Installation and setup notes for Debian 9 on Dell XPS 9360

Using Mate DE and i3-gaps WM

May 4th 2017

Installation

Use Debian Stretch RC3 Installer: https://www.debian.org/devel/debian-installer/

• Non-graphical install
• Ignore warning about firmware not found for wireless card
• Went for full LVM disk encryption
• Selected Mate desktop

Setup

After install

• Login as root and add my user acount to sudoers group
  • $ adduser mike sudo
• Add contrib non-free to /etc/apt/sources.list

  deb http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/ stretch main contrib non-free
  deb-src http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/ stretch main contrib non-free
  deb http://security.debian.org/debian-security stretch/updates main contrib non-free
  deb-src http://security.debian.org/debian-security stretch/updates main contrib non-free

• Make the caps lock key an escape
  • Add XKBOPTIONS="caps:escape" to /etc/default/keyboard
• Install plymouth for a graphical boot and disk decrypt screen
  • sudo apt install plymouth plymouth-themes
  • edit /etc/initramfs-tools/modules and add the following lines:

    # KMS
    intel_agp
    drm
    i915 modeset=1
    

  • edit /etc/default/grub and add this line: GRUB_GFXMODE=1920x1080
  • edit the GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT line to read: GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash"
  • update Grub to pick up the changes: sudo update-grub2
  • set the default theme to lines: sudo /usr/sbin/plymouth-set-default-theme lines
  • apply the changes: sudo update-initramfs -u
  • reboot

Setup touchpad with libinput

• add the following to /usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d/40-libinput.conf

  Section "InputClass"
      Identifier "libinput touchpad catchall"
      MatchIsTouchpad "on"
      MatchDevicePath "/dev/input/event*"
      Driver "libinput"
      Option "Tapping" "True"
      Option "PalmDetection" "True"
      Option "TappingDrag" "True"
      Option "TappingDragLock" "True"
      Option "HorizontalScrolling" "True"
      Option "NaturalScrolling" "False"
      Option "TappingButtonMap" "lrm"
      Option "ClickMethod" "clickfinger"
      Option "ScrollMethod" "twofinger"
  EndSection
  

Install i3-gaps

• git clone https://github.com/Airblader/i3 gaps
• sudo apt install libxcb-keysyms1-dev libpango1.0-dev libxcb-util0-dev xcb libxcb1-dev libxcb-icccm4-dev libyajl-dev libev-dev libxcb-xkb-dev libxcb-cursor-dev libxkbcommon-dev libxcb-xinerama0-dev libxkbcommon-x11-dev libstartup-notification0-dev libxcb-randr0-dev libxcb-xrm0 libxcb-xrm-dev
• cd i3-gaps; autoreconf --force --install
• mkdir -p build; cd build; ../configure --prefix=/usr --sysconfdir=/etc --disable-sanitizers
• make; sudo make install

Setup Mate to use i3 as window manager

• install dconf-editor
• Change org/mate/desktop/session/required/components/windowmanager to 'i3'
• Remove 'filemanager' from org/mate/desktop/session/required-components-list
• TODO: link to i3 config

Use rofi instead of dmenu:

• Make rofi look pretty with an Arc Dark theme. Add to ~/.Xresources

  rofi.color-normal:                   argb:31d1f21, #c4cbd4, argb:96404552, #4084d6, #f9f9f9
  rofi.color-urgent:                   argb:2c1d1f21, #cc6666, argb:e54b5160, #a54242, #f9f9f9
  rofi.color-active:                   argb:2c1d1f21, #65acff, argb:e44b5160, #4491ed, #f9f9f9
  rofi.separator-style:                solid
  

Install additional components

• install network-manager and network-manager-gnome for nm-applet
• install libnotify-bin to use `notify-send
• install arc-theme and paprius icon set for some better looks
• install compton and start with compton -CGb on login for terminal and notification transparency
• use https://github.com/alexandrefvb/mate-cycle-backgrounds to make a desktop slideshow from a directory of chromecast backgrounds
• install blueman for a mate panel bluetooth applet

Tweaks

Intel i915 kernel module:

cat /etc/modprobe.d/i915.conf
options i915 enable_rc6=1 enable_fbc=1 semaphores=1

cat /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/20-intel.conf
Section "Device"
	Identifier 	"Intel Graphics"
	Driver 		"intel"
	Option 	"AccelMethod" 	"sna"
	Option 	"TearFree" 	"true"
EndSection

Systemd suspend service:

cat /etc/systemd/sleep.conf
[Sleep]
# the following is only valid for kernel 4.10 and up
#SuspendState=deep
# for kernel 4.9 mem = S3 suspend-to-RAM
SuspendState=mem