i3wm xenial-i3 introduction -- mate terminal & battery monitor

[MarkHaysHarris777]

Greetings,

The purpose of this blog post is to introduce the  i3  window manager , as well the ayufan xenial-i3 pine community image.  I am a completely sold out i3wm convert ;  never going back--  i3 for me !

The i3 Window Manager Tutorials and Introductory Videos

       Tutorial Introduction from i3wm.org

       On-line Tutorial Video Part (1/3)

       On-line Tutorial Video Part (2/3)

       On-line Tutorial Video Part (3/3)

       i3wm User's Guide from i3wm.org

The above tutorials are well worth the time and effort, are fast--and fun--and will get you up and running with this super tiling windows manager on your new Pinebook !

I am currently running the 0.4.16 xenial-i3 on my Pinebook with the mate-terminal;  you may quickly want to replace the terminal on i3 because the font is so small, and because the dafault is a minimalist terminal;  the mate-terminal is fully equipped and ready to roll with nice fonts and a rich tool-bar:

       sudo apt install mate-terminal

Below I am going to show the interface of this excellent tiling window manager, and provide a batt_status.sh script which can be used to monitor your battery status more effectively than the i3 status bar.

         


The pic above is my first ( #1 ) virtual work space;  I have three terminals open--  it is clearly obvious why its called a tiling window manager.  Not to worry , floating windows are configurable too!

I'm doing some Python work in the left terminal, and in the right terminal I'm displaying the code ( also included here ) for displaying the battery status in a loop-- running in the bottom right-hand terminal of work-space #1.

I removed the battery block of my  .i3status.conf  file.  The script below ( batt_status.sh ) goes in your ~/bin/  folder and runs in a forever loop in a small terminal showing the battery current status ( charging | discharging ) the voltage in micro volts, and the percent capacity. 

Note:  the battery status bar component is broken on this image.  The script below is a simple elegant solution for battery monitoring in a tiling terminal environment.

batt_status.sh

Code:

#!/bin/bash
   
while [ 1 == 1 ]
do
   echo " capacity : " `cat /sys/class/power_supply/battery/capacity`
   echo "  voltage : " `cat /sys/class/power_supply/battery/voltage_now`
   echo "   status : " `cat /sys/class/power_supply/battery/status`
   sleep 7
done

Note:  the little quote-like characters above ARE NOT quotes-- they are back-ticks;  the little character under the tilde ( to the left of the 1 key on most keyboards ).


Remember,  i3  is a tiling window manager NOT an OS;  the operating system under the covers is ubuntu which is a debian derivative.  

Enjoy !

[shirman]

Wow, thank you a lot - it is amazingly fast, I'll not switch back to mate

[shirman]

But looks like closed lid is not send notebook to sleep, yes?

[MarkHaysHarris777]

hi , a quick warning;   I never close my lid and put the computer to sleep ( not ever ).

The warning is that if you forget you did that ( and sooner or later you will ) the battery will run flat !  and when it does, it will NOT recharge without going through some very costly and troublesome hoops.  ( words to the wise )

Always shutdown the system ...  on the i3 window manager the best way is in a terminal with :

       sudo poweroff

[shirman]

So, I did some configuration to fix battery indicator issue.

First of all install i3blocks via apt-get and config i3 file to use i3blocks as main bar. 
After this, open:

Code:

pine64@pinebook:~$ vim ./.config/i3/i3blocks.conf

And edit battery section to this one:

Code:

[battery]
label=BAT
command=tail "/sys/class/power_supply/battery/capacity"
#label=⚡
#instance=1
interval=30

For sound you can do the same:

Code:

[volume]
label=VOL
#label=♪
instance=Master
#instance=PCM
interval=1
signal=10
command=/usr/share/i3blocks/volume 5 pulse

For anyone, I will strongly recommend to spend few time for videos in the start of the tread - they are easy and very helpful for i3 noobs like i'm.

I have not fix an issue with closed lid yet and still can't find a terminal command to edit brightness value, if someone know it, please share it