Ever since I switched back to Void I’ve done changes to my base install. I will not go into general customization changes such as desktop environment and other common settings that I would have done in any other system. I will only mention the little nitpicks I had to fix so I can consider my system usable.

Touchpad tap to click, natural scrolling

So, for some reason my touchpad was not working properly, since I could not tap it to trigger a click, and I wanted to avoid unnecessary hand movement.

After some research, everything I needed to do was create a new file located in etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/30-touchpad.conf.

The folder itself didn’t exist for me, so I had to use mkdir too. The contents of this file are the following:

Section "InputClass"
    Identifier "touchpad catchall"
    Driver "libinput"
    Option "Tapping" "on"
    Option "NaturalScrolling" "on"
    Option "ClickMethod" "clickfinger"
    MatchIsTouchpad "on"
EndSection

After a system restart, my touchpad was working as expected. It is worth noting that the original files to handle this are in a different location, which is in /usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d, but those files should not be edited, because they might be altered in a system update.

Printer drivers

This is one of many problems that made me quit Void Linux the first time I took it for a spin. Now I understand CUPS a little better, and I also know that I am able to install RPM packages with Void Linux, since RPM it’s available in their repositories.

Doing this might not be ideal, since I could write a proper installation script using tools provided by Void itself to turn either deb or rpm to an xbps file.

Basically, my Brother printer has a simple bash script that uses RPM to install everything, I ran it, filled the things that were asked like printer model, IP, terms and conditions, and in the end, it just worked.

Since I am lazy, the package won’t get any updates and I knew it was not as big of a risk, I just went for it, and now I can do wireless printing painlessly.

Switching to Pipewire

Pipewire is kinda awesome now, and I decided to use it once again in Void. I’ve already used it back when I left Void, and I also set it up for Endeavor too, I am confident on it, it has not failed me and it handles audio a lot better than PulseAudio ever did in my experience.

For example, under PulseAudio, some application’s behavior was not as it should be. From time to time, volume changes weren’t applied to current audio devices, or after I muted, I was unable to unmute, and stuff like that.

Now on Pipewire, everything just works so far.

Wrapping up

So, yeah, I have done a few more small changes, like switching to Spectrwm once again or changing my GTK theme, as well as other details, but nothing specific, other than the problems I just mentioned.

This has been day 68 of #100DaysToOffload