In this post I will explain how to do a Fedora 29 installation with the i3 window manager. It is common to see installation guides for i3, but they assume that you already have another desktop environment previously installed.
In this post we will see how to build a fully functional environment from a minimal installation as I have explained in other publications.
Creating an installation medium
Download the ISO Fedora Everything Netinstall
From the site: https://alt.fedoraproject.org/ download the file of the All section, this is an ISO that works as a means of installation by network that downloads all the packages that will be part of the system from the Internet, as well as gives the option to choose which package collections to install, unlike Lives media whose software selection has been previously defined.
Download the ISO with wget:
wget -N -t 0 -c https://download.fedoraproject.org/pub/fedora/linux/releases/29/Everything/x86_64/iso/Fedora-Everything-netinst-x86_64-29-1.2.iso
We also download the integrity check file:
wget -N -t 0 -c https://download.fedoraproject.org/pub/fedora/linux/releases/29/Everything/x86_64/iso/Fedora-Everything-29-1.2-x86_64-CHECKSUM
Check the integrity of the file:
sha256sum -c Fedora-Everything-29-1.2-x86_64-CHECKSUM
Create the installation media with Fedora Media Writer
Fedora Media Writer is available for different operating systems, download the corresponding one.
It is very important to create the installation medium with Fedora Media Writer since this tool guarantees that the installation medium will have support to boot on computers that have both UEFI or BIOS.
How it will start will depend on which of the two has the highest priority during startup. I always use UEFI only, so all my systems are installed in UEFI mode.
https://github.com/FedoraQt/MediaWriter/releases/tag/4.1.1
When Fedora Media Writer is installed on our computer, we connect our USB memory, run Fedora Media Writer and use the Custom Image option to navigate to the path where the ISO is, the one we just downloaded, select it, select carefully the USB memory we will use and record the image in the USB memory.
Installation
I have followed the installation steps described in this previous post, making sure I have access to a wireless network or a wired network.
https://porfiriopaiz.github.io/blog/posts/anaconda-y-lvm-sobre-luks.html
This time I had to use my mobile phone, although it is true I had access to a wireless network during the installation of the base system (Fedora Custom Install), after installation the packages collection of does not provide the network drivers required to access wireless networks since they are not included in the Custom Install selection.
That's why I created a wired network via USB with my mobile phone. To make it work you have to make sure of the following right after the first boot once the installation finishes:
- Log in in the system.
- Connect the USB cable to the computer.
- Connect the other end to the mobile phone.
- Make sure the phone is connected to a wireless network or that the data plan is activated. As a note, consider that you need at least 800MB of data in RPM packages that must be downloaded for a minimum installation of Fedora with support for the graphical environment with i3wm.
- Make sure the phone is in USB or MTP data transfer mode.
- Activate a wired network or Tethered Wired Network from your mobile phone.
After this, you should have access to the Internet. Check it by pinging Google:
ping 8.8.8.8
Basic configurations
Configuring dnf
The next step is optional, as root, the first thing I do is configure dnf, so that it uses the most efficient packages mirrors:
echo 'fastestmirror=true' >> /etc/dnf/dnf.conf
Then I disable the use of deltarpm's for future updates. If you prefer to reduce the amount of data to be downloaded in each of the future updates, skip this step:
echo 'deltarpm=false' >> /etc/dnf/dnf.conf
I always keep each of the packages from which any program is installed on my system, including those that are downloaded as part of the updates and to maintain the packages cache throughout the period I use a Fedora release. This step is optional and you can skip it if you want:
echo 'keepcache=true' >> /etc/dnf/dnf.conf
Now I proceed to disable a service and a dnf timer. The service makes sure to refresh the metadata cache to be able to make checks on the versions of the packages that are in the repos and then check if there are updates available. The timer is responsible for executing the service periodically.
I always disable both to avoid annoying bandwidth consumptions and dnf locks while the cache is refreshed. If you have a limited bandwidth or data plan this will help you reduce the consumption of it.
systemctl disable dnf-makecache.service
systemctl disable dnf-makecache.timer
Finally to make sure that the changes take effect we must restart:
reboot
Regenerate the cache and install available updates
During the installation, you may have omitted to check the option that allows you to install the most recent version of the mirrors packages, so your system could be outdated even if you have used the network installation medium.
To apply the most recent updates and use the most efficient mirrors it is necessary to regenerate the metadata cache.
Fedora maintains a cache for each user, one for the root user, another for the normal user, in my case pionen. So we must regenerate both caches if you want to perform tasks as administrator or simple queries that do not require administrator privileges:
As a normal non-root user:
dnf clean all
dnf makecache
Then, as a normal non-root user, we execute the following commands, where we pass the statement in quotes as a parameter to the root user:
su -c 'dnf clean all'
su -c 'dnf makecache'
We check for available updates and enter our root password:
su -c 'dnf --refresh check-upgrade'
If there are updates available, we apply them with:
su -c 'dnf upgrade'
If updates have been applied, it is recommended to restart the system in order to make use of the most recent version of all the programs, for example the kernel:
reboot
Installing i3
Now, the step by step with all the requirements for a Fedora 29 minimal installation with i3wm.
For it we will make use of packages collections that have been grouped in a very specialized way. Next commands must be executed as root user.
Common NetworkManager Submodules
This group contains NetworkManager submodules that are commonly used, but may not be wanted in some streamlined configurations.
dnf -y group install networkmanager-submodules
Core
Smallest possible installation.
dnf -y group install core
Dial-up Networking Support
dnf -y install dial-up
Fonts
Fonts packages for rendering text on the desktop.
dnf -y group install fonts
Guest Desktop Agents
Agents used when running as a virtualized desktop.
dnf -y group install guest-desktop-agents
Hardware Support
This group is a collection of tools for various hardware specific utilities.
dnf -y group install hardware-support
Multimedia
Audio/video framework common to desktops.
dnf -y group install multimedia
Standard
Common set of utilities that extend the minimal installation.
dnf -y group install standard
base-x
dnf -y group install base-x
Input Methods
dnf -y group install input-methods
Fedora Icons Theme
This package provides the Fedora icons theme.
dnf -y install fedora-icon-theme
GNOME Icons Theme
This package provides the default icon theme used by the GNOME Desktop.
dnf -y install gnome-icon-theme
GNOME Icons Theme extra
This package provides additional mime type and devices icons for the GNOME Desktop.
dnf -y install gnome-icon-theme-extras
i3 Window Manager
Finally we can install the i3 window manager.
dnf -y install i3
Installing the graphical login manager
We will need a graphical login manager where we can pick our user and type our password so we can get authenticated. From here we can also select other desktop environments that we might install in the future.
LightDM is a display manager that welcomes the user and uses the GTK3 tool kit.
dnf -y install lightdm-gtk
xdg-user-dirs
Contains xdg-user-dirs-update that updates and creates the directories at /home/, according to the predefined values configured by the administrator.
dnf -y install xdg-user-dirs
Enabling the graphical mode boot
Our system already has all the requirements to work as a graphical environment using i3 as a window manager. But before it, we need to change some configurations that make our system boot from runlevel 3 mode or multi-user.target to runlevel 5 or graphical.target.
We can fix that with the next command:
systemctl set-default graphical.target
Also we must enable the system service that provides the option to access the system via a graphical loging that we just installed, lightdm:
systemctl enable lightdm.service
Finally we can reboot our system and then after we should be able to get logged in makeing use of the graphical session manager and our window manager i3.
reboot
First graphical session
Once logged in, i3 will ask if you want to generate a new config file for i3, press Enter to answer affirmatively.
Next it ask which key you want to use as modifier key to trigger the i3 keyboard shortcuts, I always pick the Win or the Windows key, also known as Meta key.
Terminal command line
This setup does not provides any presintalled tool for web browsing, file manager, image viewer or pdf reader.
It is up to you what to use and install.
― But, how do I install those?
If you selected the Windows key as modifier for i3, pressing:
<Win> + Enter
You will be able to run a command line terminal. I prefer to use GNOME Terminal:
su -c 'dnf install gnome-terminal'
Then by pressing:
<Win> + d
Trigger dmenu from where you can invoke GNOME Terminal by typing gnome-terminal.
In the next post I will explain my i3 post-install.
Login out and powering off
To log out from our session:
<Win> + <Shift> + e
This triggers a dialogue asking for if you want to end your i3 user session. Click on Yes, exit i3 and then while on lightdm press:
<Alt> + <F4>
To turn off your system.
I hope this post help you to achive a minimal install. This is a good and cheap way to setup virtual machines, without expending lot of resources or even for a working environemt for ancient devices with minimum and limited resources.