Multiple monitors with i3 wm

 This took a very long time to happen. Ultimately it is a downgrade which has made me to take up multiple monitor setup. A Dell laptop, around 5 years old, was discarded by my son certifying it to be very slow. However, the laptop was upto the task considering the mac mini which I had. So, upgraded the hdd to ssd. I started from a clean slate. Installed a clean copy of windog 10(well, paid for the license when the laptop was brought). After a flurry of updates and reboots... phew.. it was complete.

Now to the favorite part. Getting Arch Gnu/Lnux onto the laptop. Tried installing arch based derivatives with i3 as the wm. However, was not happy with the plethora of packages which got installed. I have nothing against the distros. However, I have been destroyed by the plain/vanilla install of arch Gnu/Linux on all my computers. So wiped again, and did a vanilla arch gnu/linux install. Installing packages as and when I was hitting a wall for a particular task. Just goes a long way to tell how much effort you have put to make your arch gnu/linux install "your own". That is not time wasted. But, time well spent.

As I again, brought the install to my liking, it is bewildering to see the control one has on his computer. Compare it with the windows install. Cannot compare. Yes, cannot compare the ease with which GBs of software lands on your computer in the name of "ease of use". Well, Freedom is never easy and never will be. 

 However, the point of the post is multiple monitor setup with i3. Let me start by telling that it was not easy. Lot of web searching and personal shares of various users have made me to nearly approach the setup which I liked. Again, which I liked... so... The basic premise is I wanted 05 workspaces on the QHD monitor and another 05 workspaces on the laptop display(FHD). This was my requirement. However, wherever, I was searching, the majority of the results concentrated on moving workspaces or containers or windows or another atomic elements in i3. I did not want to move applications between the monitors. Some apps are better on QHD and some on FHD. So the applications will go respectively to those workspaces as decided by the user(me). Tie the workspaces to the monitors

Howver, the point of the post is multiple monitor setup with i3. Let me start by telling that it was not easy. Lot of web searching and personal shares of various users have made me to nearly approach the setup which I liked. Again, which I liked... so...

The basic premise is I wanted 05 workspaces on the QHD monitor and another 05 workspaces on the laptop display(FHD). This was my requirement. However, wherever, I was searching, the onus was on moving workspaces or containers or windows or another atomic element in i3. I did not want to move applications between the monitors. Some apps are better on QHD and some on FHD. So the applications will go respectively to those workspaces as decided by the user(me).

Tie the workspaces to the monitors

workspace $ws1 output $qhd
workspace $ws2 output $qhd
workspace $ws3 output $qhd
workspace $ws4 output $qhd
workspace $ws5 output $qhd
workspace $ws6 output $fhd
workspace $ws7 output $fhd
workspace $ws8 output $fhd
workspace $ws9 output $fhd
workspace $ws10 output $fhd

Added the following to meet the requirement which I set out to achieve. When you now hit the hot key for navigating to a particular workspace, irrespective of the monitor, the focus is on that particular workspace.

bindsym $mod+1 focus output $qhd;workspace $ws1
bindsym $mod+2 focus output $qhd;workspace $ws2
bindsym $mod+3 focus output $qhd;workspace $ws3
bindsym $mod+4 focus output $qhd;workspace $ws4
bindsym $mod+5 focus output $qhd;workspace $ws5
bindsym $mod+6 focus output $fhd;workspace $ws8
bindsym $mod+7 focus output $fhd;workspace $ws7
bindsym $mod+8 focus output $fhd;workspace $ws8
bindsym $mod+9 focus output $fhd;workspace $ws9
bindsym $mod+0 focus output $fhd;workspace $ws10

As a bonus, now, let us say you have the workspace you want to work on in clear view on the other monitor. You just want focus on that monitor. Add the following to your config

bindsym $mod+period focus output left

Kindly bear in mind, the keybindings which are already utilized in your config file before changing anything.

Thats it.

A big Shout-out and Thanks to all the devs and users making the "free as in freedom" world possible.

Unify the memory of Find 7 QHD using LVM(All credits to Dev, Entropy)

NOTE: I am not responsible for any physical damage or bricking your device or loss of *imporatant* data or for wasting your *precious* time. Strictly use the info provided at your very own risk.


As discussed in the previous post, the layered memory layout of oppo is arcane and absurd and of course, silly. There are now, two options to come out of this scenario.
1. Modify the physical partitions
2. Provide an intermediate software layer without changing the physical layout of the partitions scheme

Method 1 is dangerous and has to be used with great caution. You need a computer to convert your phone to unified and then to de-unify it. Method 2 is my choice. It does not play with the physical partition layout. This method has been adopted to the find 7 by Dev, Entropy. Oppo incorporated the same methodology in doling out color os 2.0.4i albeit with their own modifications and have not opened their modifications for public scrutiny. Entropy already fixed few issues in their implementation by releasing a boot image with the necessary changes. But, still, it is not up to his expectations.

Now, to really use his actual work, we have to install a custom rom supporting this methodology. We have two after market roms which have implemented this methodology. One is Omni rom and the other is nameless rom. We will go ahead with nameless rom since it uses sources from a variety of after market roms like Cyanogenmod, omni and others. Nameless has support for LVM via the efforts of dev morkx and evisceration. Let us begin

1. Un-unify(You will lose all data in phone storage, external card is safe, by the way)
2. Download the rom and place it in the external sd card
3. Download the gapps from the nameless thread and put it on the external sd card
4. Download these two files from here and place them in the external sd card
5. Place the color os 1.2.7 on the external sd card
6. step 5 is required since some sensors dont play well with the KK betas from oppo and NFC wont work if 1.2.7 is not flashed.
7. step 5 is required to avoid any blank screens while taking calls and other situations.
8. shutdown the phone
9. Put the phone into fastboot mode and connect to pc
10. fastboot twrp > 2.8.0.1
11. reboot to twrp
12. take a backup of the current rom.
13. shut down the phone
14. put the phone into fastboot mode
15. fastboot the oppo recovery
16. Reboot the phone to oppo recovery
17. Flash color os 1.2.7
18. Reboot to color os 1.2.7
19. shutdown the phone
20. fastboot twrp > 2.8.0.1
21. reboot to twrp
22. Do the usual wipes
23. Flash the nameless rom(The latest versions have LVM and coldbird's unification support rolled into one)
24. Flash gapps
25. Reboot to nameless
26. Reboot to twrp
27. Flash the setup_lvm zip from step 4.
28. Reboot to nameless
29. Go to settings and check the storage option.
30. Your phone is now unified and running the latest and greatest android.

Update: After step 28 go to fastboot mode and flash the 2.x modem from the OP of Namelss rom. This resolves majority of sensor issues. If this is not helping then there is a sensor fix also which can be flashed from the same post.

Update2: If you want to switch partition layout on stock roms be sure that you have stock recovery from 2.0.5 beta or above(Only these versions have support for switching partitions on stock rom)

Update3: Since omni rom development for find 7 has stopped, the only options are lineage and CrDroid roms currently on 8.1. If you want the most updated rom for find 7 you have to convert the partition table on the device to chinese partition. To achieve this follow this post to the T.

Lolipop (Android v5) on Oppo Find 7(S)(QHD)

NOTE: I am not responsible for any physical damage or loss of *imporatant* data or for wasting your *precious* time. Strictly use the info provided at your own risk.

Oppo caught my eye because of the developer friendliness of the forums. And it is good that it comes recommended by various devs out at XDA. If anybody visits their forums, they would be shocked to see that the custom roms are allowed to be uploaded and discussed about equivalent to their own color os. Now, there are some glaring issues with the device

1. No unified memory(Yes, this is something many of the major brand phone users dont understand. This is becuase all their phones have unified memory). search the public network for more on this.
2. The color OS from oppo is still at JB in its stable version.
3. There is not ETA regarding the upgrade of the phone to KK or lolipop

So, what do we have here?  We have a phone with excellent hardware specs(This is pretty relative since the specs area a moving target), Good build quality and QHD resulution. The display is crisp and clear.

As concerns cooking of custom roms, oppo helps the third party devs a lot and also showers them with free devices to aid them in development. Another plus is that your warranty is not void if you flash a custom rom until you dont damage a hardware component in the process

The roadblocks in development/cooking of custom roms are

1. No Kernel sources(were available, now removed)
2. No blob bundles(as provided by sony)

But, still devs have been succesful in cooking up custom roms and have succesfully built lolipop roms using jelly bean blobs and other pieces from one plus one. So the result is we have working Lolipop roms from Nameless(based on cm) and omni. Both the forums are very active and what rom is chosen is just based on personal preference. Nameless is a bit senior here.

Getting down to business let us see how to flash custom roms on the find 7. There are various roms based on KK for the find 7(CM, PA(official device status), Nameless and many more). The general procedure to be followed can be summarized as below

1. connect the phone with coloros. In windows it will prompt for installing software of the phone. Install it. This will install the necessary drivers.
2. Shut down the phone
3. Press the up volume and power button until the phone vibrates
4. The phone will display "fastboot..." exactly at the centre of the screen
5. Connect the phone to your computer
6. Wait for windows to install the necessary fastboot drivers(required only once, later phone will be recognized immediately)
7. Open terminal . Go to the folder where you have your adb and fastboot executables
8. Run "fastboot devices"
9. This should return a serial number
10. copy the twrp and coloros recovery and rename them aptly into the folder with fastboot and adb executables
11. flash the twrp recovery run "fastboot flash recovery twrp....img"
12. unmount the phone
13. shut down the phone
14. Hold the down volume button and press the power button together until the phone vibrates
15. You will boot to twrp
16. Backup the present coloros and reboot
17. Boot the phone into coloros
18. shut down the phone
19. Press the down volume button and the power button until the phone vibrates
20. if you boot into the coloros recovery it is fine. Otherwise follow the steps from 2 to 13. But use the coloros_recovery.img in the fastboot command
21. Flash coloros v1.2.5
22. This is the version with the modem which plays well with all the custom roms out there.
23. shut down the phone
24. follow the steps from 2 to 13 and flash twrp........img
25. step 14 and 15
26. From now on you know the drill of installing a custom rom(Before installing any custom rom or coming back to color os from custom rom, do a standard wipe(cache, data, dalvik cache))
27. For me paranoid android was of choice for the find 7. The major reason is it being maintained as the "official" device
28. The other major reason being that their releases are sedate and minimal.
29. As for other things on PA check out a video made available on the oppo forums regarding PA on find 7 QHD.



You are now finished with trying and playing with custom roms and now want to return to stock. Just restore the backup you earlier made. Flash back the color os recovery. You are now ready to recieve OTA's from oppo.