*\o/* *\o/* *\o/* *\o/* *\o/* *\o/*  (imarealboy)  (hug)

Thanks Xen, thanks Ant!!!

(cheer)

I'm sure you won't want to touch this now for a while *but*...

You're running it on a virtual terminal now which is all good and that but you don't have much control over how it looks. You can set the font (from a very limited range of pixel fonts) and that's about it.

*If* you booted to a window manager and ran your script in a terminal within that you'd then be able to choose a nicer font (a ttf font), set up the colours and also (maybe more importantly) support any emoji people might use in their tweets (by installing symbola, should be in the repos) which can look quite nice on the terminal, like so.

I'd be happy to write you a config for i3 which launches a terminal fullscreen and runs your script.

 

What that font?

Ubuntu Mono. I really like the Ubuntu fonts.

(Tangentially related, Red Hat just released a libre font which is also rather nice)

Firstly, damn blast shit and bugger: it's suddenly stopped booting into the application.  It autologs-in ok, but then stops on the attached error message.  Have you any thoughts or sage advice?

(Edit: mended, thank fuckery.  I reinstalled twit)


Secondly, I rather like the minimal interface, but I agree that a little low-key tweaking as per your illustration would improve the legibility, so I think I'm up for trying it

Looks like Gzip doesn't like what it's getting from Twitter. Is it persistently doing this or is it a one off? Also check you're actually connected to the net.

(I'll get the script and test it here. In the meantime I'll make another post with instructions as to how to launch this all in a WM)
 

First you need to edit /etc/profile and comment out that line you added (put a # at the start of the line) since we don't want it auto-running that script on the login terminal any more.

Now install i3 and the stuff needed to make it usable.
 

sudo apt-get install xorg xinit i3 i3status dmenu

I *think* that'll pull in all the needed dependencies on Debian.

Now make/edit ~/.bash_profile to start X automatically:
 

nano ~/.bash_profile

And add this at the bottom (if the file is empty just add this):
 

[[ -z $DISPLAY && $XDG_VTNR -le 3 ]] && startx

(This assumes that you're logging in on VT3 or lower, if you're not we'll cross that bridge then)

Now make/edit ~/.xinitrc to make it start i3 when X starts:
 

nano ~/.xinitrc

And add this at the bottom:
 

exec i3

Now make the i3 config file:
 

nano ~/.i3/config

And put the following in it:
 

set $mod Mod4

# start a terminal
bindsym $mod+Return exec xfce4-terminal --hide-menubar

# kill focused window
bindsym $mod+Shift+q kill

# start dmenu (a program launcher)
bindsym $mod+d exec --no-startup-id dmenu_run

# exit i3 (logs you out of your X session)
bindsym $mod+Shift+e exec "i3-nagbar -t warning -m 'You pressed the exit shortcut. Do you really want to exit i3? This will end your X session.' -b 'Yes, exit i3' 'i3-msg exit'"

new_window 1pixel
hide_edge_borders both

exec --no-startup-id xset -dpms;xset s off
exec --no-startup-id xfce4-terminal -e "node /path/to/index.js" --hide-menubar --hold

Reboot and it *should* work. The i3 bar shouldn't show, but if it does let me know and I'll sort it (I'm using a more recent i3 than Debian has and the config has changed so it's tricky to test).

That's a very minimal config. All you can do is close windows (win+shift+q), open a terminal (win+enter) and also launch programs by pressing win+d and then typing their name. To exit i3 press win+shift+e.


 

Wow!  Thanks Xen.  I have to make the house a little less squalid for guests now, but I'll try this as soon as I can.

In Windows he'd just need to put a shortcut to LONELY.EXE I'm the startup folder.

Just sayin'.

:C

Which, again, is exactly what you'd do on a consumer level distro with a consumer level desktop.

(nod)

I was talking about windows 10 IOT edition for raspberry pi.

Yeah, by 'desktop' I meant desktop environment. So Gnome or KDE or Unity or Cinnamon or Mate or Pantheon. As opposed to a niche tiling WM.

I forgive you only because you revealed i3 to me.

Seems to be much more what I want compared to awesome - at least based on the screens+docs on the website; dunno when I'll have time to get switched over. :(

Yes, but by Windows 10 IOT edition for raspberry pi I meant "hahaha wtf are Microsoft on? Do they seriously expect /anyone/ to ever use that heap of shit? I mean, they sent me an Intel galileo board f with a windows 8 build that runs on it, for /free/, and I didn't even have the deceny to boot it up before I formatted the SD card

I fucking love i3.

I'd tried to use tilers before, just to see why people like them so much, and never got on with them. I certainly never thought I'd switch to one, I was just curious. But i3 just instantly clicked for me.

I use it without any bar now (bar gradually seemed less useful), just keyboard based window management and dmenu (edit: just switched to rofi, it's pretty great) for launching.

Ahh, yes, I have used Windows 10 on a Pi briefly and it was fucking ridiculous.

I've got as far as creating the /.i3/config file, but when I drop in the text and try to save, I get [ Error writing /home/pi/.i3/config: No such file or directory ]  I've tried starting the line

nano ~/.i3/config

with 'sudo' in case it's a permissions thing, but no dice.  I can't see a folder '.i3' under /home/pi btw.

cd /.i3 returns 'no such file or directory'

in /home/pi run 

ls -a

-a shows hidden folders, which folders with a leading "." are hidden.

If it isn't there run

mkdir /home/pi/.i3

Thanks for that Ant.  I've managed to create the config file & rebooted.  It now reboots to the attached screen.  I'll go through Xen's procedure again & see if i can spot any mistakes in what I've done.

In the config file, should the address of the file be written as:

exec --no-startup-id xfce4-terminal -e "node /home/pi/index.js" --hide-menubar --hold

or:

exec --no-startup-id xfce4-terminal -e "node index.js" --hide-menubar --hold ?

I've stuck with the second of those lines.

I've ploughed through Xen's (very clear) instructions a couple of times and can't see any errors in what I've done.

I'm assuming that raspi-config should continue to be set to log me into the console, not the GUI?