Enabling iio-sensor-proxy

Help
1

I am trying to install iio-sensor-proxy to to use screen autorotation in Gnome3. Following the wiki, I have added:

  hardware.sensor.iio.enable = true;

to configuration.nix. This seems to be insufficient to get the command iio-sensor-proxy, so I also added iio-sensor-proxy to environment.systemPackages. I have also tried to install it using nix-env -iA nixos.iio-sensor-proxy. I would expect the service to be enabled after restarting, but monitor-sensor just outputs

Waiting for iio-sensor-proxy to appear.

When I call iio-sensor-proxy after having installed it with nix-env, it just exits without any output.

Am I missing something?

Using NixOs 20.03.2425.9a3e34ae601 (Markhor).

2

I have the suspicion that this has to do with the old GitHub repo for iio-sensor-proxy not being there anymore. My knowledge of Nix is quite limited but I will try to make the derivation point to the new repository.

3

I use KDE and not Gnome, but there all it takes is setting the option you mention:

hardware.sensor.iio.enable = true;

Adding it to systemPackages doesn’t do anything else but give you the detect bin (and the other binaries) in your path.

4

Thank you, having confirmation that it should work was indeed useful. The problem was somewhere else completely: new generations were not appearing on the GRUB menu and the same old generation was loading again and again each time I restarted to test iio-sensor-proxy. So, it was quite a stupid error having nothing to do with iio-sensor-proxy nor gnome (should I change the title to make this more useful to others?).

5

Can you confirm that this makes the rotation lock option show up in GNOME’s system menu and/or the GNOME settings?

Sensors seem to work

When I run monitor-sensor the output suggests that the orientation change is detected:

$ monitor-sensor
    Waiting for iio-sensor-proxy to appear
+++ iio-sensor-proxy appeared
=== Has accelerometer (orientation: normal, tilt: tilted-down)
=== No ambient light sensor
=== No proximity sensor
=== No compass
    Tilt changed: vertical
    Tilt changed: tilted-down
    Accelerometer orientation changed: left-down
    Tilt changed: vertical
    Accelerometer orientation changed: normal

But neither does the screen orientation change nor does GOME’s system menu in the top right corner suggest it has taken notice of the feature. :worried:

Rotation lock missing from GNOME settings

Also, the GNOME settings don’t show any trace of the orientation lock or similar. And shouldn’t gsettings have a org.gnome.settings-daemon.plugins.orientation schema for the orientation feature? This is missing here, currently. :face_holding_back_tears:

$ gsettings list-children org.gnome.settings-daemon.plugins
color          org.gnome.settings-daemon.plugins.color
housekeeping   org.gnome.settings-daemon.plugins.housekeeping
media-keys     org.gnome.settings-daemon.plugins.media-keys
power          org.gnome.settings-daemon.plugins.power
xsettings      org.gnome.settings-daemon.plugins.xsettings

Any ideas?

6

Oh, wow! – GNOME is so smart! :joy: :heart:

The rotation lock feature is hidden when your laptop is in “laptop mode” (note: I have a ThinkPad X1 Yoga convertible).

As soon as you fold your device, the orientation change feature is only activated!! … and the rotation lock option appears in the system menu. :heart: :heart_eyes:

So, it’s all good. NixOS and GNOME rock!!