5/8/25

Re-installed Devuan Daedalus after a flirtation with Arch...


Packages to install after basic non-X install complete:

vim
xserver-xorg
xinit
sudo
rxvt-unicode
firmware-linux
rsync
rwho
ntp
telnet
finger
filezilla
ncftp
ranger
build-essentials
libx11-dev
libx11-xcb-dev
libxinerama-dev
libxcb-res0-dev
libxrandr-dev
libxft-dev
mutt
slrn
most
firefox-esr
pavucontrol
paprefs
pasystray
xfce4-power-manager
networkmanager
network-manager-applet
git
hexchat
irssi
psmisc
neofetch
ansilove
feh
gopher
sacc
bombadillo
kristall
htop
ncdu
dunst
libnotify-bin
dillo
mousepad
alpine
vf1
lpc21isp
screen
tmux

build & install:

dwm
dmenu
dwmblocks
st

using network manager without systemd works... use nmtui in
a terminal (in the dwm scratchpad is a good plan) to set 
network - comment out eth0/wlan0 entries in 
/etc/network/interfaces to allow nm to control them.
.... then found network-manager-applet



Upgraded to "Excalibur" (testing)
================================


==== rxvt ====

This made rxvt-unicode upgrade to new, buggy version 9.31 
where cursor appears 1/2 way down screen.

Removed package rxvt-unicode and got source of urxvt version 
9.30 from a link found on a forum posting.

Configured/installed  with:

 	./configure --prefix=/usr/local --disable-perl --enable-256-color --enable-unicode3


	make
	sudo make install


rxvt now works correctly, and displays the icons in ranger 
correctly (the unicode3 switch needed to get this to work)




==== xfce4-power-manager brightness ====

Then....I discovered xfce4-power-manager can't set brightness 

found it was due to missing "pkexec"...

solved by "apt install pkexec"


... see also for some other tweaks... ipv6 disable, exim4 etc.

gopher://g4slv.cloud/0/computer/new_laptop.txt


this install has separate /home partition so it can survive 
re-installs etc.

and an rsync backup to both my NAS box and the Gopher cloud
server.




==== missing icon for xfce4-power-manager ====


when 100% but still "charging" power-manager wants:

"battery-level-100-charging-symbolic" but there isn't one...

	cd /usr/share/icons/Adwaita/symbolic/

copy "100% charged" to "100% charging" :

	sudo cp battery-level-100-charged-symbolic.svg battery-level-100-charging-symbolic.svg

then at the top level "/usr/share/icons/" update the timestamp 
on Adwaita:

	sudo touch Adwaita

and force a remake of the icon cache

	sudo gtk-update-icon-cache

job done...



==== Colour Man Pages / Most ====

I then noticed that MOST wasn't producing coloured MAN pages any more
which led me to find the solution (via MOST github)

https://github.com/jedsoft/most/issues/9#issuecomment-2558517596

It's a due to a change in GROFF (?) which affects the latest
version of MOST (?)

I already have 

	export MANPAGER="most" 

in .bashrc

the solution to the lack of colour is to add either of these 
exports to .bashrc:

	export GROFF_NO_SGR=1

--OR--

	export MANROFFOPT="-c"


both do the trick. Perhaps the second is preferred as it only
affects MAN pages...




==== Random Crashes ====

I had several kernel panic crashes today (Sunday 10/8/25)

Not sure of the cause but perhaps related to being on "testing". 
I reinstalled Devuan Daedalus and all the packages needed to get
back to "normal" funcionality - incl. those needed to build
dwm/dwmblocks/dmenu and st.

I can use the packaged version of urxvt, since 9.30 doesn't have
the cursor-placement bug.

Let's see how this one goes.