Add second post

4 files changed, 143 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/content/posts/gentoo-kernel-upgrade.md b/content/posts/gentoo-kernel-upgrade.md
index ed81d7a..c7f9b44 100644
--- a/content/posts/gentoo-kernel-upgrade.md
+++ b/content/posts/gentoo-kernel-upgrade.md
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
 +++
 title = "Gentoo kernel upgrade"
+subtitle = ""
 summary = "A brief howto on updating the kernel on a Gentoo system."
 categories = [ "linux", "guide" ]
 tags = [ "gentoo", "kernel", "linux", "sysadmin" ]
diff --git a/content/posts/setting-up-ly.md b/content/posts/setting-up-ly.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..f1d6fe2
--- /dev/null
+++ b/content/posts/setting-up-ly.md
@@ -0,0 +1,141 @@
++++
+title = 'Setting up Ly'
+date = 2025-01-08T01:00:52+01:00
+summary = "My experience with installing the `ly` display manager."
+categories = [ "linux", "guide" ]
+tags = [ "display-manager", "ly", "linux", "gentoo", "tty" ]
++++
+
+> Ly is a lightweight TUI (ncurses-like) display manager for Linux and BSD.
+
+## Premise
+
+A few months ago, my Gentoo install came to be in a rather annoying predicament.
+Instead of the usual login tty, I was greeted by a black screen after booting from GRUB.
+I inserted my credentials nonetheless, and to my relief, I could successfully launch X.
+
+I was confident that the culprit was some kernel option or driver.
+Yet I did not have quite enough time or motivation to investigate,
+so I eventually ended up getting used to logging in from a blank tty.
+
+In the meantime, I began looking into display managers, hoping that they would prevent similar situations.
+While searching, I stumbled upon [ly](https://github.com/fairyglade/ly) and was intrigued.
+
+Yesterday I had some free time and decided finally to try `ly` out.
+
+## Installing Ly
+
+Ly doesn't have an ebuild in the official Gentoo repository yet,
+but there is one in the GURU overlay[^guru].
+
+The project README also has a section about installing on Gentoo[^gentoo].
+
+However, I decided to install it directly from git and compile it myself.
+I had already all the dependencies installed, except for Zig.
+
+```sh {class="cmd-root"}
+emerge --ask dev-lang/zig-bin
+```
+
+After cloning the repository I installed `ly` following the instructions.
+
+```sh {class="cmd-root"}
+zig build installopenrc
+rc-update del display-manager
+rc-update add ly
+```
+
+## Fixing the blank TTY
+
+After rebooting, my screen was once again a blank slate. :frowning:
+
+I did some digging and found a very helpful discussion on the Gentoo forum[^forum].
+Apparently newer nvidia drivers conflict with some kernel options (`FB_SIMPLE`, `SYSFB_SIMPLEFB`, `DRM_SIMPLEDRM`).
+I disabled them and recompiled my kernel (see [here]({{< ref "/posts/gentoo-kernel-upgrade" >}}) for details).
+
+Now my TTYs can be seen once again, hooray!
+
+## Moving to Openrc-init
+
+Unfortunately `ly` does not support `sysvinit`, Gentoo's default init system.
+Since my system is based around OpenRC, I decided to enable OpenRC's own init.
+
+For an easier transition I added the `sysv-utils` use flags to `sys-apps/openrc` and reemerged.
+
+```sh {class="cmd-root"}
+echo "sys-apps/openrc sysv-utils" >> /etc/portage/package.use
+emerge --ask --oneshot --newuse sys-apps/openrc
+```
+
+To start using `openrc-init` you just need to pass the parameter `init=/sbin/openrc-init` to the kernel.
+
+Also, remember to disable `agetty` in the tty used by `ly` (the default is `tty2`).
+```sh {class="cmd-root"}
+rc-update del agetty.tty2
+```
+
+## Fixing the xinitrc
+
+At this point, `ly` is being displayed in the second tty.
+The input works correctly and I can log into a shell session.
+
+But the same can't be said for the xinitrc environment.
+Despite having made the `.xinitrc` an executable shell script, I am
+instantly logged out every time I try it.
+
+After some debugging, I discovered that the root of the problem was my home layout.
+To adopt the XDG specification, I had moved the xinitrc and many more files to the `.config`
+directory.
+
+The environmental variables (`PATH`, `XINITRC`, etc.) were being assigned in my `.zshrc` file,
+which is sourced only by interactive shells.
+This is the reason running `startx` from a shell worked, while the same scripts failed
+when run by `ly`.
+
+I moved the environment initialization to the `.zprofile` file, which is always sourced.
+After this last change, I could finally start a X session from `ly`. :partying_face:
+
+## Configuring Ly
+
+My initial modifications to the `/etc/ly/config.ini` are the following.
+
+```diff
+36c36
+< animation = none
+---
+> animation = doom
+88c88
+< clock = null
+---
+> clock = %c
+114c114
+< hide_key_hints = false
+---
+> hide_key_hints = true
+118c118
+< initial_info_text = null
+---
+> initial_info_text = core login
+174c174
+< session_log = ly-session.log
+---
+> session_log = ~/.cache/ly-session.log
+192c192
+< text_in_center = false
+---
+> text_in_center = true
+216c216
+< xinitrc = ~/.xinitrc
+---
+> xinitrc = ~/.config/X11/xinitrc
+```
+
+## References
+
+- https://github.com/fairyglade/ly
+- https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/OpenRC/openrc-init
+
+
+[^gentoo]: https://github.com/fairyglade/ly#gentoo-installation
+[^forum]: https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-1157629-start-25.html
+[^guru]: https://github.com/gentoo-mirror/guru/tree/master/x11-misc/ly
diff --git a/hugo.toml b/hugo.toml
index 3eb6099..7256847 100644
--- a/hugo.toml
+++ b/hugo.toml
@@ -4,6 +4,7 @@ title = '~fedang'
 theme = 'chilldark'
 enableRobotsTXT = true
 enableGitInfo = true
+enableEmoji = true
 
 [frontmatter]
   date = ['date', 'publishdate', 'pubdate', 'published', 'lastmod', ':git']
diff --git a/themes/chilldark b/themes/chilldark
-Subproject 2760640804f261bc39022f5decc86781a82773f
+Subproject 1f7dc53663d972921a1fe008e6a1fde9eed0dff