Jump to content

Armbian with i3 desktop


Recommended Posts

pi3.png

 

ever since i got to first play with a raspi, i have had a sort of sideproject/goal: to be able to have a desktop i can carry in my pocket. 

i know that this isn't exactly unique as far as what folks consider something to do with an sbc... but in my case i wasn't thinking about something that could run like, xfce fairly stable... i wanted something vain and flashy :D

with the caveat that i have not yet acquired or even used an rpi4 - or really any board over ~$30 - this dang ol' OPi One+ was the first board where I was able to successfully set up a very fancy desktop (ubuntu + i3wm + compton, with i3 and compton compiled natively) 

the above image was taken about a month ago on a dev build. a variety of things put this on hold. i am in the process of building my preferred 'foundation' on the current (5.4) armbian build - after i clone a backup with w32diskimager, i'm gonna continue to push and poke at this board and see what else it can do. 

i wrote a review on my website but it's basically a more verbose version of what i posted above, the only thing left out is a copy of the steps i use to acquire the proper sources and dependencies to build i3 and compton. 

thanks for maintaining a great linux build for sbc's, when i first got a raspi i was using that Other Build that's trying to lose some weight, and thanks to it's lack of... everything... i was super frustrated for a long time until i picked up an opi zero and first discovered armbian. every once in awhile i take a stab at compiling a build myself - no success yet but every time i learn a bit about the process, and i look forward to being able to assist with developing and maintaining this project as time goes on!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, jeromescuggs said:

and i look forward to being able to assist with developing and maintaining this project as time goes on!

 

Thank you. Any maintenance help is welcome! There is a long lasting idea to start providing images in i3 / compton / ZSH combo. Also on the other end - more complex WM. Some day.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 hours ago, Igor said:

 

Thank you. Any maintenance help is welcome! There is a long lasting idea to start providing images in i3 / compton / ZSH combo. Also on the other end - more complex WM. Some day.


i'll try to set some time aside this week to carve out a vanilla 18.04 distro on a partition; if i recall from the docs going with a VM install is preferred but old habits die hard :P i have a nice little variety of boards, i'll lurk around more and figure out which boards need someone helping with builds and maintenance the most and go from there!!

i am fairly inexperienced with the real deep, under-the-hood type work here, but i definitely think i could get up to speed fairly soon and begin playing around with the configuration scripting, and perhaps even a forked compton to take advantage of the progress i am seeing with the work on mali and mesa projects. 

 

armbian already has a software option for a more-or-less complete webserver, ispconfig - with a handful of tools geared towards design, it wouldn't be too hard to get something going for webdevs/webdesigners, who might enjoy the convenience of a cheap and extremely mobile way to prototype projects. something like a tweaked spacevim, some tools like the 'pastel' rust crate, zsh with 256-color support. all in good time, i am wary of making huge promises here - but man, the potential is exciting to think about

 

5 hours ago, gounthar said:

@jeromescuggs: do you think it could be possible to write dotfiles so that anyone can install your configuration?

 

all i have is a text file with important repo URL's and the minimal commands needed to get it all going, it is deceptively simple. i started to post it here, with some added comments to explain this and that, but when almost done i realized that it was basically a completely different thing unto itself, so i will post it in a more relevant forum (think i saw a tutorials board -). this also will let me go take some screenshots to illustrate the differences between the handful of forks that i use depending on what my needs are.... i will reply again in a few hours as i'm heading to dinner now, with the link to that post. 

however, if you don't mind leaning on google for things like configuring i3 and compton, here's my 'scratchpad' file: https://gist.github.com/jeromescuggs/7aabd0191e09be1811c786ccd6b7d280

Link to comment
Share on other sites

20 hours ago, jeromescuggs said:

i'll try to set some time aside this week to carve out a vanilla 18.04 distro on a partition;


Docker building on any 64bit x86 Linux is also fine :)

 

20 hours ago, jeromescuggs said:

i have a nice little variety of boards, i'll lurk around more and figure out which boards need someone helping with builds and maintenance the most and go from there!!


Allwinner boards are quite well covered, except bugs that are popping up reguraly. Rockchip/Amlogic mainly good, the rest ... check it.

 

20 hours ago, jeromescuggs said:

however, if you don't mind leaning on google for things like configuring i3 and compton, here's my 'scratchpad'


And this
https://github.com/armbian/build/blob/master/lib/desktop.sh

would need some RFC to implement it.

 

Edit: @jeromescuggs Moved to the new topic.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

Terms of Use - Privacy Policy - Guidelines