Kelvin's tech-box

Using customized i3wm on Ubuntu

Kelvin Li -

Now I'm using i3wm on Ubuntu as the window manager, it's pretty handy to use and improve the my dev productivity.

Better font rending

Infinality is a set of Freetype patches that try to provide an improved font rendering for Linux. You can ajust the settings to use the font style like OSX, OSX2, Windows, Linux or default style Infiniality.
The Infinality fonts are sharper and more vivid on large screens.

install Infinality

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:no1wantdthisname/ppa
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade 
sudo apt-get install fontconfig-infinality

Configure

Run the command:

sudo bash /etc/fonts/infinality/infctl.sh setstyle

Available options are: debug, infinality, linux, osx, osx2, win7, win98 and winxp
Choose your prefer option.

Edit the settings file:

sudo -H vim /etc/profile.d/infinality-settings.sh

Search for USE_STYLE and change it to one of following style:

  • DEFAULT
  • OSX
  • IPAD
  • UBUNTU
  • LINUX
  • WINDOWS
  • WINDOWS7
  • WINDOWS7LIGHT
  • VANILLA
  • CUSTOM

Revert the changes

sudo apt-get purge fontconfig-infinality
sudo apt-get install ppa-purge
sudo ppa-purge ppa:no1wantdthisname/ppa

Reference

http://www.webupd8.org/2013/06/better-font-rendering-in-linux-with.html

control the brightness

The old solution to use the xbacklight to manage the brightness didn't work on the latest kernel. here is alternative solution:

Use the acpilight lib to manage brightness

  1. Download the source
$ git clone git@gitlab.com:wavexx/acpilight.git
$ cd acpilight
$ sudo make install

  1. The installation script will setup an 'udev' rule in /etc/udev/rules.d/90-backlight.rules to allow user in "video" group to change the brightness value which locates in /sys/class/backlight/intel_backlight/brightness

  2. Remember to add current active user into the video group

$ sudo usermod -a -G video kelvin
  1. reboot system to make it effact.