Bernardo Magri
c840202018
Some checks failed
Check / eval (push) Failing after 1m40s
Bernardo's question: with "Laptop screen off" active, does the panel come back when the dock is yanked? VM answer (new maintainer harness tools/monitor-fallback.nix, softGL desktop): no — Hyprland 0.55.4 leaves the session with zero active outputs and never re-enables a soft-disabled monitor. rescue_blackout in the display hotplug watcher now re-enables every disabled output (immediate, retried, idempotent keyword + toast) whenever a monitorremoved leaves nothing active; independent of the profile auto-switch and its settings gate. Sharp edge documented rather than hidden: the zero-output state itself crashes Hyprland in the VM ~4/5 runs (aquamarine CBackend::dispatchIdle ABRT within ~0.5s — faster than any userland rescue; a control run removing the external with the panel ACTIVE survives 5/5, so the state is the trigger, not headless removal; crash reproduced with the rescue provably inert, so not caused by it). Rescue ships as defense-in-depth: it recovers every surviving case, and the worst case on real DRM is session-to-greeter on a re-lit panel instead of a black brick. Rider fix: `grep -c .` exits 1 at count zero — the ||-guard on that pipeline silently disabled the rescue exactly when it mattered. Verified: hazard V2 (VM reproduces the dead state); control discriminator 5/5; flake check green. V3 pending: real-dock undock-while-off in HARDWARE-QUEUE (run with nothing important open; crash on real DRM = rework the row to mirror or wait for a Hyprland bump). Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
135 lines
6.5 KiB
Markdown
135 lines
6.5 KiB
Markdown
# Testing Nomarchy
|
||
|
||
How to verify changes actually work — from cheap eval checks to booting the
|
||
full desktop. Adapted from the previous Nomarchy iteration's agent docs.
|
||
|
||
**The honesty rule (for humans and AI agents alike):** for Waybar, Hyprland,
|
||
or any visual change, the only reliable check is booting the live ISO. If
|
||
you can't boot it (e.g. you're on macOS or have no KVM), **say so** rather
|
||
than claiming success. "All Nix files parse" is not "the bar renders."
|
||
|
||
## 1. Cheap checks (always do these first)
|
||
|
||
```sh
|
||
nix flake check --no-build # full module-system evaluation, no builds
|
||
nix-instantiate --parse <file> # syntax-only, works even on macOS
|
||
git ls-files '*.py' | xargs python3 -m py_compile # all tracked Python
|
||
bash -n <script>.sh # shell syntax (tools/, installer bits)
|
||
```
|
||
|
||
`nix flake check` needs a Linux machine (or a Linux builder) since all
|
||
outputs are `x86_64-linux`. It catches type errors, missing options, and
|
||
bad merges — most breakage stops here. It also evaluates the downstream
|
||
template through `lib.mkFlake` (including a real nixos-hardware profile),
|
||
so template/wrapper drift fails fast too.
|
||
|
||
## 1b. CI (automatic on push)
|
||
|
||
Every push to `main`/`v1` runs `.gitea/workflows/check.yml`: the §1
|
||
cheap checks (flake eval, Python + shell syntax) on the Gitea instance.
|
||
That's the **eval tier only** — the runner is a docker container without
|
||
KVM, so the `checks.*` VM suite and real builds stay local (this file)
|
||
until a KVM-capable runner is registered; the workflow carries a
|
||
commented `vm-checks` job ready for that day. A green CI run is *not* "it
|
||
renders" (the honesty rule below still applies) — it means "nobody broke
|
||
evaluation".
|
||
|
||
## 2. Build and boot the live ISO
|
||
|
||
```sh
|
||
# Build + boot in QEMU, one command:
|
||
tools/test-live-iso.sh
|
||
|
||
# Or by hand:
|
||
nix build .#nixosConfigurations.nomarchy-live.config.system.build.isoImage
|
||
# → result/iso/*.iso — dd it to a USB stick for real hardware
|
||
```
|
||
|
||
The script prefers UEFI (OVMF) with a legacy-BIOS fallback, uses KVM when
|
||
`/dev/kvm` is readable, and boots with `virtio-vga-gl` + `gl=on` —
|
||
**Hyprland and Ghostty need real OpenGL in the guest**; without it the
|
||
session may not start.
|
||
|
||
### What the live environment gives you
|
||
|
||
- Auto-login as `nomarchy` (no password, passwordless sudo), greetd →
|
||
Hyprland via `initial_session`; logging out lands on tuigreet.
|
||
- The flake is seeded writable at `~/.nomarchy` (from the read-only
|
||
`/etc/nomarchy` copy) — `$NOMARCHY_PATH` already points there.
|
||
- Locked flake inputs are pinned into the ISO store, so
|
||
`home-manager switch` works **without a network**.
|
||
|
||
## 3. Verification checklist
|
||
|
||
Work through these in order; each one exercises a different layer.
|
||
|
||
| # | Check | Verifies |
|
||
|---|---|---|
|
||
| 1 | Boots to Hyprland with the default theme wallpaper visible (Boreal) | greetd autologin, awww, session start |
|
||
| 2 | Waybar shows at top, themed (blue accent on dark) | HM waybar module, palette baking |
|
||
| 3 | `SUPER+Return` opens Ghostty with the default theme colors (Boreal) | terminal default, ANSI palette |
|
||
| 4 | `btop` in the terminal is themed | per-theme asset baking |
|
||
| 5 | `nomarchy-theme-sync list` prints 24 presets | package, baked themes dir |
|
||
| 6 | `nomarchy-theme-sync apply gruvbox` → state written, `home-manager switch` runs, desktop re-themes, wallpaper changes | the whole engine: state write, pure eval, HM rebuild, wallpaper hook |
|
||
| 7 | `SUPER+SHIFT+T` cycles wallpapers instantly (try `tokyo-night` for 4, or `boreal` for its set) | the runtime wallpaper path |
|
||
| 8 | `nomarchy-theme-sync apply summer-night` → after the switch the bar has its own identity (light bar, different styling) | whole-swap waybar.css assets |
|
||
| 9 | Open a GTK app — dark theme matching the palette | Stylix layer |
|
||
| 10 | `home-manager generations` lists one generation per theme change; activating an older one rolls the theme back | atomicity / rollback story |
|
||
|
||
Items 6 and 8 are the big ones — they prove the all-Home-Manager theming
|
||
model end to end.
|
||
|
||
## 4. Testing the installer
|
||
|
||
One command runs the whole offline regression:
|
||
|
||
```sh
|
||
tools/test-install.sh
|
||
```
|
||
|
||
It builds the ISO, boots it in QEMU **with networking disabled**, runs an
|
||
unattended LUKS+swap install onto a blank disk via the installer's
|
||
`NOMARCHY_UNATTENDED=1` mode (config delivered on a small vfat disk —
|
||
typing long commands into a guest drops keystrokes), waits for the
|
||
installer's poweroff, then boots the installed disk, enters the
|
||
passphrase, and screenshots the first boot. The machine-checkable parts
|
||
(install completes, disk boots) fail the script; the visual verdict —
|
||
**themed desktop, no autogenerated-config banner, no login prompt** — is
|
||
yours, from `first-boot.png`. The helpers it builds on live in
|
||
`tools/vm/` (QMP key injection, GL-safe VNC screenshots) and work for any
|
||
manual VM poking; `tools/vm/gap-analysis.py` is the maintainer tool for
|
||
diagnosing offline installs that try to build from source.
|
||
|
||
To test by hand instead, replicate what `tools/test-install.sh` does: the
|
||
unattended env it uses is in the script, and the same flow works
|
||
interactively from the live terminal. If the desktop comes up unthemed,
|
||
read `/var/log/nomarchy-hm-preactivate.log` on the installed system.
|
||
|
||
Two full-desktop VM harnesses (softGL Hyprland, too heavy for `checks.*`)
|
||
live next to the scripts: `tools/theme-shot.nix` (themed-desktop
|
||
screenshots) and `tools/monitor-fallback.nix` (undock blackout rescue —
|
||
disabled panel must re-enable when the last active output disappears).
|
||
|
||
## 5. VM-specific gotchas
|
||
|
||
- **No KVM** (e.g. nested without acceleration): everything works but
|
||
`home-manager switch` will be painfully slow. Don't read slowness as
|
||
breakage.
|
||
- **Black screen / session exits**: almost always missing guest GL. Use the
|
||
script's qemu flags; on real hardware check `journalctl -b -u greetd`.
|
||
- **Tiny resolution**: the live config forces `monitor = ,highres,auto,1`;
|
||
if QEMU still picks 1024×768, resize the window — Hyprland follows.
|
||
- **First theme switch is the slowest**: it evaluates the flake on a RAM
|
||
disk. Subsequent switches reuse the eval cache.
|
||
|
||
## 6. When something fails
|
||
|
||
- Session/login problems: `journalctl -b -u greetd`, then `journalctl
|
||
--user -b`.
|
||
- Theme switch failures: run `nomarchy-theme-sync apply <x>` from a
|
||
terminal — the home-manager output streams there. The state file is
|
||
written *before* the rebuild, so after fixing you can just re-run
|
||
`home-manager switch --flake ~/.nomarchy`.
|
||
- Report results faithfully: what booted, what rendered, what you could
|
||
not verify and why.
|