Using X without a Display Manager: Difference between revisions

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{{note|This page is a WIP, it doesn't describe best-practices with nix and NixOS and should be updated to use a nix derivation generating the necessary files instead of manipulating the contents of the store.}}

== Setting up Xorg without system wide modifications ==

To run X11 as a regular user, ''without'' <code>services.xserver.enable = true;</code> in configuration.nix, do the following:

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startx -- :0 -configdir ~/.config/xorg.conf.d

</syntaxhighlight>

== Setting up Xorg system-wide but without a Display Manager ==

If you don't mind having <code>services.xserver.enable = true;</code> but you don't want a display manager, and you want only a TTY login prompt, use the following in your <code>configuration.nix</code>:

services.xserver.displayManager.startx.enable = true;

</syntaxhighlight>

<code>startx</code> is treated as a displayManager and therefor it is used instead of the default (<code>lightdm</code>).

== Setting up the user's D-Bus Daemon ==

Both of the methods above, don't start the user's dbus-daemon properly on startup. Unfortunately, it is unclear exactly why this is missing, but here's a fix for startx users:

Put the following in your <code>~/.xinitrc</code>:

if test -z "$DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS"; then

eval $(dbus-launch --exit-with-session --sh-syntax)

fi

systemctl --user import-environment DISPLAY XAUTHORITY

if command -v dbus-update-activation-environment >/dev/null 2>&1; then

dbus-update-activation-environment DISPLAY XAUTHORITY

fi

</syntaxhighlight>

@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
 {{note|This page is a WIP, it doesn't describe best-practices with nix and NixOS and should be updated to use a nix derivation generating the necessary files instead of manipulating the contents of the store.}}
+== Setting up Xorg without system wide modifications ==
 To run X11 as a regular user, ''without'' <code>services.xserver.enable = true;</code> in configuration.nix, do the following:
@@ Line 82: / Line 84: @@
 <syntaxhighlight lang="sh">
 startx -- :0 -configdir ~/.config/xorg.conf.d
+</syntaxhighlight>
+== Setting up Xorg system-wide but without a Display Manager ==
+If you don't mind having <code>services.xserver.enable = true;</code> but you don't want a display manager, and you want only a TTY login prompt, use the following in your <code>configuration.nix</code>:
+<syntaxhighlight lang="nix">
+services.xserver.displayManager.startx.enable = true;
+</syntaxhighlight>
+<code>startx</code> is treated as a displayManager and therefor it is used instead of the default (<code>lightdm</code>).
+== Setting up the user's D-Bus Daemon ==
+Both of the methods above, don't start the user's dbus-daemon properly on startup. Unfortunately, it is unclear exactly why this is missing, but here's a fix for startx users:
+Put the following in your <code>~/.xinitrc</code>:
+<syntaxhighlight lang="sh">
+if test -z "$DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS"; then
+	eval $(dbus-launch --exit-with-session --sh-syntax)
+fi
+systemctl --user import-environment DISPLAY XAUTHORITY
+if command -v dbus-update-activation-environment >/dev/null 2>&1; then
+        dbus-update-activation-environment DISPLAY XAUTHORITY
+fi
 </syntaxhighlight>