1---
  2template:
  3title: Five days in a TTY
  4subtitle: I installed KISS Linux
  5date: 2020-01-13
  6---
  7
  8This new semester has been pretty easy on me, so far. I hardly every
  9have any classes (again, so far), and I've a ton of free time on my
 10hands. This calls for---yep---a distro hop! 
 11
 12## Why KISS?
 13
 14[KISS](https://getkiss.org) has been making rounds on the interwebz lately.[^hn]
 15The Hacker News post spurred _quite_ the discussion. But then again,
 16that is to be expected from Valleybros who use macOS all day. :^)
 17
 18From the website,
 19> An independent Linux® distribution with a focus on simplicity and the
 20> concept of “less is more”. The distribution targets *only* the x86-64
 21> architecture and the English language.
 22
 23Like many people did in the HN thread, "simplicity" here is not to be
 24confused with "ease". It is instead, simplicity in terms of lesser and
 25cleaner code---no
 26[Poetterware](https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=poetterware).
 27
 28[^hn]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21021396
 29
 30This, I can get behind. A clean system with less code is like a clean
 31table. It's nice to work on. It also implies security to a certain
 32extent since there's a smaller attack surface. 
 33
 34The [`kiss`](https://github.com/kisslinux/kiss) package manager is written
 35is pure POSIX sh, and does _just enough_. Packages are compiled from
 36source and `kiss` automatically performs dependency resolution. Creating
 37packages is ridiculously easy too.
 38
 39Speaking of packages, all packages---both official & community
 40repos---are run through `shellcheck` before getting merged. This is
 41awesome; I don't think this is done in any other distro.
 42
 43In essence, KISS sucks less.
 44
 45## Installing KISS
 46
 47The [install guide](https://getkiss.org/pages/install) is very easy to
 48follow. Clear instructions that make it hard to screw up; that didn't
 49stop me from doing so, however.
 50
 51### Day 1
 52
 53Although technically not in a TTY, it was still not _in_ the KISS
 54system---I'll count it. I'd compiled the kernel in the chroot and
 55decided to use `efibootmgr` instead of GRUB. `efibootmgr` is a neat tool
 56to modify the Intel Extensible Firmware Interface (EFI). Essentially,
 57you boot the `.efi` directly as opposed to choosing which boot entry
 58you want to boot, through GRUB. Useful if you have just one OS on the
 59system. Removes one layer of abstraction.
 60
 61Adding a new EFI entry is pretty easy. For me, the command was:
 62
 63```
 64efibootmgr --create 
 65           --disk /dev/nvme0n1 \
 66           --part 1 \
 67           --label KISS Linux \
 68           --loader /vmlinuz
 69           --unicode 'root=/dev/nvme0n1p3 rw'  # kernel parameters
 70```
 71
 72Mind you, this didn't work the first time, or the second, or the
 73third ... a bunch of trial and error (and asking on `#kisslinux`)
 74later, it worked.
 75
 76Well, it booted, but not into KISS. Took a while to figure out that the
 77culprit was `CONFIG_BLK_DEV_NVME` not having been set in the kernel
 78config. Rebuild & reboot later, I was in.
 79
 80### Day 2
 81
 82Networking! How fun. An `ip a` and I see that both USB tethering
 83(ethernet) and wireless don't work. Great. Dug around a bit---missing
 84wireless drivers was the problem. Found my driver, a binary `.ucode` from
 85Intel (eugh!). The whole day was spent in figuring out why the kernel
 86would never load the firmware. I tried different variations---loading
 87it as a module (`=m`), baking it in (`=y`) but no luck.
 88
 89### Day 3
 90
 91I then tried Alpine's kernel config but that was so huge and had a _ton_
 92of modules and took far too long to build each time, much to my
 93annoyance. Diffing their config and mine was about ~3000 lines! Too much
 94to sift through. On a whim, I decided to scrap my entire KISS install
 95and start afresh. 
 96
 97For some odd reason, after doing the _exact_ same things I'd done
 98earlier, my wireless worked this time. Ethernet didn't, and still
 99doesn't, but that's ok.
100
101Building `xorg-server` was next, which took about an hour, mostly thanks
102to spotty internet. The build went through fine, though what wasn't was
103no input after starting X. Adding my user to the `input` group wasn't
104enough. The culprit this time was a missing `xf86-xorg-input` package.
105Installing that gave me my mouse back, but not the keyboard!
106
107It was definitely not the kernel this time, because I had a working
108keyboard in the TTY. 
109
110### Day 4 & Day 5
111
112This was probably the most annoying of all, since the fix was _trivial_.
113By this point I had exhausted all ideas, so I decided to build my
114essential packages and setup my system. Building Firefox took nearly
1159 hours, the other stuff were much faster.
116
117I was still chatting on IRC during this, trying to zero down on what the
118problem could be. And then:
119
120```
121<dylanaraps> For starters I think st fails due to no fonts.
122```
123
124Holy shit! Fonts. I hadn't installed _any_ fonts. Which is why none of
125the applications I tried launching via `sowm` ever launched, and hence,
126I was lead to believe my keyboard was dead.
127
128## Worth it?
129
130Absolutely. I _cannot_ stress on how much of a learning experience this
131was. Also a test of my patience and perseverance, but yeah ok. I also
132think that this distro is my endgame (yeah, right), probably because
133other distros will be nothing short of disappointing, in one way or
134another.
135
136Huge thanks to the folks at `#kisslinux` on Freenode for helping me
137througout. And I mean, they _really_ did. We chatted for hours on end
138trying to debug my issues.
139
140I'll now conclude with an obligatory screenshot.
141
142![scrot](https://x.icyphox.sh/R6G.png)