Automatic run-time configuration for X11

Features:

• Automatic keyboard repeat rate configuration. When a new keyboard is connected and used by X11, configure its repeat rate to desired values.

dependencies:

• C++20
• libX11
• libXi

building:

• run make

You should install xautocfg through your linux distribution, so that all necessary files are managed and updated by your package manager.

Then:

• place config in ~/.config/xautocfg.cfg
• run xautocfg manually or:
• enable/use the systemd user service (which needs graphical-session.target!):
  • systemctl --user enable xautocfg.service
  • systemctl --user start xautocfg.service

The systemd service binds to the graphical-session.target which is started by your desktop environment. Some window managers (e.g. i3 in 2022) don't start graphical-session.target, so you need custom user service files.

As an example, these files are needed for i3 as long as it doesn't start the target on its own.

~/.config/systemd/user/i3-session.service:

[Unit]
Description=i3 window manager session
PartOf=i3-session.target
Wants=i3-session.target

# this service is started by i3 in its config file
# it's done like this so i3 and its launched child processes
# are not a service itself, but in the regular session scope.
[Service]
Type=oneshot
RemainAfterExit=yes
ExecStart=/bin/true
Restart=on-failure

~/.config/systemd/user/i3-session.target:

# this target is wanted by i3-session.service (started by i3 config file)
[Unit]
Description=i3 Session
Requires=basic.target
BindsTo=graphical-session.target
Before=graphical-session.target

DefaultDependencies=no
RefuseManualStart=yes
RefuseManualStop=yes
Requires=basic.target
StopWhenUnneeded=yes

and finally in your i3 configuration file:

exec --no-startup-id systemctl start --user i3-session.service

it remains to be solved how we can reliably stop i3-session.service once i3 has exited.

As alternative to this tool, you can set defaults for the X Server at startup.

• For the keyboard repeat rate:

X -ardelay 200 -arinterval 20  # (interval is 1000/rate_in_hz)

For this to configure, you need the privileges to edit X launch properties (probably in your login tool like lightdm).

XServer since version 21.1.0 supports the option AutoRepeat. Basically you need an xorg config section like this (the second value again 1000/rate_in_hz):

Section "InputClass"
    Identifier "system-keyboard"
    MatchIsKeyboard "on"
    Option "AutoRepeat" "200 20"
EndSection

Please join our matrix room: #sfttech:matrix.org!

For bug reports and patches, please create issues and pull requests at https://github.com/SFTtech/xautocfg

Licensed under GPLv3 or later.