Getting X11 working (again)

MNT Reform
1

This is just a quick note for anyone who wants to get x11 working on the Reform. Currently there is an example script reform-windowmaker but it is erroring.

The fixes are pretty straightforward, but did take me a while to work out. I did all this after creating my user account.

First you will need network access to grab extra packages, you could use sway to do it with a GUI, but if you never want to touch Wayland at all, you can use these commands.

To list wifi networks:
nmcli dev wifi list

Then to connect:
sudo nmcli dev wifi connect [network-ssid] password [network-password]
Replacing the things in square brackets with the appropriate details.
Note that the space prefix on this line stops it being saved to your bash history.

You’ll need 3 packages to get reform-windowmaker working, but the last is optional if you want to use your own window manager.
sudo apt update
sudo apt install cage x11-utils wmaker

So if you are setting up a different window manager, you can skip wmaker and and use reform-windowmaker as a basis for your own script.

2

When trying to get X11 to work on the reform, also please note that reform-tools still ships the following files:

/etc/X11/xorg.conf:

Section "Device"
  Identifier "etnaviv"
  Driver "modesetting"
  Option "kmsdev" "/dev/dri/card1"
  Option "AccelMethod" "glamor"
  Option "SWcursor" "off"
  Option "ShadowFB" "off"
  Option "PageFlip" "off"
EndSection

Section "ServerFlags"
  Option "AutoAddGPU" "false"
EndSection

Section "Files"
  ModulePath "/usr/local/lib/xorg/modules"
  ModulePath "/usr/local/lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf/xorg/modules"
EndSection

/usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d/10-reform-etnaviv.conf:

Section "Device"
  Identifier "eDP-1"
  Driver "modesetting"
  Option "kmsdev" "/dev/dri/card0"
  Option "AccelMethod" "glamor"
  Option "Atomic" "On"
EndSection

If you are trying to get X11 to work with a SoM that is not the imx8mq, then you should probably delete or comment the content of these files as what is written in them is specific to the etnaviv driver.

1 Like
3

any hinds on getting X run with a new som I have the new 6 core one?

Want to try getting stumpwm running

4

Do you have any error messages?

There is xserver issue for amlogic with meson: Enable Xorg with Amlogic/meson display (#1023) · Issues · xorg / xserver · GitLab

It seems that stumpwm itself is not going to get ported to wayland: wayland support · Issue #739 · stumpwm/stumpwm · GitHub

But there is a re-implementation that is supposed to be similar to stumpwm here: GitHub - stumpwm/mahogany: A stumpwm like Wayland compositor

5

all I saw in the X logs was that it xould not find a screen.

Yeah have looked at mahogany but it still a while off being usable hence X11.

6

it seems that x11 works fine on the a311d. I just needed to tweek a few config files

7

If you like, you can share what steps you had to perform to get X11 working. :slight_smile:

8

I will write up something in the next few days. The machine is powered down at the moment and I am off to work soon

9

looks like all I ended up doing was renaming /etc/X11/xorg.conf and things just worked