Setup for Bonn office computers

The office computers (as of February 2026) run Debian GNU/Linux 11 (bullseye) or 13 (trixie), with GUI LXQt and window manager Xfwm4. Here are some tips for configuring the computer.

Language

• You need to login with your @math.uni-bonn.de username and password.
• The keyboard layout for the login screen is German. This cannot be changed. (This does not apply to entering your password after locking the screen: there you have the option to change the keyboard language.)
• The OS language and keyboard layout are German by default, and can be changed.
• If you want to change the OS language to English then create a file called “.locale” in your home directory with the following content:

  export LANG=en_GB.UTF-8
  

Lean

• VSCodium is installed on some office computers, but not others. If you don’t have it, you can contact the IT department with your computer name to ask them to install it. You can find your computer name by opening a shell (e.g. LXTerminal)
• important Everything related to Lean should be done in your /local/<Username> folder (in the Filesystem root). Lean + Mathlib cache should already be configured correctly to put the .elan and .cache folders in that directory.
• If you have trouble installing Lean, run the elan installation script manually from a shell. Since the .profile script is not run on startup, Lean might not be added to your PATH correctly during installation. If this happens to you, edit ~/.bashrc manually by adding the line export PATH="${PATH}:/local/<userName>/.elan/bin" and inserting your username (and then restarting your terminal).
• lake builds using all 12(?) threads, which sometimes slows/lags the rest of the OS. You can use e.g. export LEAN_NUM_THREADS=10 && lake build to not use all threads.

Minor:

• In VSCode, you might want to edit the Keyboard Shortcuts and bind Go Forward to Alt+RightArrow.

Mouse & Keyboard

• I personally dislike (non-flat) mouse acceleration in any form, which is enabled by default, and I didn’t see an option in the GUI to fix it.

  #!/bin/sh
  xinput set-prop "Cherry GmbH CHERRY Wireless Device Mouse" "libinput Accel Speed" 0.7
  xinput set-prop "Cherry GmbH CHERRY Wireless Device Mouse" "libinput Accel Profile Enabled" 0, 1
  

  You can run xinput and xinput list-props <id/name of mouse> to find the name and properties of your mouse. The 0.7 can be modified to change the sensitivity of the mouse linearly. I didn’t find a way to automatically run this when logging in (neither .profile, nor autostart (via GUI or directly editing a config file) seems to work). So I just run these commands from .bashrc and then it gets executed when I open a shell for the first time.

• In Firefox, consider enabling Settings > autoscrolling to enable scrolling with Middle mouse-button
• In Preferences > Window Manager > Keyboard consider adding more convenient keyboard shortcuts for Maximise window and Tile window to the left/right.
• Scrolling on an unfocused windows focuses that window. To change this, go to Preferences > Window Manager Tweaks > Accessibility > *uncheck* Raise windows when any mouse button is pressed (scrolling counts as a mouse button press).
• In Firefox, consider adding bookmarks that can be used to search. For example, if you have a bookmark with URL https://leanprover-community.github.io/mathlib4_docs/find/?pattern=%s#doc and keyword ml, then typing ml Nat searches in the Mathlib docs for Nat. Similarly, https://loogle.lean-lang.org/?q=%s can be used to search with Loogle.

Terminal and Git

• Consider changing your bash prompt. Download this script and add the following to .bashrc:

  source /home/<userName>/git-prompt.sh
  PS1="\[\033[32m\]\u@\h\[\033[37m\]:\[\033[33m\]\w\[\033[36m\]\$(__git_ps1 ' (%s)')\[\033[00m\]\$ "
  

• To get git autocomplete, add source /usr/share/bash-completion/completions/git to your .bashrc.
• I like some aliases of commonly-used commands, e.g. ``` alias lc=”lake exe cache get” alias lu=”lake exe unpack!” alias gp=”git push -u” alias gc=”git commit -am” alias gcf=”git commit -am "fix"” alias gcs=”git commit -am "small"” alias ga=”git commit -a –amend –no-edit” alias master=”git fa && cm && lc” alias gm=”git -c core.editor=true merge” alias gmc=”git add -u && gm –continue” alias grc=”git add -u && git -c core.editor=true rebase –continue” alias gff=’git merge –ff-only @{u}’

merge remote master

gmm() { gm “$(git symbolic-ref –short refs/remotes/origin/HEAD)” }

checkout remote master

cm() { git checkout “$(git symbolic-ref –short refs/remotes/origin/HEAD)” }

checkout local master

clm() { git checkout ‘$(git symbolic-ref –short refs/remotes/origin/HEAD | sed “s|^origin/||”)’ }

alias code=’codium’ alias lb=”export LEAN_NUM_THREADS=10 && lake build”

* Some Git configuration options are useful. You can modify `.gitconfig` (also with `git config --global --edit`). This is my current setup (I don't use all aliases, but a few are very useful, especially `git l` and `git la`):

[core] editor = codium autocrlf = input compression = -1 [pull] rebase = true [alias] alias = ! git config –get-regexp ^alias\. | sed -e s/^alias\.// -e s/\ /\ =\ / my-checkout = !git checkout $1 && git reset master –hard && git cherry-pick $1-patch && : my-commit = !git stash && git checkout master && git stash pop && git commit unstash = !git stash show -p | git apply -3 && git stash drop a = “add” aa = “add –all” ai = “add –interactive” amend = “commit –amend -c HEAD” amendc = “commit –amend -C HEAD” ap = “add –patch” assume = “update-index –assume-unchanged” assumed = “!git ls-files -v | grep ^h | cut -c 3-“ au = “add –update” b = “branch” br = “branch” commit = “commit -v” ci = “commit -v” cia = “commit -va” co = “checkout” conflicts = “!git ls-files -u | cut -f 2 | sort -u” cp = “cherry-pick” d = “diff” dl = “diff HEAD^” ds = “diff –staged” du = “diff origin/master..master” dump = “cat-file -p” f = “fetch –prune” fa = “fetch –all –prune” fd = “log –diff-filter=D –summary” ff = “!git ls-files | grep -i” fm = “log –diff-filter=M –summary” fo = “fetch origin –prune” gr = “grep -Ii” grep = “grep -Ii” log-pretty = “log –pretty=’format:%C(blue)%h%C(red)%d%C(yellow) %s %C(green)%an%Creset, %ar’” log-stat = “log –pretty=format:’%C(yellow)%h%Cred%d\ %Creset%s%Cblue\ [%cn]’ –decorate –stat” log-hist = “!git log-pretty –graph” l = “!git log-hist” la = “!git log-hist –all” ll = “!git log-stat” lp = “log –patch” ls = “!git log-stat” lt = “!git log-hist –simplify-by-decoration” lu = “!git log-hist origin/master..master” merge = “merge –no-edit” m = “merge –no-ff” mf = “merge –ff-only” pf = “pull –ff-only” pnp = “!git pull –rebase && git push” r = “reset” r1 = “reset HEAD^” r2 = “reset HEAD^^” rh = “reset –hard” rh1 = “reset HEAD^ –hard” rh2 = “reset HEAD^^ –hard” s = “status -sb” sa = “stash apply” sha = “rev-list -n 1 HEAD –” sl = “stash list” sp = “stash pop” ss = “stash save -u” st = “status” suba = “submodule add” subr = “!git-submodule-rm” subs = “submodule sync” subu = “submodule foreach git pull origin master” type = “cat-file -t” unassume = “update-index –no-assume-unchanged” unassumeall = “!git assumed | xargs git update-index –no-assume-unchanged” untracked = “ls-files -o -X.gitignore –exclude=.*” [diff] colormoved = “default” colorMovedWs = allow-indentation-change [merge] conflictstyle = diff3 [push] default = current ```

• Sometimes it’s useful to locally have multiple copies of a repository. A convenient way to do that is using git worktree, since then they share the git history. Add a new worktree using git worktree add ../<myNewFolder>

Note to self:

• Shift-insert in LXTerminal does not paste, ctrl+shift+V does.

Annoyances

• ~/.profile doesn’t seem to ever get executed (even after making it executable). How to run a startup script properly?
• Is it possible to configure keyboard shortcuts for “move window to display to the left/right”?