Re: I installed GuixSD on my laptop

[someone@selfhosted.xyz]

On Sat, 3 Jun 2017, nee wrote:

> Hello everyone, a few months ago I installed GuixSD 0.12 in a luks
> encrypted partition on my laptop. Here are some problems I have with it
> so far.
>
> 1. How do I set the locale in the login manager and Grub.
> I have a German keyboard, but the system boots with an english
> key-setting and only changes when I enter gnome or xfce (I had to set
> them up via their guis). Is there any GuixSD-level setting for this? The
> install manual didn't mention it.
> It's a real pain to enter my password like this.
>
> 2. I have to enter my disk-encryption-password two times on every boot.
> Once before grub and one time when shepard boots up. I have my
> bootloader on a diferent drive, might this be related to the issue?

Someone might have better suggestions but until then here's my thoughts on 
it:

There's some step-by-step instructions for setting up a grub-password and 
then setting a path to a luks keyfile in grub on a system using Libreboot 
and Parabola here:
https://wiki.selfhosted.xyz/doku.php?id=it:computer_setup:encrypted_parabola_installation_guide#boot_configuration

This could possibly be adapted to GuixSD. In short the steps involved 
(without setting up grub's password authentication) are:

-generate key and add to your luksdrive
   dd bs=512 count=4 if=/dev/urandom of=/etc/my_cryptkey iflag=fullblock
   cryptsetup luksAddKey /dev/sda1 /etc/my_cryptkey
-Regenerate initramfs (using the mkinitcpio bash-script)
   zile /etc/mkinitcpio.conf
   FILES="/etc/my_cryptkey"
   mkinitcpio -p linux-libre (or linux-libre-lts or linux-libre-grsec or all of them)
-Then add a configuration line to your grub config's default menu-entry on 
the linux-line:
   linux /boot .... cryptkey=rootfs:/etc/my_cryptkey

For details on setting up the password etc see the link above.

Hopefully, there is a way to define this in a guile system declaration.

>
> 3. When I enter one wrong password on the first disk-encryption-prompt
> (before grub) I get thrown into a grub console. It should give me a few
> more tries.
>
> 4. ibus is not working in xfce. I copied the paths from the popup of
> ibus-setup into my .bashrc, but even after login out, I couldn't get any
> program to actually use ibus. I also had no success in gnome later. I
> was trying to get Japanease input to work.
>
> 5. I've been using thunderbird with Enigmail previously. I think I read
> on irc that icedove would be the way to go, and that it hasn't been
> packaged yet.
> Enigmail is really neat, so I wouldn't want to be without it.
>
> 6. My laptop has an Nvidia and an Intel graphics card, how do I force
> intel to be active?
> The Nouveau drivers can't do any 3d stuff at a bearable framerate,
> probably due to it's dependence on blobs.
> I wonder if Intel would perform better. How would I switch between them
> on GuixSD?
>
> 7. I have this wifi stick:
> https://www.thinkpenguin.com/gnu-linux/penguin-wireless-n-usb-adapter-gnu-linux-tpe-n150usb
> Is the driver already packaged for guixsd?
>
> * An unrelated story:
> I had to install GuixSD twice, because I forgot to punch "(dependencies
> mapped-devices)" into my file-system configuration.
> So shepard would not boot up properly and after some time I got a guile
> debug repl.
> I see that this is my own fault, for not reading the docs properly.
> I hope the new ncurses installer will help to prevent such mistakes.
>
> * Not a problem: Touchpad works different
> My first observation was that the touchpad was not working correctly.
> The touchpad only works for mouse movement.
> Clicking by tapping any point on the pad does not work.
> Scrolling by moving down/up the right edge does not work.
>
> I use the hardware buttons below it for clicking, but I wonder, aren't
> there some laptops without those?
> Later I found out that scrolling works with two fingers and this whole
> setup is actually much better, since I do way less misclicks that way!
>
> * xf86-input-synaptics?
> Because I previously tried nixos I directly installed
> xf86-input-synaptics with my installation. I never tried to use my
> system without it. If it is required it should be mentioned in the docs.
>
> Have a nice day, and happy hacking on GuixSD!
>