i3

• use xev to get keysym names (i.e. [ is bracketleft)

cursor spins on empty background

• see arch wiki - i3
• see i3wm user guide
• see freedesktop.org - startup-notification-spec
• run offending command in i3 config with exec --no-startup-id
• i3 has startup notifications, i.e. when an application finishes starting, it will signal to i3 that it's finished, i3 will change the cursor from waiting to normal.
• but if the application doesn't support startup notifications, it'll take 1 minute for the cursor to reset to normal

issue in alacritty

• alacritty causes this issue
• see github - Alacritty causing 1-2 mins of busy cursor on i3 desktop, and extreme i3 performance issues
• fix cursor

i3 restart

• alacritty refuses to fix this, see Alacritty causing 1-2 mins of busy cursor on i3 desktop (re-opening #868)

archive

• see reddit - How to get rid of spinning cursor?
• see i3wm faq - What is that thing called --no-startup-id?
• sddm executes ~/.xprofile by default (check /usr/share/sddm/scripts/Xsession).
• nicer to have single script for all commands in ~/.xprofile than preface every command with exec in i3
• (imagined) problem: likely caused by daemons in ~/.xprofile
• seem to have no effect if not directly spawned by exec in i3 config (~/.config/i3/config)