One of the reasons why I use i3 is because I can dedicate a workspace for specific programs and a specific layout. What other wm allow this kind of configuration?

Do you use or know of any cool module for polybar that allows to manage notifications, especially if they include a no-disturb mode or even let us see previous notifications too like some kind of rofi menu?

Context: I need to have installed a a program called Smowl, which is a closed-source app that records EVERYTHING to make sure you don't do weird stuff while doing an online exam. To avoid installing such monstrosity on my laptop, and since virtualbox is probably banned, I wanted to use a persistent bootable device to have the program installed and know that everything works well in a few days.

Tails and booting software: I tried with Tails, but the software doesn't work there because it's too private. I also tried using other tools other than ImageWriter or dd to make other distros persistent, but if I use Unetbootin the distro doesn't get recognized when booting the laptop, and I the other tool that I found to have similar powers is mkusb, but it's no longer maintained and it cannot be installed on Arch (there's a compiling issue).

MX Linux: I also tried MX Linux, but I don't know how to make it persistent in the first place because I followed all the steps but I don't get it to show me the last session to boot to or the "text menu" option of this guide. I tried this several times, with two pen drives (8GiB both), but I got no luck, even when using MX Linux live USB tool to make the other pen drive bootable. What am I missing?

I created this script at ~/.config/i3/scripts/qt6ct.sh to set QT_QPA_PLATFORMTHEME depending on whether I'm using Plasma or I3wm:

#!/bin/bash
CURRENT_DESKTOP=$(echo "$XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP")

if [ "$CURRENT_DESKTOP" = "i3" ]; then
    export QT_QPA_PLATFORMTHEME="qt5ct"

elif [ "$CURRENT_DESKTOP" = "KDE" ]; then
    # Si estás usando Plasma (KDE), comentar la línea que exporta la variable
    unset QT_QPA_PLATFORMTHEME
else
    echo "Gestor de ventanas no es i3 ni kwin: $CURRENT_DESKTOP"
fi

echo $CURRENT_DESKTOP
echo $QT_QPA_PLATFORMTHEME

I created an autostart program and added this to my i3 config file

exec ~/.config/i3/scripts/qt6ct.sh
exec source ~/.config/i3/scripts/qt6ct.sh

I don't know what's wrong with it, but if I run it on a terminal, I get this (screenshot):

➤ ~/.config/i3/scripts/qt6ct.sh 
i3
qt5ct
➤ echo "$QT_QPA_PLATFORMTHEME"
                    
➤

So this script doesn't really export anything at all.

I have searched on every file that I thought could be exporting it as a null value (~/.bashrc, ~/.profile, ~/.bash_profile, ~/.xinitrc, ~/.Xresources, /etc/environment, /root/.profile, /root/.bashrc), but everything looks fine (no QT_QPA_PLATFORMTHEME anywhere, or is commented).

Solution

The only thing we'll need in.xprofile is sourcing the script:

#!/bin/bash
CURRENT_DESKTOP=$(echo "$XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP")

if [[ "$CURRENT_DESKTOP" = "i3" ]]; then
    export QT_QPA_PLATFORMTHEME="qt5ct"
    export QT_SCREEN_SCALE_FACTORS=1.5 # 1.5
    export QT_AUTO_SCREEN_SCALE_FACTOR=0
elif [[ "$CURRENT_DESKTOP" = "KDE" ]]; then
    unset QT_QPA_PLATFORMTHEME
    export QT_AUTO_SCREEN_SCALE_FACTOR=1

else
    echo "Gestor de ventanas no es i3 ni kwin: $CURRENT_DESKTOP"
fi

echo $CURRENT_DESKTOP
echo $QT_QPA_PLATFORMTHEME
echo $QT_SCREEN_SCALE_FACTORS
echo $QT_AUTO_SCREEN_SCALE_FACTOR 

I saw some screenshots from people using ROFI with something like tabs to change from the apps selector to the power menu, to the clipboard, to you name it menu. Here is an example. Would you share some more configurations like this one? I really like the idea of having all the menus at the same place with just one key binding. Also, I'd like to know how to configure ROFI better, and I think I can learn a lot from these kinds of configurations.

I am running in the same Linux distro two environments: Plasma (former KDE) and i3wm.

I use the same command on both environments: sudo systemctl start mysql.service && sudo mysql -u root -p -h localhost -P 3306, but while on KDE/Plasma I get no error, on i3wm I get a "the name is not activatable" error, and I don't know how to fix it (here's a screenshot).

Here's an extract from MySQL Workbench:

04:32:53 [ERR][SQL Editor Form]: SQL editor could not be connected: The name is not activatable
04:32:53 [ERR][SQL Editor Form]: Your connection attempt failed for user 'root' to the MySQL server at 127.0.0.1:3306:
  The name is not activatable

Also, I found out firefox doesn't connect to 127.0.0.1:3306 either on i3; on Plasma I get something like ("The connection has been restarted. The connection to the server was reset while the page was loading.").

I find is interesting too, because syncthing can connects through the localhost on i3wm, but mariadbd can't for some reason:

sudo lsof -n | grep TCP | grep LISTEN
[…]
syncthing   841 31843 syncthing          alberto  14u     IPv4              11863       0t0        TCP 127.0.0.1:8384 (LISTEN)
mariadbd   2537                            mysql  32u     IPv4              16382       0t0        TCP *:mysql (LISTEN)

I'm interested in hosting something like this, and I'd like to know experiences regarding this topic.

The main reason to host this for privacy reasons and also to integrate my own PKM data (markdown files, mainly).

Feel free to recommend me videos, articles, other Lemmy communities, etc.

I'd like to sync my markdown notes between devices (laptop and phone), which service is better: Nextcloud or Syncthing? Any other important idea I should know?, like latency times, or maximum number of synced devices, what if I edit the same note from both places without internet and then both get connected to a network... For example, I know Nextcloud let me have a history of the notes.

I have a Raspi 3b+ to play with, and thought about using it as a Google Drive alternative for collaborative docs since there are some cool stuff Google Docs can't do, but LibreOffice do. Any similar experience?