Hi guys. Recently bought a new laptop and of course I thought to install Artix openRC. Everything works perfect except adwaita white theme that doesn't seem to want to be applied properly. Is any quick environment variable I should edit so Adwaita starts to show up, as now it still look dark theme? Also a slightly off topic question, why it shows me only about 6 GB ram as in my bios states 8 GB
PS: with this new machine I managed to install artix openRC in under 2 minutes 😃✌🏻
(https://i.postimg.cc/vmjQGY6N/ggt.png)
GTK3 or 4?
Hello,
I am using Adwaita's light theme.
To make it work, I do:
sudo pacman -R artix-dark-theme artix-desktop-presets artix-gtk-presets artix-icons artix-qt-presets
If necessary, you can comment out the two lines in /etc/environment:
# QT_QPA_PLATFORMTHEME=gtk2
# QT_STYLE_OVERRIDE=gtk
sudo mousepad /etc/environment
https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/GTK#Themes
Yeah tnx for the reply, however on my system those steps changed only very little at the login screen which turned white but the other user things remained untouched. Also after uninstall those pckges, connman has its window risen after I login.
I also commented out those 2 lines also and reboot.
Link suggested by
@kiblaster seems to be down right now
link up but now my wired connection got screwed, it impacted connman in a bad way
edit2: fixed everything except adwaita, it looks still dark 🫤..trying again kiblast link
GTK 2
~/.gtkrc-2.0
/usr/share/gtk-2.0/gtkrc
GTK 3 and GTK 4
gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.interface gtk-theme Adwaita
lxappearance does GTK 2 and lxappearance-gtk3 does GTK 3 easily from the GUI.
Those packages are in conflict I can choose only one at a time.
Tried this and nothing happened
gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.interface gtk-theme Adwaita
For Gtk2 what should I do with these 2 lines?
~/.gtkrc-2.0
/usr/share/gtk-2.0/gtkrc
Tnx for reply
think I forgot to mention I'm on xfce DE
It seems Adwaita is no longer maintained so I guess I have to get use to dark themes even if I can't see anything in a dark theme like I'm looking into a black hole.
You can use them one at time and you may need to install other themes like mint-themes.
AFAIK lxappearance-gtk3 handles both gtk2 and gtk3 themes.
Once you use lxappearance to set a theme you do not need it anymore.
~/.gtkrc-2.0
/usr/share/gtk-2.0/gtkrc
You make/edit them to set the theme or you can use lxappearance.
This was back in about 2020, afterwards I switched to Mate. There was some broken graphics code in XFWM, it had already been there for at least a couple of years as the person who started it had left the project before finishing it. On some machines the window borders were black and the buttons not displaying properly. This script changes the images that make up the display elements to another file type which helped in my case, you need to run it after every xfwm4 update. Also it showed a couple of the files were corrupted, and they had rather disturbingly been like that for some years without getting fixed.
#!/bin/bash
for f in /usr/share/themes/{Daloa,Default,Default-hdpi,Default-xhdpi,Kokodi,Moheli}/xfwm4/*.png
do
if [[ -f $f ]]
then
rm ${f}
fi
done
for f in /usr/share/themes/{Daloa,Default,Default-hdpi,Default-xhdpi,Kokodi,Moheli}/xfwm4/*.xpm
do
if [[ -f $f ]]
then
convert ${f} ${f%%.xpm}.png
rm ${f}
fi
done
You also might need to install the relevant xpm to png conversion package, whatever that was ... Imagemagick, I think. Also convert needs to change to magick to avoid a deprecation warning.
Check it makes sense in the latest version before running it because things may have changed, reinstall xfwm4 to revert the changes if needed. This is totally untested in the latest versions of xfwm4 so is only suitable for expert use. This worked by bypassing some xpm handling functions in xfwm4 incidentally, and might not be relevant at all in this case, but it's something else to check.
Tried the lxappearance thing. In lxappearance it shows white theme while in reality my theme looks dark, so it's possible lxappearance itself is not up to date or it misses exactly the key point. There is a tiny possibility that the init itself calls at a very early stage this dark thing wich can not be undone by anything else.
I read somewhere this, maybe it's a init thing..definitely the openRC devs don't like much light themes 😄😄🤫
"Make sure your desktop session is started with dbus-launch in ~/.xinitrc"
but I don't have an ~/.xinitrc folder to check whether I can do something about it in there.
about the script part, right now I don't wanna mess with things even more cos it may get even worse. Side note, even sound gets disabled after reboot so I have to enable it over and over.
Tnx all for trying to help me out ✌️
Did you try to reopen apps or even reboot after make changes in lxappearance? Many apps need it to apply theme.
I just tried Adwaita white theme with lxappearance and it works for me. Maybe it is XFCE thing, I don't have any DE just Openbox.
Yeah it's xfce+openRC fault, the runit version which I got on my old system works good. The runit version of Artix seems to be more stable. There's a tiny chance this dark theme is applied by root user so there is no way I can change anything from the user side.
lxappearance shows white theme only inside itself, it doesn't change anything else. Think we should call the dev cavalry as my best guess is it a flaw related with user permissions, Root-User conflict or wrong permissions.
From which iso did you install your system? I'd like to try it in VM.
From stable iso's xfce with openRC
artix-xfce-openrc-20240823-x86_64.iso (https://iso.artixlinux.org/iso/artix-xfce-openrc-20240823-x86_64.iso)
The only light theme that works is high contrast theme which is unusable, it has too much white.
edit: apart from sound which I always need to enable, adwaita not working
I've discovered I can't change gnome-calculator from basic to advance, advance math functions do not show up at all. So having these problems in mind I guess it's a general problem setting the proper attributes to the apps, it's not a theming issue it's an openRC problem, or it's the way it works with the xfce DE.
Tried also to change title from shell and it doesn't want to do it, however it worked at first.
It's an iso problem or something more nasty which I don't think it can be fixed like we think we could. It would be nice if we can have somebody to check if it happens on their machine too.
You could try:
xfwm4 --replace
and see if it reloads the theme correctly when the system is fully up and running. Save and close any open things first as a precaution. It might not be exactly a theme you are seeing though. When XFCE switched to accelerated graphics the window borders and buttons were drawn with Cairo, but it wasn't working properly when I last used it. Even on machines where it sort of worked with Intel graphics elements were often just grey when they were colored before, but I've seen screenshots on here where it does work, so it's hardware dependent what you get.
I enabled Adwaita white theming on live artix-xfce-openrc-20240823-x86_64.iso in VM. The key is "gtk-application-prefer-dark-theme" setting in ~/.config/gtk-3.0/settings.ini (https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/GTK#Dark_theme_variant). Also there's separate setting for panel (Panel preferences - Appearance - Dark mode), it was disabled by default but I needed to enable and disable it again to apply white theme on panel. AlsoI needed to kill and restart all thunar processes for it to take effect. Most likely on installed system simple reboot will suffice.
(https://forum.artixlinux.org/index.php?action=dlattach;sa=tmpattach;attach=post_tmp_1788_b2ffdeef3e961ef2ea4522640d321906;topic=7421)
Nope, tried xfwm --replace and nothing happens
Some apps fail to set their proper attributes, either be a theme, a calculator, pulse audio or changing title for the bash shell. Think it's the iso fault but let's wait till other guys may check if it happens for to also.
used
gtk-application-prefer-dark-theme=0 instead of 1 and now it's like I'm setting 'high contrast' theme. Also other themes become numb by setting that 0 instead of 1
Panel becomes white even if it's set to dark.
Calculator also has issues switching from basic to advance. It doesn't happen much and sound always get disabled after reboot.
Tnx for help but you see there are issues, try the sound part and gnome-calculator.
gnome-calculator does changes to advanced and all other modes (again, it is on live iso in VM). It is dark-themed and I think it's because it is on GTK4 which needs separate tuning and maybe even installing some light themes. And for the sound part sorry, I can't be any help as my VM lacks sound support.
Are you sure about the calculator? Mine changes just the name/title from basic to advance but the buttons are pretty much the same as for basic.
edit : Now I can't change it back to dark themes, I'm stuck in this high contrast. Very annoying stuff
I will try to reinstall xfce related things maybe they will get fixed
Pretty sure.
(https://forum.artixlinux.org/index.php?action=dlattach;sa=tmpattach;attach=post_tmp_1788_b4597d9410e3d3c4be916633ad810f22;topic=7421)
Well I can. Through basic Settings — Appearance just apply Artix-dark theme.
noo not programming..that seems to work on mine too..basic to advance looks the same while a working gnome calc switching from basic to advance is hugely distinct
edit: nope programing doesn't work as it should either, you're right
Hmm could it be because I've used f2fs file system on root and home partitions?
Yeah but you see, in your VM you did not made all the updates and even if everything might look ok in VM, when trying on a real machine might show up some glitches.
Sure. VM is VM not updated on top of that. And even on real machines there are hardware differences that can produce glitches. I was only interested in dark/light theme part of your problem because several years ago I was solving similar problem but vice-versa: dark theming refused to fully apply. Since then I know some things about theming in linux. But your problems is not only that so maybe reinstalling and maybe from the base iso is what I'd do in your situation. Cheers.
At least I'm stuck on a light theme ;D ;D
I installed XFCE to give it a try again here on my Dell M4500, Nvidia graphics. It works sort of, but the themes are just shades of grey, not green and blue etc. Running the script I mentioned above still works and helps add a little more color but even after that it's not displaying the desktop as it should be. The corrupted files are there, years later now, still unfixed, perhaps they are part of a secret root kit, who knows :D :
$ sudo ./xpmpng.sh
magick: not enough pixel data `/usr/share/themes/Default-xhdpi/xfwm4/menu-active.xpm' @ error/xpm.c/ReadXPMImage/516.
magick: not enough pixel data `/usr/share/themes/Default-xhdpi/xfwm4/menu-inactive.xpm' @ error/xpm.c/ReadXPMImage/516.
magick: not enough pixel data `/usr/share/themes/Default-xhdpi/xfwm4/menu-prelight.xpm' @ error/xpm.c/ReadXPMImage/516.
magick: not enough pixel data `/usr/share/themes/Default-xhdpi/xfwm4/menu-pressed.xpm' @ error/xpm.c/ReadXPMImage/516.
Generally, bad graphics code (if that was the problem) doesn't check for HW capabilities so won't work properly on very old or very new hardware. AFAICT when Devuan decided to use XFCE as their default desktop, although the Freedesktop XFCE maintainers said OK, a lot of the systemd fans there individually wandered off and found some other projects to work on, and Devuan has never been able to pick up the slack. This only became apparent some years down the line due to the slow XFCE release cycle. Perhaps you can find some improvements but while trying not to sound too depressing, it is fundamentally broken in some respects on some hardware. Possibly you could use a different window manager with XFCE, it is possible I think. New hardware is also more likely to gain support elsewhere in the graphics stack which might improve matters in time.
Yep I think there is a waiting curve. I saw that disabling the custom dpi settings changes calculator making it to show up some buttons properly. Liferea gives this weird error message.
liferea:3238): dbind-WARNING **: 06:56:58.021: Couldn't connect to accessibility bus: Failed to connect to socket /run/user/977/at-spi/bus_0: Permission denied
** (WebKitWebProcess:3270): WARNING **: 06:56:58.848: Can't connect to a11y bus: Could not connect: Permission denied
..
Tnx again for the try.
I need to use custom dpi settings as if not text is so small that I need a magnifying glass to read.
edit: managed to run the script. It didn't do much of a difference. I think the moment I edited that gtk3 init file it modified some temp or cache file somewhere so till I will not get rid of that I will be on high contrast theme.
Update: Tried cinamon desktop runit and xfce runnit and both of them do not have a working light theme on my new system. Tried a VoidLinux iso and that one worked but I won't hop on VoidLinux. Maybe the next iso's will get a fix so the light theme will verk 😄✌🏻 I have a crippled install but still so much better than having systemD(ouche) on board.
Is there any older iso I can try to see if before those light themes worked? Thank you all ✌️
There's a dedicated article (https://wiki.artixlinux.org/Main/Troubleshooting#When_I_switch_theme_in_Plasma.2FMATE.2FXFCE.2FAnyDEorWM_the_colours_are_broken.21) in our fine wiki about theming. From a cursory look at the topic, you probably left /usr/share/gtk-2.0/gtkrc intact.
There's absolutely no need to uninstall any packages to switch to light theme variants.
I followed that already (
@strajder article) and nothing happened. At the beginning I was stuck in a dark theme and now after changing some true to false in a file I have my xfce panel white which is horror, high contrast theme. Buttons do not show up in gnome calc advance mode, notifications spawn without the possibility of stopping them. Everything else seems to work correctly.
Something must've got out of hand in the iso or in the xfce project. It could be related to the DPI setting. Void iso allows me to set Adwaita but I don't like much Void cos it has that weird xbps pkg manager
Void is probably using older package versions, you could try downgrading to similar versions of desktop and graphics related packages like mesa, cairo, kernel and kernel firmware, whatever is relevant to your hardware and installation, to see if anything can be identified as causing the problem. There are some older Artix iso's here you could possibly test boot:
https://iso.artixlinux.org/archived-isos.php (https://iso.artixlinux.org/archived-isos.php)
Yes I can confirm those older images work, Adwaita is alive and kicking there 😁
Older xfce-runit iso (https://iso.artixlinux.org/archived-iso/artix-xfce-runit-20230814-x86_64.iso)
But now it would be such a pain reinstalling my system as it took 2-3 days and still I don't have it the way my older one was setup.
Can we expect getting a fix since that older one works and the new one not that much?
lol,
How about
rm -r /home/artix/.config/gtk-3.0
and then log out and log in?
Just did that rn, rebooted and still my panel is white as Snow White knickers drenched in milk. There's need for a bigger hammer for this lil' one..
Reinstalling probably wouldn't help because it would most likely stop working again when you updated. My guess is that as you know one end of a keyboard from another you are unlikely to have made any setup errors, although anyone can make mistakes of course. Also as nobody else seems to be getting this, it's a hardware specific graphics related bug introduced somewhere between those two iso's, the Void package versions might help narrow it down more. On a new install to downgrade you will need to use the Artix Linux package archive:
https://archive.artixlinux.org/ (https://archive.artixlinux.org/)
If you can find the package and version change that causes this it might help get it fixed.
Another approach is to generally search online for any similar bugs relating to your particular machine and graphics card, someone else might have already found the source of the problem.
Few uses adwaita light theme that's why few complain about it.
(https://i.postimg.cc/XJ7frffX/jhbv.png)
I can't do my panel dark, sound and mic gets disabled after reboot, gnome calc has its buttons in mysterious places. The blue tint I caught it after running @####### script but when I switch that button bellow themes it gets white as it should. Notifications are funny weird sometimes showing 'xfce4--xkb-plugin' or 'xfce4-settings-helper'. I think t must be a conflict between artix dark theme and latest xfce updates and changes. All these I think they are related to main bug. I don't think it's graphic card related.
But hey I know I'm on a rolling OS so I'm not that worried, I like fresh things even if sometimes something fails.
The elements that make up the themes, like the window borders, are now drawn with hardware accelerated graphics commands. If I change (on a generally working machine) to a theme that should be blue or green, and was in past years before this happened, all I get is shades of grey. You'd need a very old outdated iso to see how it should look, you've probably forgotten. This was part of the upgrade to a newer GTK version. It has never worked properly since it was introduced because the code is broken and incomplete, but it's also quite complex and would need someone very talented to fix. It's object orientated code written in C, with vast numbers of variables and functions being dumped into massive objects and casually passed about everywhere, making it difficult to untangle what's going on at any point when running. When it was introduced I was getting partly black window borders and missing or distorted buttons for close / max / min, others were getting various black things too, this was common, but only on some graphics cards. What you are looking at as a theme is more the absence of what should be there, a space filled with random noise. Various external packages have compensated to make it look less unpleasant for most users. I'd guess you are just getting black in some of the colorless "holes" where the theme should be instead of white or grey. If you downgrade packages you can find out which one changed and caused this.
That explanation isn't 100% certain of course, it could be something else. I spent ages yesterday downgrading things after my desktop started acting strangely before finally finding - some dirt had temporarily jammed the right click button :D But if the older iso and Void works then I am pretty certain downgrading stuff will find the precise answer, and if nobody else has this bug then it's specific to you. Adwaita is the default and most common theme and is the one that should always work.
If you don't like the blue window borders then run "# pacman -S xfwm4" to reinstall xfwm4 and go back to how it was before, btw.
In the mean time I started to like it but choose something similar from the window manager settings 'Microdeck3'
Tried to reinstall all pkges but now I got an error from
@nous , think he forgot to update his pgp signature
connman-gtk: signature from "Christos Nouskas (nous) <[email protected]>" is unknown trust
:: File /var/cache/pacman/pkg/connman-gtk-1.1.1-3-x86_64.pkg.tar.zst is corrupted (invalid or corrupted package (PGP signature)).
Edit: tried plasma-runit and both light and dark themes work but it uses about 1.7 GB of memory, nothing can compete with xfce speed