| 1 |
# 13. Hardware and peripherals |
| 2 |
|
| 3 |
## Displays |
| 4 |
|
| 5 |
alloy display |
| 6 |
|
| 7 |
lists the outputs sway is driving, with their scale and whether they are on. |
| 8 |
`s` walks the scale ladder. The console writes what it changes to |
| 9 |
`~/.config/sway/config.d/50-display.conf`, which the shipped sway config |
| 10 |
includes after the system drop-ins, so your setting beats the image's. |
| 11 |
|
| 12 |
A fresh install seeds that file at install time by reading the panel's size out |
| 13 |
of EDID and snapping to the nearest scale, so a high-density laptop boots at a |
| 14 |
sensible scale rather than at 1.0. A panel that cannot be read seeds nothing, |
| 15 |
which means 1.0 and one keypress from correct. |
| 16 |
|
| 17 |
Mode picking (refresh rate and resolution) is not built. Multi-output setups |
| 18 |
are the untested case: nothing has attached a second display to an Alloy |
| 19 |
machine yet, so if you do, expect the display view to be the rough part. |
| 20 |
|
| 21 |
Anything the view does not cover is a sway `output` line in that same file. |
| 22 |
`swaymsg -t get_outputs` names your outputs. |
| 23 |
|
| 24 |
## Audio |
| 25 |
|
| 26 |
alloy audio |
| 27 |
|
| 28 |
Two panes: the streams that are playing and the devices they could play |
| 29 |
through. Move a stream from one to the other, change volumes, pick defaults. |
| 30 |
The Fn keys handle the everyday case with an on-screen indicator. |
| 31 |
|
| 32 |
Underneath is PipeWire, and `pactl` is the command the view shows you. |
| 33 |
|
| 34 |
## Brightness |
| 35 |
|
| 36 |
The brightness keys work, through the same on-screen indicator. If they do not, |
| 37 |
see the note in chapter 14: it takes two separate grants (a udev rule and your |
| 38 |
account being in the `video` group) and either one alone leaves the keys dead |
| 39 |
silently. |
| 40 |
|
| 41 |
Screen dimming before the lock is separate, and handled by `alloy-dim` from the |
| 42 |
idle configuration. |
| 43 |
|
| 44 |
## Power and idle |
| 45 |
|
| 46 |
The shipped idle behaviour, in `~/.config/sway/config`: |
| 47 |
|
| 48 |
|
| 49 |
|
| 50 |
| 4.5 minutes | The screen dims. Move the mouse or type and it comes back | |
| 51 |
| 5 minutes | swaylock takes over | |
| 52 |
| 10 minutes | Displays power off | |
| 53 |
| Lid close or suspend | Always locks first | |
| 54 |
|
| 55 |
The dim stage is the closest thing to a grace period on offer: upstream |
| 56 |
swaylock has no `--grace` flag, and thirty seconds of dimmed screen is enough |
| 57 |
to notice before the lock arrives. |
| 58 |
|
| 59 |
Fullscreen mpv, imv, and the browser hold the lock off. A fullscreen terminal |
| 60 |
deliberately does not: walking away from a shell should not leave the machine |
| 61 |
unlocked indefinitely. |
| 62 |
|
| 63 |
## Fingerprint reader |
| 64 |
|
| 65 |
fprintd is installed, and nothing is enrolled, so nothing asks for a finger |
| 66 |
until you do: |
| 67 |
|
| 68 |
fprintd-enroll |
| 69 |
|
| 70 |
Once enrolled, the lock screen, the greeter and `run0` all accept it from that |
| 71 |
one step, because they share a PAM stack. A finger that does not match, a |
| 72 |
reader that is busy, and a user with nothing enrolled all fall through to the |
| 73 |
password prompt. |
| 74 |
|
| 75 |
## Printing |
| 76 |
|
| 77 |
Alloy prints to **IPP Everywhere (driverless) printers and nothing else**. |
| 78 |
There are no vendor driver packages in the image, and there will not be. Nearly |
| 79 |
every printer sold since about 2015 speaks the protocol. |
| 80 |
|
| 81 |
A driverless printer on the same network appears by itself; discovery over mDNS |
| 82 |
is already set up. The surface for anything else is CUPS' own web interface: |
| 83 |
|
| 84 |
http://localhost:631 |
| 85 |
|
| 86 |
The daemon is socket-activated, so nothing runs until something connects to it. |
| 87 |
|
| 88 |
A printer that needs a vendor driver is not supported. Saying so here is better |
| 89 |
than you discovering it at the moment you need to print. |
| 90 |
|
| 91 |
## Scanning |
| 92 |
|
| 93 |
Not shipped. Scanning means per-device backends and USB permission work with |
| 94 |
opaque failures, and no one has needed one yet. If you do: |
| 95 |
|
| 96 |
rpm-ostree install sane-backends |
| 97 |
|
| 98 |
Worth trying first: most network scanners scan to a folder or to email with no |
| 99 |
host driver at all. |
| 100 |
|
| 101 |
## Bluetooth |
| 102 |
|
| 103 |
bluez is installed and running. PipeWire's Bluetooth plugins are in the image, |
| 104 |
LC3 and AAC included, so a paired headset plays. |
| 105 |
|
| 106 |
alloy bluetooth |
| 107 |
|
| 108 |
Put the device in pairing mode, press `s` to scan, move to the `nearby` tab, |
| 109 |
and press `p`. The terminal is handed to `bluetoothctl` while it scans and while |
| 110 |
it pairs, so if the device wants a passkey confirmed you answer it there. |
| 111 |
|
| 112 |
The screen is built around a distinction Bluetooth panels usually hide. bluez |
| 113 |
keeps five separate facts about every device: |
| 114 |
|
| 115 |
|
| 116 |
|
| 117 |
| paired | Keys have been exchanged | |
| 118 |
| bonded | Those keys were written down, so they survive a reboot | |
| 119 |
| trusted | bluez will accept a connection this device starts | |
| 120 |
| blocked | bluez refuses the device outright | |
| 121 |
| connected | A link is up right now | |
| 122 |
|
| 123 |
They move independently, and the one that catches people is trusted. Pairing |
| 124 |
does not set it. A device that is paired and untrusted works when you connect it |
| 125 |
by hand and will not come back on its own, which is what "Bluetooth keeps |
| 126 |
forgetting my mouse" usually is. Press `t` on it. |
| 127 |
|
| 128 |
The detail block at the bottom shows all five for whatever is selected, along |
| 129 |
with a sentence saying what that combination means and which key changes it, and |
| 130 |
the `bluetoothctl info` command it read them from. |
| 131 |
|
| 132 |
Nothing on the screen happens on its own. A connected headset does not take over |
| 133 |
your audio; press `d` if you want it to be the default sink. |
| 134 |
|
| 135 |
If the adapter is down, `w` powers it on. If a hardware switch is blocking the |
| 136 |
radio, the screen says so rather than offering a key that cannot work. |
| 137 |
|
| 138 |
## USB storage |
| 139 |
|
| 140 |
There is no automounter. Plugging in a stick makes the kernel see it and |
| 141 |
nothing else happens on screen. |
| 142 |
|
| 143 |
lsblk |
| 144 |
run0 mkdir -p /mnt/stick |
| 145 |
run0 mount /dev/sdX1 /mnt/stick |
| 146 |
# and when you are done |
| 147 |
run0 umount /mnt/stick |
| 148 |
|
| 149 |
This is a known gap rather than a position. |
| 150 |
|
| 151 |
## Locale and keymap |
| 152 |
|
| 153 |
Both are rows on the System tab of `alloy settings`, fronting `localectl`. |
| 154 |
|
| 155 |
The keymap row works as you would expect: the image carries the full `kbd` |
| 156 |
keymap set, so the row lists what is really there. |
| 157 |
|
| 158 |
Locale is the one to know about. The image ships `glibc-minimal-langpack` and no |
| 159 |
language packs at all, so the only locale installed is `C.UTF-8` and that is |
| 160 |
what the system formats and sorts in. The locale row shows this and is not |
| 161 |
settable, because there is nothing to pick between. To get another locale, layer |
| 162 |
its `glibc-langpack-*` package (chapter 7) or add it to the Containerfile and |
| 163 |
rebuild; the row turns settable on its own once a second locale is present. |
| 164 |
|