(Turns out I can't post in that thread at all. I "do not have access")

Ok, I get "you do not have access to this page" when I try to do a full reply so I won't be able to use code tags and stuff...

First let's get rid of that i3 bar.

Replace that super minimal config with the contents of this: http://hastebin.com/oqalokibiy

so:

(edit: Quicker way if wget is installed:
 

cd ~
wget http://hastebin.com/raw/oqalokibiy -O .i3/config

(that's an uppercase letter o)

If not, either install wget (sudo apt-get install wget) and do the above or do the below instead.)
 

cd ~
echo "" > .i3/config
nano .i3/config

Then paste the text from the above link in and save. That will get rid of the bar and give you a few more options down the line should you need them.

The terminal *should* be opening though. Check that xfce4-terminal is installed, so:

press Win+Enter (this should open a terminal, if xfce4-terminal is *not* installed then it'll be a very ugly one)

If/when a terminal opens, enter:

which xfce4-terminal

If it returns a location then it *is* installed, so check the config for typos. If it says not found then you need to install it with:

I forgot to tell you to install xfce4-terminal in the previous instructions (sorry!) so yeah, skip straight to this after modifying i3's config:
 

sudo apt-get install xfce4-terminal

At that point is *should* all work.

Oh, and while you're there do:
 

sudo apt-get install ttf-ancient-fonts

That should make emoji work. If it doesn't then do:

sudo apt-get install fonts-symbola

(They split emoji out from the rest of the extended unicode stuff but I'm not sure on whether that's before or after your version existed. Shotgun approach: try to install both and see which sticks)

Once it is working, you'll need to set up the terminal as you want it. First thing to do will be get rid of scrollbars so right click in the terminal window, choose preferences and on the first tab, 'General', near the bottom is 'Scrollbar is:' with a dropdown. Set that to 'Disabled'.

The rest of the config stuff (fonts, colours) is on the appearance tab and is self-explanatory.

Also I can't reply to this thread either now so I'm editing instead. Just a note:

When you were trying to make the config file and you couldn't because I forgot to tell you to create the .i3 directory, you tried using sudo. I totally see why you did (it's the magic command that makes things work sometimes) but what that would've done is created the file (if the folder existed) as root. So the file would've been owned by root and i3 would not have been able to use it (since i3 is started for your users).

The result would've been that the file would've existed, would've had the right content but i3 wouldn't read it and stuff wouldn't work. Which would've led to lots of confusion and frustration.







 

You're probably going to want to hide the mouse cursor, too. To do that:

Install unclutter:
 

sudo apt-get install unclutter

Open up .i3/config again in a text editor and add this line at the bottom:
 

exec --no-startup-id unclutter -idle 0

(Then reboot or restart i3 with win+shift+r)

Thanks Xen.  I've done all that bar the second fonts installation (the first one worked, so I'll see where we are when we're up and running).  I haven't hidden the mouse yet and I won't until I've got the scrolling lonelies working.

When I reboot, there's an error message (see photo) that there's syntax errors in line 153 and 160.  I've poked around the www and the line you use at 153 is used in many other examples.  I can't see an error.

Also, screenblanking has returned.  I've checked the settings I changed before to prevent it in the GUI and console and they're still in place.  Does this new i3 stylee console window have its own screen blanking protocols somewhere that I can tweak?

Hmm, like you say that shouldn't error. For now, comment that line out and replace the line before it with:
 

new_window none

Which, since we're only using one window, will achieve the same thing anyway.

That should take care of the error.

Removing the mouse cursor - shouldn't impact your using it, it only hides it when the mouse isn't moving (with a timeout of 0, so it's invisible when stationary essentially). But yeah, no rush on that.

As for screen blanking that *should* be taken care of by a line in i3's config (cos yeah it's handled differently inside than outside X).

Could you do this:
 

xset q

From within i3 (so boot it up, let i3 start, then press win+enter to open a terminal then do that command). And paste me all of the output so I can see what's going on?

Actually based on that error message I think something may be fucky with i3's config file. Looks like the formatting has gotten itself all fucked up (and it's going to be hard to tell on such a small screen, I suspect it's hard-wrapped at some point). Did you use wget or did you paste into a text editor?

Also could you do this so I can have a look at the config file and see if it's got fucked somewhere:
 

sudo apt-get install pastebinit
pastebinit -i ~/.i3/config -b http://pastebin.com



I can't get out of this code box now. So yeah, do that and then paste me the url it returns please.

I installed and used wget.  What's the instruction to overwrite the config, cos I could do that just to make sure?

wget http://hastebin.com/raw/fotacezeha -O ~/.i3/config


I can't get out of this box again. Ok so do that and then do the command in the previous post (which will pastebin the config file so I can have a look at it)

edit: I've made a small change to the file so the url has changed. 

Installed pastebin.

Sorry, it's come back with:

Bad API request, invalid api_dev_key

Fuck it, skip that for now. Just re-wget the edited file.

(There was an errant tab in the first one that shouldn't have broken things but may have)

I did it and it claimed to have overwritten it successfully, but it's still opening an error message with the same errors in line 153 and 160.  I can open the file for editing cut & paste the code in directly?  I really really appreciate your help, but don't sacrifice anything else you should/would rather be doing. Sx

Yeah, try that.

blank the file first:
 

echo "" > ~/.i3/config

Then just open it up in a text editor and paste the text from: http://hastebin.com/raw/fotacezeha

And you're welcome, it's no bother.

 :-{)  (hug)

It boots to a blank screen with a mouse cursor and stays like that.  If I then hit Win+Shift+e I get the 'exit' dialogue and if I click 'yes' to exit I get the error screen with the two errors on lines 153 and 160.

I'll make that pesky cursor disappear while I'm thinking on.

Edit: Unclutter has had a grump about installing on my tiny wee screen (see attached photo).   Not sure whether that means it's installed or not.  I'll press on.

Edit 2: With that unclutter line in the .i3/config file it boots straight to the error message. The cursor is still there anyway.  I reckon unclutter didn't install because of that business about the screen.  I'll take the line out back out of the i3 config for now.

I'll look into getting unclutter working on small screens.

Other than that not working, is it launching the terminal when it starts, now?

Not absolutely sure, because it's an absolutely blank screen bar the cursor, but yeah, I reckon it's probably the terminal.  The screen does blank after (I think) 10 minutes, which suggests it is the i3 console.

It *should* be running the script. And it *shouldn't* be blanking. I'll have a think.

Owt I can do in the mean time?  I managed to extract the contents of the config file (not easy without a gui) and there were no hard breaks that I could see.

Just double check you've installed xfce4-terminal. Oh and run 'xset q' and give me the output.

xfce4-terminal is latest version (it says) and the result of running xset q is attached.