On 2021-08-21, Andreas Reuleaux wrote:
> I am fairly new to guix, thus bear with me please.

Welcome!

> I want to start X on my system with startx - i.e. log into my system
> just from a tty, and then start X by hand (and i3 will be my window
> manager, I just have an .xsession file in my $HOME, where I start i3)
> - I do not want any desktop-services / desktop-manager / graphical login manager
> (this may seem old school - but has worked fine for me for years
> under debian). 
>
> I cannot really get this working though: I have xinit installed (with
> startx therein, cf. my config below), but when I
>
>   startx
>
> on the command line, I get this:
>
>     xauth:  file /home/rx/.serverauth.1957 does not exist
...

I struggled with this for a bit and eventually gave up.  In theory, if
you make enough executables setuid, you might be able to get startx to
work properly (other distros such as Debian make startx work by
installing various executables setuid).

In the end, I switched using sway, which is very similar to i3 but uses
wayland natively instead of X11 (though there are still X11
compatibility layers). The main thing is you need to have elogind
configured in your system, and then you can login and run "exec sway"
and it "just works".

So, not exactly a direct answer to your question, but maybe it is a
workable alternative for you.


live well,
  vagrant