked completely fine until i tried running any kind of desktop.

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Re: xinitrc missing from /etc/X11/xinit, bspwm doesn't start

Looked through the reference install guide, I did everything that's on there and everything works completely fine, except X cant load any window managers

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Re: xinitrc missing from /etc/X11/xinit, bspwm doesn't start

Ah, so you are using encryption. Sorry at this point I can only refer towards here: https://forums.hyperbola.info/viewtopic.php?id=920
Personally I don't use an encrypted drive so I'm here not able to support further. I would first try to install Hyperbola without encryption and see if all works.

Human being in favor with clear principles and so also for freedom in soft- and hardware!

Certainly anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit injustices: For a life of every being full with peace and kindness, including diversity and freedom. Capitalism is destroying our minds, the planet itself and the universe in the end!

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Re: xinitrc missing from /etc/X11/xinit, bspwm doesn't start

throgh wrote:

Ah, so you are using encryption. Sorry at this point I can only refer towards here: https://forums.hyperbola.info/viewtopic.php?id=920
Personally I don't use an encrypted drive so I'm here not able to support further.

Well, I'm not running full disk encryption with boot also being encrypted, and it shouldn't affect xenocara in any way. Been running the same setup on devuan, debian, artix, (openbsd a little differently but similar) with no issues on my x200 and everything always worked with no issues like this. Anyways, thanks for the help.

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Re: xinitrc missing from /etc/X11/xinit, bspwm doesn't start

I would have one further point: Did you modify your modules loading?

Human being in favor with clear principles and so also for freedom in soft- and hardware!

Certainly anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit injustices: For a life of every being full with peace and kindness, including diversity and freedom. Capitalism is destroying our minds, the planet itself and the universe in the end!

22 (edited by radiatorman 2023-12-17 19:26:43)

Re: xinitrc missing from /etc/X11/xinit, bspwm doesn't start

throgh wrote:

I would have one further point: Did you modify your modules loading?

Yes, it's currently: "HOOKS="base udev autodetect modconf block keyboard keymap consolefont encrypt lvm2 filesystems fsck shutdown""

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Re: xinitrc missing from /etc/X11/xinit, bspwm doesn't start

radiatorman wrote:
throgh wrote:

I would have one further point: Did you modify your modules loading?

Yes, it's currently: "HOOKS="base udev autodetect modconf block keyboard keymap consolefont encrypt lvm2 filesystems fsck shutdown""

Or, these were the mkinitcpio modules, for openrc I added lvm, dmcrypt, alsasound, slim, etc. etc

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Re: xinitrc missing from /etc/X11/xinit, bspwm doesn't start

I have copied now one annotation from our wiki-archive as we had an encryption-guide but this one was further not working and people working on also not made it better. Nevertheless that's another working-field for Hyperbola in the next releases also. In general encryption should work, but well needs correction in the "HOW-TO".

Change the value of the uncommented MODULES line to i915.

    This forces the driver to load earlier, so that the console font you selected earlier isn’t wiped out after getting to login.
    Be aware, when you add i915 into the uncommented modules line, that you remove these “ “ before you add i915, otherwise, it will not boot and will drop to a shell. When you install with full disk encryption, this is a requirement.

Perhaps this would give you a helping point to research and fix your issue.

Human being in favor with clear principles and so also for freedom in soft- and hardware!

Certainly anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit injustices: For a life of every being full with peace and kindness, including diversity and freedom. Capitalism is destroying our minds, the planet itself and the universe in the end!

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Re: xinitrc missing from /etc/X11/xinit, bspwm doesn't start

throgh wrote:

I have copied now one annotation from our wiki-archive as we had an encryption-guide but this one was further not working and people working on also not made it better. Nevertheless that's another working-field for Hyperbola in the next releases also. In general encryption should work, but well needs correction in the "HOW-TO".

Change the value of the uncommented MODULES line to i915.

    This forces the driver to load earlier, so that the console font you selected earlier isn’t wiped out after getting to login.
    Be aware, when you add i915 into the uncommented modules line, that you remove these “ “ before you add i915, otherwise, it will not boot and will drop to a shell. When you install with full disk encryption, this is a requirement.

Perhaps this would give you a helping point to research and fix your issue.

Alright, I'll probably put this to the side then, and maybe try installing it tomorrow without encryption. Thanks.