Troubleshooting

OK, before I try to do too much at once and forget almost everything along the way, here's ... a quick update: I broke my system, fixed it again - and that's probably the bulk of what we'll be looking at this time.

Also, there's a strange error that has happened to me multiple times now - the system telling me that the device is full although it most certainly is not.

But first, I guess ... to iterate on the previous thing. So, here's a bit of a setup structure, I guess:

1. "Speedrun" the Installation Guide (applying my setup (wait with installing linux and linux-firmware until it asks to mkinitcpio ??)) until it asks you to reboot. X.Org not yet installed or anything. Add the user 'meta'.
2. Configure networking, install desktop environment

cinnamon is important ... for reasons we'll get into.
The main one being: We're kind of ... no fans of KDE here ... . And this is ... the thing. My experience with KDE is this: I want a tiny little gimmick to add to my setup - I want to install it, bam 600 MB please.

That's Cinnamon here. It's like on the page for installing plasma-desktop, where it tells you: You might also want to install plasma-meta to make sure you get the full experience or whatever.

The main culprit is the looks. And KDE seems to do all that it can to make it as ass as possible to make anything look good that hasn't been approved by backdoor monkey or so. And what's it with the blue icons? Why tease me with a different color, when it's all just going to be blue anyway? I still haven't figured that one out ...
Is it like ... Linux trying to be windows or Linux trying not to be windows. It do be like that. It's both!

I guess one issue was, that back in the day, with KDE 3.5 for instance, it was relatively easy to mimic an early Windows System. Since Windows 95/98 had basically like NO Graphics and Linux users were having fun ... that wasn't a big issue. But with Windows 7 and this new trend towards minimalistic design - well, KDE kind of went the opposite route.

Well. How did I break my system?
I'm not sure. There are a few things I did. One thing was to try and get new themes - and because all I had was a hammer I was looking for nails. The cinnamon interface doesn't work properly, what a surprise, so, time to install plasma-desktop and get a login manager just to get to the native system settings where it has a browser for that. I wasn't sure what to expect - but the bad feeling started while plasma-desktop was still installing.
So, done - went looking for themes - and at some point I noticed this "warning, these themes may contain executable code that can brick your system" ... :/ ... srsly?
I thought ... "what could go wrong?".
And seriously: Maybe it trying to install an sddm theme while I didn't have sddm installed caused an issue.
So - I installed a few things, wondered why it all didn't work as advertised - this and that. I got back into cinnamon to see if things are different, and after selecting one particular button style ... I couldn't change it anymore. It took me a while to figure out that my home partition had somehow been corrupted. It would always say that the storage device is full - but everything I tried would tell me that it's fine.

So, that's my average KDE experience.

So, for all intents and purposes, KDE is the Gluttonous Whore in the Room. And Windows is its affiliate. And so I use cinnamon to customize this Qt nonsense. Yes, I'm a noob, which is, how we roll over into the next part.

So, after trying some things I decided I had to start over. And maybe something's telling me that we're not quite there yet, but I'm conflicted. But yes - I'm no linux admit, this isn't a linux distro - so, we're not going to act like that's what we're doing here.

You may. I would infact count on it. But still. There are some things that I want to do - and while I'm not there yet, it makes no sense to ... uhm.

So - after setting up xorg and logging into meta (I also use cinnamon first because the tool it has for changing screen resolution gives me an easy and headache-free way to determine the numbers that work. I'm sure ... there's a better way. What's needed, if you want to do it smarter than me: install openbox instead of cinnamon. All you need in order to follow the installation guide is an active X environment, or how the slang goes.) I configure i3 - well, make sure that I got all the limbs attached (though I'm sure I'm not there yet to be anyway sure about it) - and so we're having us some customization options.

So - I could at some point offer you a package and an installation guide here. If I was there. I mean, but ... this comes in two stages. Here we're first setting up the meta. That is - now all is working, the system is 'ready', and we're doing an initial configuration. So, we'll end up with a package that we can zip for deployment and integrate it into useradd. So and so.

And yea - design philosophy:

As previously stated: Arch Based "would be" a great seal of quality; Now adding: "if" it weren't so that the quality that Arch projects in that instance requires it to be a monopoly of sorts; As any derivative - at least while the base cannot deal with it - would only corrupt the source (the battle-scars on the arch linux forums).
And so, I too am asking you to be respectful.

So, for all I care - I pass a similar attitude on to you. This is a DIY endeavor.

To maintain this - it's been my biggest concern when it comes to this project - we need standards we can agree upon. So yea, it's been a topic - on and off and for a while and it has since been escalating. But where to even begin?

For this stage, what I have is this:

Just so we're on the same page:

So, within the system I'm building, root is root. meta is admin.
On the far side I want to build a public element into this. So, autologin into guest account for instance. This would mimic a normal, unprotected computer - to where there is a new/unique concept of 'user' within the system language.

The machine as itself features an operating environment. If this environment is "open" - the environment is virtually part of the machine or in some instances synonymous with the machine. The weighted word here is "open" - or "open system" in our case means: public user - basically.

Dangit. So - I'm using 'clith' to say 'client theme' in i3 - and now I'm using 'pubus' to mean public user? Great!

But no. So, instead of 'pubus' you would - as the name also shows up in the commandline and so - be titled as what it should show up publically.
I'm not sure if I'm re-inventing things. If I'm doing so badly, there's a better solution anyway already and if I'm not - then hey ... I might be doing something new. Said every linux developer ever and look where that got us.

But yea. I don't care about networking all that much. I'm grateful for it - but we're filthy casuals here - and if not, well, we don't mind being a little degenerate I assume.

Yes! All hail to the unorthodoxy!
But not too much.

Anyway. A common suggestion for 'pubus' is guest - such as to not conflict with the private elements of a machine.

Uhm, unorthodox: So, in meta I have the folder i3config. In the users config file for i3 I can then include /home/meta/i3config/runme.conf - or have my own runme.conf and include theme files or whatever. I'm chosing this way because this is on my home partition. If the system breaks I have an easy installment that I can customize. And this is also kind of how we depart from the "distribution" aspect and - we're building on whatever.

So, whatever is 'in' the system (like, we could/would/should have this i3config as part of /etc/ like 'normal' people - but that's like an extra step ...) is that - like, none of our business. If you're using a normal distribution - and you ... I mean, yea - fun with filesystems ... windows and linux partitions on the same filesystem, what could go wrong?

So.

For the next step I want to build a dedicated flash drive eventually. However - so:

Reboot - and now my setup, in essence, is this:

So, mounting the commandroot to /cmdroot in a live environment, allows me to:
create an image of root (so, SYSTEM.IMG can be a persisten backup file that just works without any headaches (use 'dd if=/dev/sdXY of=/cmdroot/backup/SYSTEM.IMG bs=64M') or flip if and of respectively) - and when mounting efi, boot and home to the proper mount points, backups of them can be made like: 'tar -cpvaf /cmdroot/backup/SYSTEM.home.tar.zst /home' for instance. ('tar -xpaf /cmdroot/backup/SYSTEM.home.tar.zst' to unpack (as derived from the article on archlinux.org (Full system backup with tar))).
Uhm ... but be careful!

Then, with everything backed up - we chroot into our install, connect to the web, install kde, get 'ktrustme' from the AUR and run 'nuke-my-pc'. Not.

But yes. Kind of. So, we can reboot - and this is where I'm at now. I just installed zsh and lxdm - and yea. So, I have a public volume mounted to /access/public; And here I have meta/gfx/ where I have term1.png and term2.png which I load using feh before exec i3 - and this way I have a head-acheless volume for all of my stuff. And this is also kind of how I expect to access stuff for my project. This is essentially the base install for that - where ... yea.

So, at the heart of the philosophy rests a concept I guess. And yea. So, linux is what it is. It's good at what it's good at - and sometimes people use it as a desktop. The big difference to windows is that all the things that make up a running linux system are individual pieces that can only interact because of some shared basis. So, maintaining and operating this shared basis is a lot of what linux is at its core - while all of that is simply just "integrated" in windows. While in linux program a relies on program b, c and d let's say to do a thing - in windows those four programs might not even be individual programs, but just other objects in the code. So, the modules in windows can like "talk to each other directly" - while the modules in linux neeed something in between them.

We like that here - because that's still what comes together at the back end of things. The clutter. So, as it should be - the desktop environment is to reduce that. And the meta tries to be that somehow. Or to fit in there. How to integrate it is a problem for another time. So, the minimalistic setting (so, no dolphin, no gimp, or any of that - just some lightweight window manager because I can't be arsed to learn coding with XOrg right now) - that's just our average linux backend to whatever we're doing.

So, case and point: if you want to follow along on linux, this is a way to setup a system with multiple partitions as conceptual backdrop for what I'm working with. So, with that off the list, we're like officially done with this.

I'll share resources as time and progress allow it.

Anyway. Now would also be the point to install something from the AUR, fbsplash and sublime-text-4 perhaps. The latter is essential to me - although I'm still using it like a noob. Kate is fine, I guess - but the "linuxiness" of it is sometimes a bit too much for me. I mean ... I'm not sure whom all of those features are for ... but again. The way it handles sessions and indexes open files ... that's just ... the best! And there goes another problem with linux: All the good stuff is here - it's just ten different programs - and you'd wish you could just smash them together.
This time around I'll check out trizen I guess.

One good reason to not trust KDE: It seems like it's way too complex for a small group of people to effectively maintain it. So, maybe it's like an "all or nothing" type of thing.
Yea - I mean. KDE seems to do that. So, after those 600 gigs you're like, already almost using KDE and you want to customize it, don't you? And oh, look! All of your stuff just broke - but KDE is still fine. Maybe. Anyway ...
It's like: "Everything becomes Krab".
So, be aware of this. I suppose. If you don't plan on using KDE ... . It's a slippery slope. I'll be looking for ways - but ...

I'm running low on weed. So - the "meta update" will could be for sober space. I mean, this is what it is. The downturn is coming - so. Most of the code is there already and what's missing is the problem mentioned before. More when I get there.

yes. I guess the issue is that if you're leaning towards Gnome or KDE - you're better off that way. I'm somewhere in the middle. And that's why this is such an issue to me. If the things you'll use require 'proper desktop functionality' - you need to be a different kind of nerd to DIY that from minimalistic pieces. And at that point ... well, embrace the Krab! But you'll need more space than I have allotted - and probably less security. Unless you're "Arching" it.
And I suppose we also all do have different mindsets as we also do have a different baseline understanding of the tech involved.
And that's important to understand and put forward.
Inversely it's important to understand that we also have to respect each other's time. So - while cooperation asks us to invest time in one another, we can't allow that to be too much. But ... comfort zones ... right now ... should also be like ... approached skeptically on principle.

So ... uh, anything else? There was something ... . Oh, no, that was a dead end.

And yea. Now ... merry christmas, happy hollidays, happy chanukka, have a fine winter solstice - whatever. Peace!

Tips and Tricks: pressing Alt and one of the F keys, in the 'tty environment' ("base"?) gets you to a different 'screen' - so, you can run multiple sessions in parallel.