Qtile

Qtile screenshot (default configuration).

Qtile is a full-featured and hackable window manager written in Python, compatible with Xorg and Wayland.

• Internet connectivity, unless the packages have been pre-fetched into a local cache.
• Install appropriate Graphics driver drivers for your hardware. Without graphics drivers, errors are likely to occur when starting your desktop.
• A non-root user account.
• The community repository must be enabled.
• Set up eudev.
• Install and enable D-Bus. Without D-Bus, icons and keyboard shortcuts may be missing.

Manual installation

Prerequisites

• Install Xorg
• Install and configure D-Bus (without D-Bus icons and keyboard shortcuts may be missing)

Minimal package selection to install:

# apk add qtile lightdm-gtk-greeter font-dejavu

With adw-gtk3-dark and Adwaita-Xfce

Set up eudev

Setting up eudev as device manager on desktop systems is recommended in Alpine Linux. Without a fully functional device manager, users will not be able to connect to input devices. The alpine-conf package provides setup-devd script to easily install and setup device managers.

To set up eudev, issue the command:

# setup-devd udev

Allowing shut down and reboot

To enable users to shut down the machine or reboot, the packages elogind and polkit-elogind need to be installed.

# apk add elogind polkit-elogind

A reboot is required to let it take effect.

# lbu commit # if running in diskless mode, to save state $ reboot

Auto-mounting USB drives

To enable automatic mounting of USB drives, install these packages:

# apk add gvfs udisks2

Depending on what devices you intend to mount, some additional packages may be needed:

# apk add \ ntfs-3g \ # Stable, full-featured, read-write NTFS (driver) gvfs-cdda \ # CDDA support for gvfs gvfs-afp \ # AFP support for gvfs gvfs-goa \ # GNOME Online Accounts support for gvfs gvfs-mtp \ # MTP support for gvfs gvfs-smb \ # Windows fileshare support for gvfs gvfs-lang \ # Languages for package gvfs gvfs-afc \ # Apple mobile devices support for gvfs gvfs-nfs \ # NFS support for gvfs gvfs-dev \ # Backends for the gio framework in GLib (development files) gvfs-archive \ # Archiving support for gvfs gvfs-dav \ # WebDAV support for gvfs gvfs-fuse \ # FUSE support for gvfs gvfs-gphoto2 \ # gphoto2 support for gvfs gvfs-avahi \ # DNS-SD support for gvfs

To list descriptions of all gvfs- packages:

$ apk info -d gvfs-*

Enabling privilege escalation GUI

To make elogind/lightdm running, either make them start automatically at system start:

# rc-update add elogind #change elogind for lightdm and run the same command

or start them manually for this time only:

# rc-service elogind start #change elogind for lightdm and run the same command

Starting Qtile

With a display manager (graphical login)

If the package lightdm-gtk-greeter has been installed per the instructions above, the lightdm display manager may be started to log in graphically with your new user:

First, create a lightdm session file at /usr/share/xsessions:

# mkdir -p /usr/share/xsessions

Contents of /usr/share/xsessions/qtile.desktop

[Desktop Entry] Name=Qtile Comment=Qtile Session Exec=dbus-run-session -- qtile start Type=Application Keywords=wm;tiling

# rc-service lightdm start

After correct operation is verified, lightdm can be enabled to start up during boot:

# rc-update add lightdm

Localized keyboard layout

The keyboard layout can be configured at the Xorg level.

See also

• Post Install

• Alpine Setup Scripts
• Qtile docs
• Qtile - ArchWiki
• Qtile - Gentoo Wiki