Install Gentoo!

I've had a couple of people ask me about this. Way back in the forum days, the user Graf Zeppelin made an effort post detailing the process of the perfect "maximum autismo" installation for Gentoo. It was a great guide, but was lost with the forum (still not coming back BTW :smuganimegirl:).

After a couple of people asked, I realized I might as well dig into a backup and pull it out, and put it up for its deserved public consumption. So here the post is in its entirety:

The Original Post

By Graf Zeppelin

Before installing

• Set up a BIOS password and in BIOS menu disable any hardware you don't plan on using (e.g. bluetooth, trackpad)
• Create USB flash installation media
• Download amd64 installation from gentoo.org (install-amd64-minimal-XXXXX.iso)
• Identify target USB drive
# lsblk
• Create bootable USB drive
# sudo dd if=/.../install-amd64-minimal-XXXXXXXX.iso of=/dev/sdX bs=4M status=progress && sync

• If installing on an SSD, verify TRIM support
# lsblk -D Non-zero values in the DISK-GRAN and DISK-MAX columns indicate TRIM support. If your SSD somehow does not support TRIM, it may be better to skip the SSD-specific steps below.
• Partition the hard drive
• Determine the name of the destination drive (/dev/sda will be assumed)
# fdisk -l
• Create the partition table
# fdisk /dev/sda
• Create a new empty DOS partition table
o
• Create boot partition
n
<enter>
<enter>
<enter>
+500M
• Set the boot flag on the boot partition
a
• Create a partition for the logical volume (to be encrypted)
n
<enter>
<enter>
<enter>
<enter>
• Set the partition type to Linux LVM
t
<enter>
8E
• Write changes
w
• If setting up a secondary HDD for storage:
• Determine the name of the storage HDD (/dev/sdb will be assumed)
# fdisk -l
• Create the partition table
# fdisk /dev/sdb
• Create a new emtpy DOS partition table
o
• Create a single partition (to be encrypted)
n
<enter>
<enter>
<enter>
<enter>
• Write changes
w
• Encrypt the partition(s) with LUKS
# cryptsetup -v -y -c aes-xts-plain64 -s 512 -h sha512 -i 5000 --use-random luksFormat /dev/sda2
• If setting up a secondary HDD for storage:
• Create a keyfile to encrypt and unlock the HDD
# dd if=/dev/urandom of=keyfile bs=1024 count=20
# cryptsetup -c aes-xts-plain64 -s 512 -h sha512 -i 5000 --key-file keyfile luksFormat /dev/sdb1
• Open partitions
# cryptsetup open --type luks /dev/sda2 lvm
• If setting up a secondary HDD for storage:
# cryptsetup --key-file keyfile open --type luks /dev/sdb1 hdd
• Set up Logical Volume Manager
• Create a new physical volume. If installing on an SSD, use the --dataalignment 1m option
# pvcreate --dataalignment 1m /dev/mapper/lvm Otherwise ommit it # pvcreate /dev/mapper/lvm
• Create volume group
# vgcreate volgroup0 /dev/mapper/lvm
• Create logical volumes, allocate space as you see fit
lvcreate -L 30GB volgroup0 -n lv_root
lvcreate -L 7.69GB volgroup0 -n lv_swap
lvcreate -l 100%FREE volgroup0 -n lv_home
• Find and activate volume groups
# vgscan
# vgchange -ay
• Create filesystems for logical volumes
# mkfs.ext2 /dev/sda1
# mkfs.ext4 /dev/volgroup0/lv_root
# mkfs.ext4 /dev/volgroup0/lv_home
# mkswap /dev/volgroup0/lv_swap
# swapon /dev/volgroup0/lv_swap
• If setting up a secondary HDD:
# mkfs.ext4 /dev/mapper/hdd
• Mount the filesystems
# mount /dev/volgroup0/lv_root /mnt/gentoo/
# mkdir /mnt/gentoo/{boot,home}
# mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/gentoo/boot
# mount /dev/volgroup0/lv_home /mnt/gentoo/home
• If setting up a secondary HDD:
# mkdir -p /mnt/gentoo/mnt/hdd
# mount /dev/mapper/hdd /mnt/gentoo/mnt/hdd
• Install stage3 tarball
# cd /mnt/gentoo
# links www.gentoo.org/main/en/mirrors.xml
• Select a nearby mirror and navigate to releases/amd64/autobuilds/current-stage3-amd64/stage3-amd64-??????.tar.bz2 (or .tar.xz), save to disk
• Unpack the stage3 tarball file
# tar xvjpf stage3-amd64-YYYYMMDD.tar.bz2 OR # tar xvJpf stage3-amd64-YYYYMMDD.tar.xz
• Configure portage
• Determine the number of logical CPUs (4 cores will be assumed)
# grep processor /proc/cpuinfo
• Identify the model of the CPU (a thinkpad xx20 will almost definitely have a sandybridge cpu, but you might want to check the gentoo wiki just to be sure -- https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Safe_CFLAGS)
# grep -m1 -A3 "vendor_id" /proc/cpuinfo
• Identify the model of the video card (intel integrated graphics will be assumed)
# lspci | grep -i VGA
• Edit make.conf (we don't have vim yet)
nano -w /mnt/gentoo/etc/portage/make.conf
• Choose CPU architecture
CFLAGS="-march=sandybridge ..."
• Choose USE flags, it is probably imperative to include the ones in the example below:
USE="cryptsetup crypt" You can also permaban useflags from ever being compiled in other packages. For instance, if you disabled bluetooth in BIOS, you may as well globally disable the bluetooth use flag (USE="-bluetooth"). Likewise, if you fell for the systemd hate meme, you can block it with -systemd. I'm currently running: USE="acpi audiofile cryptsetup crypt fontconfig icu jpeg mp3 mp4 png pulseaudio X -bindist -bluetooth -systemd" acpi: power management audiofile: required by mpd cryptsetup and crypt: probably required for luks/lvm fontconfig, icu: forgot why, but I recommend adding these jpeg, mp3, mp4, png: self explanatory In case you're wondering why I block systemd but use pulseaudio, it's because alsa doesn't allow to change sound cards on the fly easily (requires rebooting), which is garbage if you use HDMI sound passthrough.
• Set the MAKEOPTS variable with the number of CPU cores you determined above
MAKEOPTS="-j4"
• Set the INPUT_DEVICES variable
INPUT_DEVICES="evdev synaptics" I think evdev is required for external keyboards, synaptics is necessary for the tracknipple
• Set the VIDEO_CARDS variable
VIDEO_CARDS="intel i915"
• Select optimal mirrors
# mirrorselect -i -o >> /mnt/gentoo/etc/portage/make.conf
• Configure the Gentoo ebuild repository
# mkdir /mnt/gentoo/etc/portage/repos.conf
# cp /mnt/gentoo/usr/share/portage/config/repos.conf /mnt/gentoo/etc/portage/repos.conf/gentoo.conf
• Copy DNS info
# cp -L /etc/resolv.conf /mnt/gentoo/etc/
• Mount additional filesystems
# mount -t proc /proc/ /mnt/gentoo/proc/
# mount --rbind /sys/ /mnt/gentoo/sys/
# mount --rbind /dev/ /mnt/gentoo/dev/
# mkdir /mnt/gentoo/hostrun
# mount --bind /run/ /mnt/gentoo/hostrun/
• If setting up an HDD:
• Copy the keyfile to the main system before chrooting
# cp /root/keyfile /mnt/gentoo/root
• chroot into the new installation
# chroot /mnt/gentoo /bin/bash
# source /etc/profile
# export PS1="(chroot) ${PS1}"
• Mount lvm files
# mkdir /run/lvm
# mount --bind /hostrun/lvm /run/lvm
• Configure portage
• (Personal preference) Replace package.use and package.mask folders with files
# rm -rf /etc/portage/{package.use,package.mask}
# touch /etc/portage/{package.accept_keywords,package.mask,package.use}
• (Optional) Fell for the anti-systemd meme? Mask systemd and udev
# nano -w /etc/portage/package.mask sys-apps/systemd sys-fs/udev
• Install a snapshot of the main ebuild repository
# emerge-webrsync
• Select a system profile (if you don't know what you're doing, choose default/linux/amd64/17.0 (stable))
# eselect profile list # eselect profile set ${NUM}
• Update the ebuild repository
# emerge --sync
• Update packages
# emerge -uvDNa @world
• Emerge packages
# emerge -av sudo vim ntp grub genkernel-next gentoo-sources linux-firmware lvm2 pm-utils gentoolkit networkmanager at xrandr acpi acpid pm-utils is for suspend and hibernate commands at is used in udev rules to lauch scripts, such as automatic monitor detection upon vga/displayport plugging/unplugging (more on this later). And yes, you can use udev rules as per usual even if you masked udev in the steps above (gentoo automatically replaces it with some other more stallman-y replacement) acpi and acpid is for powermanagement
• If installing on an SSD:
• Enable discards in lvm.conf (we can finally start using vim at this point)
# vim /etc/lvm/lvm.conf issue_discards = 1
• If setting up an HDD:
• Configure /etc/crypttab
# vim /etc/crypttab # hdd UUID=${UUID} /root/keyfile luks Replace ${UUID} with the UUID of /dev/sdb1, NOT /dev/mapper/hdd. Get the UUID using `:read !blkid` inside vim, yank into place and delete the :read command output before :wq
• Edit fstab
# vim /etc/fstab Either adapt to what you currently have in your brainlet distro or do something along the lines of the example below: # # /dev/mapper/volgroup0-lv_root UUID= / ext4 rw,noatime,data=ordered 0 1 # /dev/sdb1 UUID= /boot ext2 rw,relatime,block_validity,barrier,user_xattr,acl 0 2 # /dev/mapper/volgroup0-lv_home UUID= /home ext4 rw,noatime,data=ordered 0 2 # /dev/mapper/hdd UUID= /mnt/hdd ext4 rw,relatime,data=ordered 0 2 # /dev/mapper/volgroup0-lv_swap UUID= none swap defaults 0 0 Again, use :read !blkid to get UUIDs. There are no quotes or anything around the numbers, syntax is just something like UUID=32422ads-asdfaf32
• Configure and compile the kernel sources. Don't forget to set the makeopts according to your number of CPU cores in the command below
# genkernel --makeopts=-j4 --menuconfig --lvm --luks all
• (Optional) Append a computer-specific suffix to the kernel name
General setup ---> (-${KERNEL_SUFFIX}) Local version - append to kernel release
• Enable LVM kernel drivers
Device Drivers --->
• Multiple devices driver support (RAID and LVM) --->
<*> Device mapper support <*> Crypt target support <*> Snapshot target <*> Mirror target <*> Multipath target <*> I/O Path Selector based on the number of in-flight I/Os <*> I/O Path Selector based on the service time
• Enable cryptographic API functions
• Cryptographic API --->
<*> XTS support <*> SHA1 digest algorithm <*> SHA1 digest algorithm (SSSE3/AVX/AVX2/SHA-NI) <*> SHA512 digest algorithm (SSSE3/AVX/AVX2) <*> SHA1 digest algorithm (x86_64 Multi-Buffer, Experimental) <*> SHA512 digest algorithm (x86_64 Multi-Buffer, Experimental) -*- AES cipher algorithms -*- AES cipher algorithms (x86_64) <*> AES cipher algorithms (AES-NI) <*> Serpent cipher algorithm <*> Twofish cipher algorithm <*> User-space interface for hash algorithms <*> User-space interface for symmetric key cipher algorithms <*> User-space interface for random number generator algorithms <*> User-space interface for AEAD cipher algorithms
• Enable drivers for USB hubs on USB 2.0 ports
Device Drivers --->
• USB support --->
{*} Support for Host-side USB <*> EHCI HCD (USB 2.0) support
• Root Hub Transaction Translators
• Improved Transaction Translator scheduling
{*} Generic EHCI driver for a platform device
• (kernel settings from this point onward are mostly thinkpad xx20 specific) Enable wireless drivers
Device Drivers --->
• Network device support --->
• Wireless LAN
< > * - Disable all other drivers Intel Wireless WiFi Next Gen AGN - Wireless-N/Advanced-N/Ultimate-N (iwlwifi) Intel Wireless WiFi DVM Firmware support Intel Wireless WiFi MVM Firmware support Generic Driver Options ---> -*- Userspace firmware loading support
• Include in-kernel firmware blobs in kernel binary
(iwlwifi-6000g2a-6.ucode) External firmware blobs in kernel binary (/lib64/firmware) Firmware blobs root directory
• Required settings for tlp (power manager)
Processor type and features ---> <*> /dev/cpu/*/msr - Model-specific register support Power management and ACPI options --->
• ACPI (Advanced Configuration and Power Interface) Support --->
<*> AC Adapter <*> Battery <*> Button <*> Fan <*> Processor <*> Thermal Zone Device Drivers ---> {*} Hardware Monitoring support ---> <*> Intel Core/Core2/Atom temperature sensor
• Digital audio passthrough and Intel HDA optimization
Device Drivers ---> <*> Sound card support ---> Advanced Linux Sound Architecture ---> HD-Audio ---> Build HDMI/DisplayPort HD-audio codec support (2048) Pre-allocated buffer size for HD-audio driver
• Configure grub to work with encrypted LVM and enable hibernation
# vim /etc/default/grub GRUB_PRELOAD_MODULES=lvm GRUB_ENABLE_CRYPTODISK=y GRUB_DEVICE=/dev/ram0 GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX="crypt_root=UUID=${/dev/sda2} real_root=UUID={/dev/mapper/volgroup0-lv_root} rootfstype=ext4 resume=UUID=${SWAP_UUID} dolvm quiet" Again, :read !blkid for UUIDs. If installing on a xx20 add the following after quiet: pcie_aspm=force i915.i915_enable_rc6=1 i915.i915_enable_fbc=1 i915.lvds_downclock=1 i915.semaphores=1 # vim /etc/pm/config.d/gentoo SLEEP_MODULE="kernel"
• Install grub
# grub-install --modules="linux crypto search_fs_uuid luks lvm" --target=i386-pc --recheck /dev/sda # cp /usr/share/locale/en\\@quot/LC_MESSAGES/grub.mo /boot/grub/locale/en.mo # grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg
• Create password for root
# passwd
• Add new user and set password
# useradd -m -G users,wheel,audio -s /bin/bash terryadavis # passwd terryadavis
• Configure system locale
# vim /etc/locale.gen Burgers uncomment en_US.UTF-8 UTF-8 and en_US ISO_8859-1. # locale-gen # echo LANG=en_US.UTF-8 > /etc/locale.conf # export LANG=en_US.UTF-8
• Set default root text editor to vim
# vim /root/.profile EDITOR=vim # export EDITOR=vim
• Configure sudo
# visudo Uncomment the following lines and add power-related commands to NOPASSWD %wheel ALL=(ALL) ALL %wheel ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD: /sbin/shutdown, /sbin/reboot, /usr/sbin/pm-hibernate, /usr/sbin/pm-suspend
• If setting up an HDD:
• Make user owner of storage HDD (I have a vague memory of this not working at this stage, you might need to re-do this command later on)
# chown -R terryadavis:terryadavis /mnt/hdd
• Set hostname
# vim /etc/conf.d/hostname hostname="${HOSTNAME}" # vim /etc/hosts # IPv4 and IPv6 localhost aliases ... ${HOSTNAME} ... `# vim /etc/dhcp/dhclient.conf` send hostname "${HOSTNAME}"; supersede hostname "${HOSTNAME}";
• Decrease the swappiness parameter
# vim /etc/sysctl.d/99-sysctl.conf vm.swappiness=10
• Configure system time
# ln -sf /usr/share/zoneinfo/.../... /etc/localtime hwclock --systohc --utc
• Configure ntp
# vim /etc/ntp.conf Delete all entries under # Pools for Gentoo users and add appropriate entry from pool.ntp.org
• Update the ntp service
ntpd -gq
• Remove the stage3 tarball file and /hostrun directory
# rm stage3-amd64-??????.tar.{bz2,xz} # umount /hostrun # rm -rf /hostrun
• Set up system services
# rc-update add lvm boot # rc-update add acpid default # rc-update add atd default # rc-update add NetworkManager default atd is the service from the udev at package mentioned above
• Eject the mounted partitions
# umount /run/lvm # cd / # exit # cd / # umount -R /mnt/gentoo
• Reboot, login as root and connect to a wireless network
# nmtui From here you can start recreating your desktop environment, but this is papa luke's house so we'll do it the senpai way.
• Enable foreign repositories
Gentoo's equivalent to Arch's AUR is zugaina.org. You can enable repositories manually but I find it easier to use the 'repository' feature in 'eselect', which requires emerging. git might be necessary as well, not entirely sure. # emerge -av eselect-repository dev-vcs/git (If this command complains about use flags or keywords, read the item below.) Gentoo's official repos contain i3wm but not i3-gaps. Heading over to zugaina.org, searching for i3-gaps reveals a couple of repos with it. Repos from zugaina can be enabled with # eselect repository enable ${REPO_NAME} # emerge --sync
• Emerge packages
At this point you'll need to figure out how to manage use flags and keywords on a per-package basis. Suppose you try to emerge newsboat # emerge -av newsboat The following keyword changes are necessary to proceed: # required by newsboat (argument) =net-news/newsboat-2.10.2 ~amd64 In this case you would need to add =net-news/newsboat-2.10.2 ~amd64 to /etc/portage/package.accept_keywords. You may also want to use the testing, rather than stable, version of some packages. To emerge the testing version of R, you would add dev-lang/R to package.accept_keywords. Many packages will also complain about use flags, simply repeat the procedure above adding the necessary lines to /etc/portage/package.use You might come accross more complicated scenarios (qutebrowser's flag requirements are a pain to figure out at the time of this writing), but in most cases the steps above will suffice. # emerge -av i3-gaps feh i3lock xf86-video-intel rxvt-unicode xinit xorg-server
• Set up your dotfiles and login as user
• Emerge and configure tlp
• tlp is the power manager of choice for thinkpads, allowing you to set charge thresholds, hdd spin idle time, cpu power setting under ac/battery and other good stuff. Unfortunatelly, I could never find a working tlp package in either the official repos or zugaina. Fortunatelly, the /g/entoomen over at cloveros got us covered with a binary package.
$ sudo PORTAGE_BINHOST="https://cloveros.ga" emerge -avG tlp Emerge may or may not pull all the dependencies automatically, if it doesn't you may have to emerge the dependencies one by one from the official repo.
• Add tlp service to the default run level
$ sudo rc-update add tlp default
• Set up a configuration file
I recommend you read the tlp manual and set this up yourself rather than copying it from a rando. Consider the lines below anyway: CPU_SCALING_GOVERNOR_ON_AC=performance CPU_SCALING_GOVERNOR_ON_BAT=powersave DISK_DEVICES="${SDA_DISKID} ${SDB_DISKID}" (get these with sudo tlp diskid) DISK_APM_LEVEL_ON_AC="127 254" DISK_APM_LEVEL_ON_BAT="127 128" DISK_SPINDOWN_TIMEOUT_ON_AC="120 0" DISK_SPINDOWN_TIMEOUT_ON_BAT="120 0" START_CHARGE_THRESH_BAT0=40 STOP_CHARGE_THRESH_BAT0=80
• (Optional) Recalibrate battery
$ sudo tlp recalibrate BAT0
• Emerge and configure thinkfan
• thinkfan allows you to control the temperature levels at which to trigger different fan spin levels
$ sudo emerge -av thinkfan
• Configure /etc/thinkfan.conf, example below
#sensor /sys/devices/virtual/hwmon/hwmon1/temp1_input sensor /sys/devices/platform/coretemp.0/hwmon/hwmon0/temp1_input sensor /sys/devices/platform/coretemp.0/hwmon/hwmon0/temp2_input sensor /sys/devices/platform/coretemp.0/hwmon/hwmon0/temp3_input (0, 0, 40) (1, 32, 55) (2, 54, 66) (3, 65, 76) (4, 75, 80) (5, 78, 85) (6, 82, 88) (7, 85, 32767) Check if all the directories are as above in your system, you may have hwmon1 instead of hwmon0 for instance
• Pass fan control to modprobe.d
$ sudo sh -c 'echo "options thinkpad_acpi fan_control=1" >> /etc/modprobe.d/thinkfan.conf'
• Enable thinkfan service at startup
$ sudo rc-update add thinkfan default
• Reboot and check if thinkfan is working
cat /proc/acpi/ibm/fan If the 'level' field shows a number instead of 'auto', you're good to go
• Configure lid behaviour
Gentoo doesn't automatically suspend the computer on lid close, lets fix that with acpi and go a step further by also calling i3lock before suspending. First, modify (do not replace) /etc/acpi/default.sh to look something like the example below in the relevant portion of the file. $ sudo vim /etc/acpi/default.sh case "$group" in button) case "$action" in power) /etc/acpi/actions/powerbtn.sh ;; lid) /usr/local/bin/lid.sh ;; *) log_unhandled $* ;; esac ;; Then create lid.sh $ sudo vim /usr/local/bin/lid.sh #!/bin/sh DP_STATUS=$(</sys/class/drm/card0/card0-DP-1/status ) HDMI_STATUS=$(</sys/class/drm/card0/card0-HDMI-A-1/status ) VGA_STATUS=$(</sys/class/drm/card0/card0-VGA-1/status ) if [ "connected" == "$DP_STATUS" ] || [ "connected" == "$HDMI_STATUS" ] || [ "connected" == "$VGA_STATUS" ]; then exit 1 else if grep -q closed /proc/acpi/button/lid/LID/state then /usr/local/bin/lock.sh if [ ! -e /tmp/.lock ] then /usr/sbin/pm-suspend fi fi fi lid.sh will suspend the laptop only if no external monitors are connected. It will also check for a lock file created by the next script. Finally, create lock.sh $ sudo vim /usr/local/bin/lock.sh #!/bin/bash LOCK_FILE=/tmp/.lock USR=$(users) mpc pause pkill -u $USR -USR1 dunst setxkbmap us sudo -u $USR touch $LOCK_FILE sudo -u $USR DISPLAY=:0 i3lock -d -c 000000; rm -f $LOCK_FILE pkill -u $USR -USR2 dunst The script above pauses your music player and disables notifications while the system is locked. This of course assumes your music player is mpd and that dunst is your notification daemon, omit or replace as required. I also use a lock file to let lid.sh know whether or not the computer is locked or unlocked upon lid close, but I'm not 100% sure if that works as intended or if it is even required at all. Still to do: use xrandr to shut off LVDS1 if lid is closed while external monitor is plugged in.
• Don't forget to make both scripts created above executable
$ sudo chmod +x /usr/local/bin/lid.sh
$ sudo chmod +x /usr/local/bin/lock.sh
• Set up xrandr automation upon external monitor pluging
Create an udev rule for monitor plug event $ sudo vim /etc/udev/rules.d/95-display-hotplug.rules KERNEL=="card0", SUBSYSTEM=="drm", ENV{DISPLAY}=":0", ENV{XAUTHORITY}="/home/${USER}/.Xauthority", RUN+="/usr/local/bin/display_hotplug.sh" Remember to change your username in the script above. udev can only launch simple one-liner scripts, so we need to create an intermediate script (this is why we installed the 'at' package above) $ sudo vim /usr/local/bin/display_hotplug.sh #!/bin/bash echo /usr/local/bin/display_detect.sh | at now Create the main script $ sudo vim /usr/local/bin/display_detect.sh #!/bin/sh USR=$(users) export DISPLAY=:0 export XAUTHORITY=/home/$USR/.Xauthority DP_STATUS=$(</sys/class/drm/card0/card0-DP-1/status ) HDMI_STATUS=$(</sys/class/drm/card0/card0-HDMI-A-1/status ) VGA_STATUS=$(</sys/class/drm/card0/card0-VGA-1/status ) WIFI_SSID=$(/sbin/iwgetid -r) if [ "worknetwork1" == "$WIFI_SSID" ] || [ "worknetwork2" == "$WIFI_SSID" ]; then DISP_LOC=(--left-of ) elif [ "homenetwork1" == "$WIFI_SSID" ] || [ "homenetwork2" == "$WIFI_SSID" ]; then DISP_LOC=(--right-of ) else DISP_LOC=(--right-of ) fi WALLPAPER=$(ls /home/$USR/Pictures/Wallpapers/ | shuf -n 1) if [ "connected" == "$DP_STATUS" ] && [ "disconnected" == "$VGA_STATUS" ]; then /usr/bin/xrandr --output LVDS1 --auto --output DP1 --primary --auto $DISP_LOC LVDS1 --output VGA1 --off PRIMARY="DP1" feh --bg-scale /home/$USR/Pictures/Wallpapers/$WALLPAPER pacmd set-card-profile 0 "output:hdmi-stereo" elif [ "connected" == "$HDMI_STATUS" ] && [ "disconnected" == "$VGA_STATUS" ]; then /usr/bin/xrandr --output LVDS1 --auto --output HDMI1 --primary --auto $DISP_LOC LVDS1 --output VGA1 --off PRIMARY="HDMI1" feh --bg-scale /home/$USR/Pictures/Wallpapers/$WALLPAPER pacmd set-card-profile 0 "output:hdmi-stereo" elif [ "connected" == "$VGA_STATUS" ] && [ "disconnected" == "$DP_STATUS" ]; then /usr/bin/xrandr --output LVDS1 --auto --output VGA1 --primary --auto $DISP_LOC LVDS1 --output DP1 --off PRIMARY="VGA1" feh --bg-scale /home/$USR/Pictures/Wallpapers/$WALLPAPER else if grep -q closed /proc/acpi/button/lid/LID/state then /usr/local/bin/lock.sh if [ ! -e /tmp/.lock ] then /usr/sbin/pm-suspend fi else /usr/bin/xrandr --output LVDS1 --auto --primary --output DP1 --off --output VGA1 --off /usr/local/bin/power_detect.sh feh --bg-scale /home/$USR/Pictures/Wallpapers/$WALLPAPER pacmd set-card-profile 0 "output:analog-stereo" fi fi A lot of stuff going on here. First, the script checks for which wifi network the computer is connected to. I place my laptop on the left or right of the external monitor depending on whether I'm at work or at home -- by feeding the network's SSID you can automate xrandr's monitor placement. Keep in mind that the iwgetid command requires the wireless-tools package. Next, the script shuffles a random file in a wallpaper folder. This seems to work poorly for dual monitors since feh just streches out the same wallpaper across both monitors, still a WiP. xrandr is then called to activate whatever monitor was plugged. This implementation works great if you only use one type of output, because you can assign workspaces to that specific output in i3/config (e.g. workspace $ws1 output VGA1). However, if you have say an HDMI monitor at home and a VGA monitor at work, I know of no elegant way to make them jump around correctly from the laptop display to the external display. Setting 'workspace $ws1 output primary' only detects the primary ouput set by xrandr upon i3's first launch, it doesn't update if a new xrandr command redefines the primary output. Would greatly appreciate if someone has any suggestion on how to get this going properly. Sound is also diverted to the HDMI audio passthrough sound card if connected to either a displayport or hdmi monitor, adjust for your needs. When the monitor is unplugged, the laptop will lock and suspend if the lid id closed.

Post over

Don't email me (Luke) with questions since I haven't gone through this process myself.