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Thes are my scratch notes from installing Gentoo + Hyprland as minimally as possible and setting things up from scratch.

using

  • default/linux/amd64/23.0/desktop/systemd (stable)
  • pipewire+wireplumber (no pulseaudio)
  • dhcpcd+wpa_supplicant (no networkmanager)

Hopefully this repo mostly goes away in the future and is replaced by an overlay that will do a lot more automatically.

Get to first boot

prepare disks

  • partition with fdisk
    • 1-2 GB type EFI System
    • remainder type Linux filesystem
  • set up encryption
    • cryptsetup luksFormat
  • make and mount filesystems
    • vfat for boot, ext4 for /dev/mapper/root

install base system

  • install stage3 tarball
    • download desktop-systemd variant
    • tar xpvf stage3-*.tar.xz --xattrs-include='*.*' --numeric-owner -C /mnt/gentoo
  • configure make.conf, package.uses
  • chroot
    • copy DNS info
    • mount/bind filesystems
  • sync portage
    • emerge-webrsync
    • set up portage to use git (https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Portage_with_Git)
      • umount /dev/shm
      • mount --types tmpfs --options nosuid,nodev shm /dev/shm
      • emerge eselect-repository dev-vcs/git
      • do onetime stuff from that page to convert from rsync if needed
      • emaint sync to synchronize all enabled repos (simialr to emerge --sync)
  • set the profile (desktop/systemd)
  • set the timezone (defer if dual booting)
  • configure locales
    • edit /etc/locale.gen
    • locale-gen
    • eselect locale list

install firmware and kernel

  • emerge linux-firmware, gentoo-kernel
    • savedconfig
  • genkernel --luks initramfs
  • set up efibootmgr
    • efibootmgr --create --index 5 --disk /dev/nvme0n1 --part 1 --label "gentoo-alt" --loader /EFI/boot/bootx64-alt.efi --unicode 'crypt_root=UUID=63fdec71-9236-43d1-8d4a-2f3afba7d59a root=UUID=f81baa5e-121b-4983-ab30-020d89fbe1f1 ro initrd=/EFI/boot/initrd-alt root_trim=yes'
    • for coreboot, it is a bit more picky. This ended up working on startop
      • efibootmgr --create --disk /dev/nvme0n1 --part 1 --index 5 --label 'gentoo-dist' --loader '\EFI\boot\boot64x-dist.efi' --full-dev-path --unicode ' crypt_root=UUID=820728fa-649e-4042-8548-f510109ac165 root=UUID=02ab8289-956a-47cb-a3e0-569309ef66d5 ro root_trim=yes initrd=\EFI\boot\initrd-dist'
      • note some differences (I haven't isolated which of these changes is actually needed)
        • --full-dev-path (definitely needed)
        • initrd= arg is last
        • switch to backslashes in path names
  • re-emerge systemd with USE=cryptsetup (or just update world)

final configuration

  • set root password

  • emerge utilities

  • fstab

    • simply add entries for boot and root partitions. something like

      UUID=AB80-30E8          /boot           vfat            noauto,noatime  0 2
UUID=5560cc59-93b2-423f-8ae5-a2b31fd14284 /   ext4      defaults,noatime  0 1

  • systemd (from https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Handbook:AMD64/Installation/System#systemd_2)

    • systemctl preset-all --preset-mode=enable-only
    • systemctl preset-all

set up wireless networking

Mutually exclusive choices for network management include:

wpa_supplicant is used for network authentication, not management

Using just dhcpcd and wpa_supplicant, this method with systemd worked well: https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Network_management_using_DHCPCD#Using_Systemd essentially, just

cp /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant-DEVNAME.conf
cd /etc/systemd/system/multi-user.target.wants
ln -s /lib/systemd/system/wpa_supplicant@.service wpa_supplicant@DEVNAME.service

<<kill any wpa_supplicant instances already running>>

systemctl daemon-reload

Enable dhcpcd.

boot into new install

  • systemd-machine-id-setup
  • systemd-firstboot --reset
  • systemd-firstboot --prompt
  • timedatectl set-local-rtc 1

Install user environment

set up user account

  • useradd -m -G users,wheel,audio,video,portage -s /usr/bin/zsh graham
  • probably later: usermod -aG pipewire,locate graham

install compositor, terminal, browser

If no session gets created (i.e. Hyprland complains about no XDG_RUNTIME_DIR) I traced this back to an "Input/Output error" with pam_systemd.so (seen via systemctl status systemd-logind.service or journalctl -b | grep pam etc).

After much debugging, hardware tests, etc, I discovered that disabling systemd-userdbd was the only workaround, and though maybe not recommended(?), it is the case on flattop, so going with it for now.

systemctl disable systemd-userdbd

  • blacklist nouveau in /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf

    • bake that blacklist into the initrd genkernel --luks initramfs
    • confirm with lsinitrd | grep blacklist -echo auto > /sys/bus/pci/devices/0000\:01\:00.0/power/control

  • to automate, write

    w /sys/bus/pci/devices/0000:01:00.0/power/control - - - - auto

    to /etc/tmpfiles.d/nvidia-power.conf

  • can also completely remove the card from the PCI bus. Write to /etc/udev/rules.d/00-remove-nvidia.rules:

    # Remove NVIDIA USB xHCI Host Controller devices, if present
ACTION=="add", SUBSYSTEM=="pci", ATTR{vendor}=="0x10de", ATTR{class}=="0x0c0330", ATTR{power/control}="auto", ATTR{remove}="1"

# Remove NVIDIA USB Type-C UCSI devices, if present
ACTION=="add", SUBSYSTEM=="pci", ATTR{vendor}=="0x10de", ATTR{class}=="0x0c8000", ATTR{power/control}="auto", ATTR{remove}="1"

# Remove NVIDIA Audio devices, if present
ACTION=="add", SUBSYSTEM=="pci", ATTR{vendor}=="0x10de", ATTR{class}=="0x040300", ATTR{power/control}="auto", ATTR{remove}="1"

# Remove NVIDIA VGA/3D controller devices
ACTION=="add", SUBSYSTEM=="pci", ATTR{vendor}=="0x10de", ATTR{class}=="0x03[0-9]*", ATTR{power/control}="auto", ATTR{remove}="1"

Opacity wasn't working in hyprland on thinktop. I blacklisted xe module, and now there's a race condition at hyprland start so that opacity shows up if I open hyprland.conf and save it (without changing anything). If I put my wallpaper where hyprland expects to find it, everything works fine.

if hyprpaper failed to load a wallpaper, the compositor’s early rendering path was slightly different, and your decoration opacity only took effect once the config was re-parsed.

Now that hyprpaper finds the wallpaper and starts cleanly, Hyprland’s render state is stable from the beginning, so the decoration opacities apply correctly on first launch without needing a manual or scripted reload

configure pcloud via rclone

  • need a browser
  • rclone config
  • rclone mount pcloud: /home/graham/pcloud

setup light/dark theme switching

  • install xdg-desktop-portal-gtk
  • reboot
  • gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.interface color-scheme 'prefer-dark'
  • set up keyd
    • capslock = overload(control, esc)
  • use caps as control in the console (systemd):
    • edit keymap file
    • point /etc/vconsole.conf to the edited keymap file
    • systemctl restart systemd-vconsole-setup.service

streamline boot/login

While working on boot optimizations, I decided to streamline the boot, authentication, general startup process. For now, I am enabling autologin, as these are single-user systems with full disk encryption anyway.

  • sudo for passwordless root: visudo and add graham ALL=NOPASSWD: /bin/su -

  • terminal login: edit /etc/systemd/system/getty@tty1.service.d/override.conf

    [Service]
ExecStart=
ExecStart=-/sbin/agetty --autologin <username> --noclear %I linux

    then systemctl daemon-reload and systemctl restart getty@tty1 Can always start debugging issues with journalctl -u getty@tty1.service

  • automatic Hyprland start: edit .zprofile and add

    if [ "$(tty)" = "/dev/tty1" ]; then
    start-hyprland
fi

enable sound

  • use lspci -k | grep -A3 Audio to see if kernel is loading audio drivers
  • enable pipewire-alsa and sound-server USE flags for pipewire
  • usermod -aG pipewire graham
  • systemctl --user enable --now pipewire.service pipewire-pulse.service wireplumber.service
  • install sys-firmware/sof-firmware on nvgen
  • then wpctl status to show info

sometimes, wpctl status shows only "Dummy Output" as a sink, where it should be showing "Built-in Audio Analog Stereo [vol: 0.50]" for both "Sinks:" and "Sources:", and "Built-in Audio [alsa]" for "Devices:".

I haven't yet figured out

  1. what causes these to drop out, or
  2. how to get them back without a reboot

For example, on nvgen after a distribution gentoo-kernel upgrade, sound worked with the dist kernel, but no longer with my (unchanged) gentoo-sources kernel. I booted into the dist kernel and used make localmodconfig and rebuilt. This didn't work. So I took the .config from the dist kernel and manually copied everything sound related over to the .config for my kernel. This worked. The defconfig is saved in the repo for now.

install and configure fonts

ghostty has a zero configuration philosophy, so maybe start there. kitty also comes with nerd fonts pre-installed.

despite passing my font smoke test scripts, the arrow icon in the default whichkey interface was still missing, as well as the fonts in the telescope picker.

  • emerge noto-cjk, noto-emoji, dejavu, fira-mono, fira-code
  • eselect fontconfig enalbe
  • reboot
  • download nerdfonts.com zip file(s): all Ubuntu variants
  • unzip into ~/.local/share/fonts
  • fc-cache -fv

Test some icons and emoji here in the browser:

    FIX = icon = " ",
    TODO = icon = " ",
    HACK = icon = " ",
    WARN = icon = " ",
    PERF = icon = " ",
    NOTE = icon = " ",
    TEST = icon = "⏲ ",

(╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻
¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I like the horizontal compactness of the Ubuntu* nerd fonts, but their symbols are very small compared to the Fira and Liberation system fonts (that I assume are both taking symbols from the media-fonts/symbols-nerd-font package. Those symbols are much nicer to read, but there are more missing compared to those downloaded directly from nerdfonts.com.

update: I downloaded and tried (via kitten choose-fonts) a whole bunch of fonts from nerdfonts.com, and discovered the large icons come from the difference between there being a "Mono" at the and of the font package name itself.

set up bluetooth

  • enable bluetooth USE flag
  • emerge bluez
  • systemct bluetooth start
  • make sure no firmware issues
  • bluetoothctl
    • list
    • discoverable on
    • pairable on
    • scan on
    • devices
    • pair <device_mac>
    • trust <device_mac>
    • connect <device_mac>
    • info <device_mac>
  • used mictests.com to test microphone

Sometimes the '5tgb' column of the Lily58 drops out and doesn't work. Some combination of restarting the bluetooth service, reconnecting the keyboard, and connecting it via usb brings it back. Haven't root caused this or gotten a consistent fix. But now I'm getting inconsistent bounce bounce behavior, both too slow and too fast. Note: this affects so far bequiet and nvgen right after updates. Other hosts tbd.

Just some more testing notes: I couldn't reproduce in Windows, and I removed the bluetooth connection from Windows before rebooting. Now back in nvgen, I can't reproduct the bad debounce behavior again. On bequiet, I haven't been able to reproduce it again yet, but historically it only shows up intermittently anyway.

This is starting to show up a little more often, both with the repeated keys issue, and the dead column issue. It happens most often on bequiet, and I've never seen it yet in Windows. It has also started to happen on the right half '6yhn' column. Most of the time, I can mostly work around it by plugging in the affected half, but it isn't perfect (still getting debounce/dropped chars).

minimal UKI

Custom kernel

DO NOT CUSTOMIZE the gentoo-kernel distribution kernel. With my current level of knowledge, it isn't worth it. Disadvantages

  • no reuse of incremental builds
  • difficult to get a working boot with even only minimal changes to savedconfig

configuring a custom kernel:

  • start with make localmodconfig if no defconfig available

    • diff defconfig-flattop /usr/src/linux/defconfig | grep '^<' on nvgen:
    < CONFIG_LOCALVERSION="-lopez64"
< CONFIG_DEFAULT_HOSTNAME=""
< CONFIG_INITRAMFS_SOURCE="/boot/initrd-lopez64.cpio.xz"
< CONFIG_CMDLINE_BOOL=y
< CONFIG_CMDLINE="root=UUID=5560cc59-93b2-423f-8ae5-a2b31fd14284 crypt_root=UUID=655caefd-7e35-4d53-a252-ca92ff7e1bdc ro root_trim=yes panic=10"
< CONFIG_CMDLINE_OVERRIDE=y
< CONFIG_BT_RFCOMM=m
< CONFIG_BT_RFCOMM_TTY=y
< CONFIG_BT_BNEP=m
< CONFIG_BT_BNEP_MC_FILTER=y
< CONFIG_BT_BNEP_PROTO_FILTER=y
< CONFIG_RAPIDIO=m
< CONFIG_BLK_DEV_NVME=y
< CONFIG_DM_CRYPT=y
< CONFIG_INPUT_UINPUT=y
< CONFIG_GPIO_CROS_EC=m
< CONFIG_CHARGER_CROS_USBPD=m
< # CONFIG_CHARGER_CROS_PCHG is not set
< CONFIG_VIDEO_OV13858=m
< CONFIG_SND_HDA_CODEC_SIGMATEL=m
< CONFIG_SND_USB_AUDIO=m
< CONFIG_SND_USB_AUDIO_MIDI_V2=y
< # CONFIG_SND_SOC_SOF_INTEL_SOUNDWIRE is not set
< CONFIG_UHID=m
< CONFIG_USB_STORAGE=y
< CONFIG_LEDS_CLASS_MULTICOLOR=m
< CONFIG_CROS_EC=m
< CONFIG_CROS_EC_LPC=m
< CONFIG_CROS_KBD_LED_BACKLIGHT=m
< # CONFIG_CROS_EC_LIGHTBAR is not set
< # CONFIG_CROS_EC_DEBUGFS is not set
< # CONFIG_CROS_EC_SENSORHUB is not set
< # CONFIG_CROS_EC_TYPEC is not set
< # CONFIG_CROS_TYPEC_SWITCH is not set
< # CONFIG_DCDBAS is not set
< # CONFIG_DELL_RBTN is not set
< # CONFIG_DELL_SMBIOS is not set
< # CONFIG_DELL_WMI_DDV is not set
< # CONFIG_DELL_WMI_SYSMAN is not set
< CONFIG_SOUNDWIRE_INTEL=m
< CONFIG_VFAT_FS=m
< CONFIG_FAT_DEFAULT_IOCHARSET="ascii"
< CONFIG_CRYPTO_CHACHA20_X86_64=y
< CONFIG_CRYPTO_POLY1305_X86_64=y
< # CONFIG_UBSAN_SIGNED_WRAP is not set

so I copied most of these over.

Commandline + initrd

https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Kernel/Command-line_parameters

cat /proc/cmdline to see the command line of the currently running kernel

Three ways to pass parameters to the kernel

  1. Kconfig (build them into the kernel)
  2. UEFI (using efibootmgr --unicode)
  3. various bootloaders e.g. grub, lilo, systemd-boot

building in the command line CONFIG_CMDLINE by itself results in the root device not being found and kernel panic at boot (no decrypt prompt) so build in the initrd as well. Some online sources (don't remember where) said that an embedded command line doesn't work well without a built-in initrd.

learned that CONFIG_CMDLINE_OVERRIDE is likely needed, especially for stub booting

Here is the recipe:

  • if savedefconfig is available
    • cp defconfig to /usr/src/linux/.config
    • make olddefconfig
  • populate CONFIG_CMDLINE="root=UUID=<uuid of /dev/mapper/root> crypt_root=UUID=<uuid of /dev/nvme0n1p2> ro root_trim=yes panic=10"
  • enable CONFIG_CMDLINE_OVERRIDE
  • make necessary things built-in and not modules (see .config progression)
    • so far I know DM_CRYPT can be either built-in or a module (in the initrd)
  • build the kernel with KCFLAGS="-march=native -O2 -pipe" make -j12
  • install modules with make modules_install INSTALL_MOD_STRIP=1
    • this noticeably affects boot speed
  • generate an initrd with genkernel --luks --no-compress-initramfs initramfs
  • copy the generated initrd to /root/initrd-<whatever>.cpio.xz (or whatever compression)
  • uncompress the initrd image with unxz
  • add the path to the initrd to CONFIG_INITRAMFS_SOURCE
  • rebuild the kernel
  • cp arch/x86/boot/bzImage /boot/EFI/boot/boot64x.efi
  • efibootmgr --create --disk /dev/nvme0n1 --part 1 --label "gentoo" --loader /EFI/boot/bootx64.efi

Note: recently I like to disable the initramfs compression in the kernel so that decompression isn't needed at boot. This also means that unxz is needed between genkernel --luks initramfs and building it into the kernel

Firmware

https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Linux_firmware

FIXED: dmesg | grep -i firmware to see what was loaded

enable savedconfig USE flag, edit in /etc/portage/savedconfig, and reemerge

don't need /boot/amd_uc.img on Intel processors

The firmware will provide a (possibly outdated) microcode blob for the processor. To get the newest, emerge intel-microcode (with ACCEPT_KEYWORDS=~amd64) and install (following https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Intel_microcode for Intel microcode)

Get the processory signature fromm iucode_tool -S (installed as a dependency of intel-microcode) and find the appropriate filenames with iucode_tool -S -l /lib/firmware/intel-ucode*

add the output to /etc/portage/make.conf. This is the equivalent of savedconfig

MICROCODE_SIGNATURES="-s 0x000c0652"

Then build all the firmware blobs into the kernel at

Device Drivers  --->
  Generic Driver Options  --->
    Firmware Loader  --->
      -*-   Firmware loading facility 
      (intel-ucode/06-c5-02) Build named firmware blobs into the kernel binary 
      (/lib/firmware) Firmware blobs root directory

Might as well build in the blobs from /etc/portage/savedconfig/sys-kernel/linux-firmware as well

On startop, the relevant part of .config looks like:

CONFIG_EXTRA_FIRMWARE="intel-ucode/06-c5-02 regulatory.db regulatory.db.p7s intel/iwlwifi/iwlwifi-ty-a0-gf-a0.pnvm intel/iwlwifi/iwlwifi-ty-a0-gf-a0-89.ucode iwlwifi-ty-a0-gf-a0-89.ucode iwlwifi-ty-a0-gf-a0.pnvm intel/ibt-0041-0041.ddc intel/ibt-0041-0041.sfi i915/mtl_gsc_1.bin i915/mtl_huc_gsc.bin i915/mtl_guc_70.bin i915/mtl_dmc.bin"
CONFIG_EXTRA_FIRMWARE_DIR="/lib/firmware"

custom initrd

The kernel configured for the genkernel produced initramfs is ready for our custom initrd. By the end, one could remove the root= argument from CONFIG_CMDLINE.

building static binaries

The next requirement is a fully static build of cryptsetup and busybox. We'll use portage for this, but it is going to want to build static dependencies as well. So the overview procedure is:

  1. Ask portage to build/install to a different path, using --oneshot to keep it out of the world file
  2. accept the changes to /etc/portage/package.use required for the build
  3. do the build
  4. back out the changes to /etc/portage/package.use. Can confirm this with a emerge -puvDN @world afterwords

This is a bit more complicated than it seems at first. In Sakaki's guide back in the day, she simply set USE="static" etc. for cryptsetup, but nowadays udev must be disabled (due to upstream issues) for a static cryptsetup build. While this should be okay for the system cryptsetup, I'm not going to go that route for now.

So we have to play games with either building it by hand, including all of its dependencies' static versions, or else use an alternate root for portage which pulls in 200+ dependencies to get the job done.

For now, I am going with the former option of building static cryptsetup and busybox by hand. The script build_static_utils.sh is in the repo.

assemble the initramfs

Create the working directory that will become the initramfs root:

mkdir -p /usr/src/initramfs/{bin,dev,etc,lib,lib64,mnt/root,proc,root,sbin,sys,run}

Copy essential device nodes. These must exist before /dev is populated dynamically:

cp -a /dev/{null,console,tty,random,urandom} /usr/src/initramfs/dev/

For the LUKS partition, either copy the specific block device node (e.g., /dev/nvme0n1p2 or /dev/sda2) or use devtmpfs/mdev to populate devices dynamically at boot. The devtmpfs approach is strongly recommended because it eliminates hardcoded device paths:

# In /init, mount devtmpfs instead of copying block device nodes:
mount -t devtmpfs devtmpfs /dev

Copy the static binaries and create busybox symlinks:

cp /bin/busybox /usr/src/initramfs/bin/busybox
cp /sbin/cryptsetup /usr/src/initramfs/sbin/cryptsetup

cd /usr/src/initramfs/bin
ln -s busybox sh
ln -s busybox mount
ln -s busybox umount
ln -s busybox switch_root
ln -s busybox sleep
ln -s busybox cat
ln -s busybox mdev

The init script is the heart of the initramfs. Create /usr/src/initramfs/init:

#!/bin/busybox sh
export PATH="/bin:/sbin"

# Mount virtual filesystems
mount -t proc     proc     /proc
mount -t sysfs    sysfs    /sys
mount -t devtmpfs devtmpfs /dev

rescue_shell() {
    echo "Dropping to rescue shell"
    exec /bin/busybox sh
}

# Find a LUKS container device by its LUKS UUID
find_luks_by_uuid() {
    target_uuid="$1"
    for dev in /dev/sd?* /dev/nvme?n?p* /dev/vd?*; do
        [ -b "$dev" ] || continue
        uuid="$(cryptsetup luksUUID "$dev" 2>/dev/null || true)"
        [ -n "$uuid" ] || continue
        [ "$uuid" = "$target_uuid" ] && { echo "$dev"; return 0; }
    done
    return 1
}

luks_uuid=""
rootfstype="ext4"

# Parse kernel command line
for param in $(cat /proc/cmdline); do
    case "$param" in
        crypt_root=UUID=*)
            luks_uuid="${param#crypt_root=UUID=}"
            ;;
        rootfstype=*)
            rootfstype="${param#rootfstype=}"
            ;;
    esac
done

[ -z "$luks_uuid" ] && echo "No crypt_root=UUID= found" && rescue_shell

# Optional: populate /dev from sysfs (not strictly required for luksUUID)
mdev -s

CRYPTSETUP=/sbin/cryptsetup
[ ! -x "$CRYPTSETUP" ] && echo "cryptsetup missing" && rescue_shell

luks_source="$(find_luks_by_uuid "$luks_uuid")" || {
    echo "Could not find LUKS device with LUKS UUID=$luks_uuid"
    rescue_shell
}

echo "<6>[initramfs] Starting LUKS root unlock" > /dev/kmsg

"$CRYPTSETUP" luksOpen "$luks_source" luksroot || rescue_shell

echo "<6>[initramfs] mounting rw /dev/mapper/luksroot" > /dev/kmsg

# Hardcode root as the filesystem inside the mapper
mount -t "$rootfstype" -o rw /dev/mapper/luksroot /mnt/root || rescue_shell

umount /proc
umount /sys
umount /dev

exec switch_root /mnt/root /sbin/init

package the initramfs

Option 1: build it into the kernel as usual.

Simply put the path to the initramfs directory tree in CONFIG_INITRAMFS_SOURCE and rebuild the kernel.

Option 2: have a separate initrd file

This is helpful for quickly testing initramfs changes without needing to rebuild/link the kernel. Blank out CONFIG_INITRAMFS_SOURCE, add initrd=/EFI/boot/initrd to CONFIG_CMDLINE, and build the file with

cd /usr/src/initramfs
find . -print0 | cpio --null -ov --format=newc > /boot/EFI/boot/initrd

(or if you want compression)

find . -print0 | cpio --null -ov --format=newc | gzip -9 > /boot/initramfs.cpio.gz

nvidia drivers

for bequiet with the Quadro P620 (Pascal) installed, nouveau drivers do work with wayland/hyprland, but the performance is poor enough to notice during normal usage (choppy mouse cursor, slow window movements).

To enable, set VIDEO_CARDS="nouveau" in /etc/portage/make.conf

Attempting to use x11-drivers/nvidia-drivers. For right now on bequiet, I'm using a distribution kernel so enabling the dist-kernel use flag; wayland use flag is already enabled.

I ended up emerging nvidia-drivers, then based on warnings I saw from it about the kernel being built with an older GCC, I emerged gentoo-kernel, then nvidia-drivers again. Then a normal genkernel --luks initramfs, put the images into /EFI/boot and it seems to work fine. The nvidia-drivers package installed a /etc/modprobe.d/nvidia.conf and whatever else it needed.

minimal systemd

This is a work in progress.

Note that there is a now a util script in the gentoo-configs repo to help with this

laptop power profiles

intro

This is done by writing the correct values to sysfs; see their current values:

cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/intel_pstate/status /sys/devices/system/cpu/intel_pstate/min_perf_pct /sys/devices/system/cpu/intel_pstate/max_perf_pct /sys/devices/system/cpu/intel_pstate/no_turbo

This is automated by monitoring /sys/class/power_supply/ADP1/online with udev and triggering a minimal systemd service that calls a script to write to the sysfs values above. I am told that skipping systemd and using udev to call the script is less robust, plus we lose debug logging.

General power profile setup (cpu only)

All of these files get deployed along with the other system configs, but they still need to be enabled manually at at this point

The script for /usr/local/sbin/set-power-profile.sh (cpu power only)

systemd template service goes in /etc/systemd/system/power-profile@.service

we also need a service to run at boot to set the correct initial state; goes in /etc/systemd/system/power-profile-init.service and enable it with systemctl enable power-profile-init.service

Finally, our udev rule to react to AC plug/unplug goes in /etc/udev/rules.d/99-power-profile.rules and reload udev with udevadm control --reload

nvme and wifi were also added to the set-power-profile.sh file. Those details have been removed from here as they are tracked in the configs repo and get deployed there.

improved power status reporting script

this now lives in the gentoo-configs repo and gets installed to /usr/local/sbin

add auto powertop adjustments

this now lives in the gentoo-configs repo and gets installed to /usr/local/sbin

and add an ExecStart= line to /etc/systemd/system/power-profile-init.service so it fires at boot

package management

package sets

To see the current list of available sets, emerge --list-sets

Define sets in /etc/portage/sets with the name of the file as the set name, and one atom per line

binhost

bequiet should do most of the work

I first need to get threadripper reinstalled to more closely match the profile and USE flags of nvgen and flattop

https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Binary_package_guide#Creating_binary_packages https://www.gentoo.org/news/2024/02/04/x86-64-v3.html

personal overlay

keep useful packages around that I want

https://github.com/XAMPPRocky/tokei

Things I have wanted at some point in the past:

Networking

Proton VPN

Here's the current setup:

  1. Log in to Proton VPN web interface and make a wireguard config.
  2. emerge wireguard-tools - Pay attention to the kernel config requirements
  3. put config in /etc/wireguard, owned by root, perms 600. Ensure filename is under 15 chars e.g. pvpn-us-ga.conf
  4. wg-quick up/down pvpn-us-ga
  5. check connection with wg show
  6. curl https://ip.me (will probably show ipv6 if the website prefers it) curl -4 https://ip.me or curl -4 https://ipconfig.co

secrets management

proton pass cli

https://protonpass.github.io/pass-cli/get-started/configuration/#secure-key-storage

curl -fsSL https://proton.me/download/pass-cli/install.sh | bash

Then some usage:

pass-cli login --interactive
pass-cli item view pass://utils/gza-ssh-key --output json | jq
pass-cli item view pass://utils/gza-ssh-key/public_key > ~/.ssh/id_ed25519.pub

pass-cli uses the kernel keyring; emerge -av keyutils to take a look keyctl show

yubikey

This is a future TODO: to get yubikeys set up for various use cases

ssh keys on yubikey

proton FIDO2

Can use yubikey and keep TOTP codes as alternative/backup for proton account access

luks decrypt

mobile (NFC)

ssh keys and agent

a very thorough cloudflare article on the kernel keyring

  • note this isn't yet supported for ed25519 keys, only RSA which suck

So just use the built-in openssh agent, no keyring utility needed with some shell jankery (see .zshrc and .utils/lazy_ssh.sh)

configuration management

user dot files

This is mostly solved with the tried and true bare repo / working dir solution, but there are always might be some enhancements that are possible.

system configs

This roughly follows the same method as the user dotfiles, but git is bad at permissions, so I've put a helper fixup script in the repo's utils directory

kernel configurations

TODO: For right now, these machine-specific kernel configurations, firmware blobs, initrds, and their evolutions live in the gentoo-configs repo in machine-designated files/dirs that get manually copied into place

Future Enhancements

unsorted list

A big list of ideas of things I've wanted to try at some point. Some are very low effort, some are very high.

  • external monitors in hyprland
  • build up from smaller (non-desktop) profile
  • telescope search icons in nvim for "disk" and see many squares and kanji
  • screenlocking and fingerprint reader
  • user mount removable devices
  • more theming (with fast/auto switching): wallpaper+colors/pywal16+fonts
  • virutalization:
  • touchpad palm rejection for nvgen and multigestures

Screen brightness buttons

echo 25000 > /sys/class/backlight/intel_backlight/brightness note that sys-power/acpilight comes with useful udev rules for allowing video group write access

testing with evtest doesn't show any output when testing the keyboard device '2', as these buttons are actually on 'event8'. Then the keypresses will register. Note that the next song button etc. register on the evtest keyboard event. None of the multimedia keys show up with wev/xev.

  • screen brightness buttons
    • framework blacklist hid_sensor_hub

Improve terminal themes

need better (more contrasty) light theme colors

it would be cool to be able to dynamically/interactively change the themes like I do with neovim

zsh, tmux, dir_colors

ensure these follow along nicely

change transparency on the fly or based on dark/light

this may not really be possible in ghostty

probably eventually combine with light/dark theme switching

how to get kitty to reload its config in all running instances? This isn't really possible, but you can get it to reload its config file with ctrl+shift+F5 or with kill -SIGUSR1 <kitty_pid>

so for kitty:

  • background_opacity isn't supported in the theme files
  • have a separate, single line file with background_opacity that is included in the main kitty.conf. Do not put this file under version control because it will get changed all the time
  • now can script echo "background_opacity 0.8" > ~/.config/kitty/opacity.conf and a kill -SIGUSR1 <kitty_pids> to dynamically change

for ghostty, the only way to force a config reload is to interactively use a keyboard shortcut. But this is probably okay as a workaround, as I usually don't have too many terminals open and don't change themes too often.

hyprland complaints

When starting kitty from a terminal:

[0.110] [glfw error 65544]: process_desktop_settings: failed with error: [org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.UnknownMethod] No such interface “org.freedesktop.portal.Settings” on object at path /org/freedesktop/portal/desktop

suggest installing and starting xdg-desktop-portal-hyprland (via guru overlay)

[0.110] [glfw error 65544]: Notify: Failed to get server capabilities error: [org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.ServiceUnknown] The name org.freedesktop.Notifications was not provided by any .service files

suggest installing and starting a notification service https://www.perplexity.ai/search/how-do-i-solve-the-following-e-RjBEBexwSeusYywGKEiBTg#1

[0.148] Could not move child process into a systemd scope: [Errno 5] Failed to call StartTransientUnit: org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.Spawn.ChildExited: Process org.freedesktop.systemd1 exited with status 1

systemd - other

systemd can handle automatic parition mounting, but I'm not yet sure how this works with luks encryption, or if I want this over /etc/fstab (https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Systemd#Automatic_mounting_of_partitions_at_boot)

there are a load of USE flags for systemd; there might be some interesting things to take advantage of. (https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Systemd#USE_flags)

verbosity of boot messages can be tweaked https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Systemd#Configure_verbosity_of_boot_process

systemd-bootchart will show boot process performance. It requires the boot USE flag, but this also installs the systemd-boot bootloader, so probably want to look at 3rd-party utilities for profiling

systemd-sysext and systemd-confext look interesting and may warrant future investigation.

systemd-pstore for debug and tuning info

kitty clean exit with disowned process

use nohup [command] &> /dev/null &

This makes using kitty as the dropdown terminal less useful

after backgrounding and disowning a process in the kitty terminal, pressing ctrl+d to close the shell+terminal causes a hang

adding to .config/kitty/kitty.conf didn't help:

shell_integration enabled  # Ensure proper shell state tracking
confirm_os_window_close -1 # Disable exit confirmation prompts[4]

starfighter quirks and todos

  • why does acpi -bi report "Not Charging" when plugged in?
  • further kernel trim (config_debug, etc.)
  • delay devices until userspace on-demand (like bluetooth on systemd services start, wifi after hyprland, etc.)
  • test against dist kernel if any more kernel drivers needed for addtl lm_sensors
  • compare microsd blk device names to Ubuntu
  • enable webcam, test microphone
  • battery use is 1.5W higher at idle after suspend/resume
  • audio amp clicks
    • turn off soundcard in /sys?
    • remove/add driver module on demand?
  • .utils/hypr_lid.sh causes lockup
    • could be due to new hyprland version

fixed

  • kkey debounce

    • add i8042.nomux to kernel command line improves it quite a bit, but not completely

      • completely gone in kitty, but still happens in firefox

    • also trying i8042.nomux i8042.reset to see if we can get any additional improvement

    • libinput was a deadend

    • /etc/keyd/default.conf seems to be doing a decent job so far

      # /etc/keyd/default.conf
[ids]

*

[main]

# Maps capslock to escape when pressed and control when held.
capslock = overload(control, esc)

# Remaps the escape key to capslock
# esc = capslock

debounce = 50
repeat_delay = 800
repeat_rate = 10

  • no key repeat in console

    • fix with atkbd.softrepeat=1 kernel arg?
    • this went away somehow after installing 98 packages to get hyprland installed

  • 7w idle usage

    • powertop helped a bit
    • booted minimal and measured around 4.2W on console with backlight very low
    • now around 5-5.5W in hyprland
    • plugging usb mouse ups it by 0.5W
    • intel EPP (tuned ebuild) package recommended (StarFighter Perplexity space)

thinktop quirks and fixes

trackpoint sensitivity

add to hyprland.conf

device {
    name = tpps/2-elan-trackpoint
    sensitivity = -0.30
    accel_profile = adaptive
}

install friction

  • graphics setup
    • disable nouveau
    • set up auto power for gpu
  • fonts setup
    • minimize but get everything
    • nerd fonts, kaomoji, greek
    • media-fonts/dejavu a common font that I don't use much
    • media-fonts/fira-code a decent font that I don't use much
    • media-fonts/fira-mono a decent font that I don't use much
    • media-fonts/noto-cjk for things shrug and table flip emoji
    • media-fonts/noto-emoji emoji font
  • getting local/apps/{tmux,neovim} installed
    • easy enough from source

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