Just showing off my desktop. For those curious, I use the XFCE desktop, and ULauncher tied to the windows key. I’m also experimenting with animated wallpapers using hidimari.
I use an Arch setup that I’ve tuned to my liking over a couple years and now install that on all of my computers. Here is a screenshot (Don’t worry about the IP at the top. If someone wants to DoS me, they can go ahead and try):
I’m using SpectrWM as my WM, Polybar for the top bar, Kitty for the terminal, and Lapce for the code editor. The wallpaper is one of the 2018 iPad Pro wallpapers that I really like.
How do you make the ASCII logo show up
The one next to the system info in the terminal? That’s
neofetch.Oh Cool
really nice, what color scheme are you using?
The terminal is using a slightly modified Solarized Dark color scheme with
picomhandling the background blur. The code editor is using the Ayu Dark color scheme.
Ooh that’s nice. SpectrWM is a new one for me, might go and research it!
I tried a bunch of WMs, including i3, awesome, xmonad, dwm, etc. and found that the only one I really enjoyed using is SpectrWM. It’s an incredibly simple WM that doesn’t have many features, but it’s also really fast and acts exactly the way I expect it to every time.
Now that I’m free of the Nvidia proprietary driver, I was thinking of switching to Wayland, but I don’t know if any Wayland WM can replace SpectrWM for me. I want to try out River and see how well that works.
Nice, if we are showing off desktops here is mine. Gentoo DWL yambar
Fantastic! I’ve never had the technical expertise to attempt a Gentoo install, but I hope to be able to relatively soon.
To be honest, I think it is probably about as hard as installing Arch, maybe even easier. The wiki is really great, and the installation guide is also superb. Plus, it is much more stable than Arch while also being a rolling release distro. The only issue is compilation times on weaker HW. Even on my PC (Ryzen 5800X) some packages take about an hour (Firefox, Rust, …). Although these packages usually have binary version that you don’t have to compile yourself.
I see, that might still be a problem then due to the severe lack of decent hardware in my household (who would ever need more than for gigabytes of RAM right), rarely having more than a few hours of uninterrupted time, and I suppose an unreliable Internet connection. Then again, when the time comes I still hope to give it a shot.
You know, I installed Gentoo just fine on a machine with 1GB of RAM. As long as you’re willing to let large upgrades (e.g. LLVM, GCC) run overnight, it shouldn’t be an issue.
I ran out of patience on Firefox and Rust, though, and installed them both as binaries. These are the only packages where I do that.
But in any case, you will need the option of letting your computer compile uninterrupted for more than just several hours. Worst I had was 37 hours, but that was on a hardware that really wasn’t meant to run Gentoo. Best one compiled in under 12 hours, including the graphical environment, but I don’t assume your laptop is that powerful (that one also wasn’t my machine). In general, I would say 1 day should be enough to install Gentoo on a reasonable hardware. And then a second day to set up the graphical environment (X11 and whatever DE or WM you prefer). I would definitely set aside a weekend for the Gentoo install because even if compile times are fast, you will need time to figure out what to do, and possibly to fix mistakes, especially if this is your first install…
Thanks! I’ll definitely keep this in mind!
firefox has a binary right? and so do other larger packages?
Yes, some do, but not all. Packages like OpenOffice, rust, Firefox, chromium and probably a few I am forgetting do. But there are still some like webkit-gtk, GCC, LLVM that you will probably need and take a long time to compile (about an hour on my machine).
do you like using gentoo as a daily driver? what do you like about it that other distros don’t offer?
I used to use Arch but found myself often compiling libraries myself, things like add support for some codec to FFmpeg, OpenCV, … For this, Gentoo is basically your only choice. After that I really come to like the package manager (portage) it is really great, doesn’t break anything and often really helpful. If you for example use some suckless software of anything else you want to add patch to it does support it. You can also really nicely mix and match stable and unstable software (even built from git sources) which at least as far as I know no other distro lets you, or at least not in this capacity. And the community is in my experience really nice and helpful. Probably the main downside is that if you compare it to Debian or Arch, there are not as many packages available. There are still loads, and you will most like find everything you need, but Arch and Debian has more options. Although if you find you want to write your own package for something it is pretty easy to do so, much easier than in Arch/Debian IMO.
Plus, at least for me tinkering and playing with different compile options, flags, kernel configuration is always fun.
I just don’t know if I have the time to maintain a gentoo system lol. I’ve always been interested in it, but I feel like the advantages of it aren’t enough for me to change.
Portage is definitely cool. I think it is inspired by the ports system on FreeBSD, which also lets you choose different compile options, use a stable or newer version of software, etc
All I can see in that wallpaper is toilet paper.
Seeing everyone’s desktop tuned to just then is always neat. I’ve been working on a nice chaDWM install. I have really come to love Void Linux now that I am understanding the nuances of runit.
Nice. Up until recently I was an XFCE+Debian user myself! I’ve since migrated to using i3wm because I prefer keyboard-oriented workflows and i3 allows me to tile windows automatically as well as move them about/resize them using the keyboard.
Your i3 setup is gorgeous! I’ve used i3 (I also prefer keyboard oriented workflows), but unfortunately dmenu doesn’t find all my applications. For example, aisleriot, my favorite solitaire application does not appear through dmenu.
EDIT:
ULauncher functions under i3, but it looks hideous, with space around it which cuts through windows (or tiles I suppose), and leaves a plain black outline many pixels wide.If you have issues with dmenu but want something similar I would take a look at fuzzel it is a really nice alternative.
Thank you, I’ll look into it!
You can also try
rofias an alternative to dmenu. It’s very customizable and has lots of functionality that dmenu lacks while still being very simple and fast.Ah thanks :-) I’m not totally into the whole RICEing thing, but I did spend a little bit of time getting a nice terminal font, colours, and transparency to make it cosy to work in. My wallpaper is randomised on start-up.
That’s really surprising re dmenu! I wonder why that is? Thankfully most of what I run is either a terminal, or a browser so dmenu doesn’t get strained too much. I do use it integrated with
passthough.I’ve heard a lot of people use rofi instead of dmenu, if that helps? (Although I’m sure you’ve come across it).
Thanks, I’ll be sure to keep your suggestion in mind during my next random compulsion to switch to i3 (happens every couple of months).
Really neat, here is my arch linux sway desktop :)
Beautiful! I can’t say I’ve ever been a fan of Arch (not stable/reliable enough for me), but it has long been a curiosity of mine.
Hehe i forced myself to daily drive arch to learn more about linux, started with kde but soon switched to tilling window managers like awesome but soon i decided to switch to wayland to learn more. Using arch+wayland has been a challenge for sure lol but ive learn a lot. ( even taking the screenshot was hard lmao)
It’s actually been very stable for me. I avoid the really severe issues (that are extremely rare) by not updating it every single day. I usually update it once a week or so. Of course, it’s nowhere near as stable as Debian, but it is more than enough for a desktop in my opinion. If it ever does break, it almost always can be fixed by just booting to a new arch install disk and then using
chrootto fix whatever broke.
looks like the person who seemingly downvotes anyone not using Debian has struck again
least toxic downvoter
Neofetch output:
_,met$$$$$gg. REDACTED@REDACTEDsLaptop ,g$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$P. ------------ ,g$$P" """Y$$.". OS: Debian GNU/Linux 11 (bullseye) x86_64 ,$$P' `$$$. Host: HP Notebook ',$$P ,ggs. `$$b: Kernel: 5.10.0-21-amd64 `d$$' ,$P"' . $$$ Uptime: 15 hours, 35 mins $$P d$' , $$P Packages: 2534 (dpkg), 24 (flatpak) $$: $$. - ,d$$' Shell: bash 5.1.4 $$; Y$b._ _,d$P' Resolution: 1366x768 Y$$. `.`"Y$$$$P"' DE: Xfce 4.16 `$$b "-.__ WM: Xfwm4 `Y$$ Terminal: xfce4-terminal `Y$$. CPU: AMD A6-7310 APU with AMD Radeon R4 Graphics `$$b. Memory: 2216MiB / 3394MiB `Y$$b. CPU Usage: 32% `"Y$b._ Disk (/): 110G / 454G (26%) `""" Battery1: 100% [Full] Local IP: 192.168.1.209 Public IP: REDACTEDdebian is my favorite distro. I used to use stable for a a very long time. Now I use sid, and I’ve never had a problem
Out of all my years of distro-hopping, I always end up back at Debian. I just need the stability, anything else is extremely frustrating. Debian sid is still very stable in comparison to anything else, but I’ve never minded using older software anyway. As such, the slight boost in stability of using stable, is usually worthwhile. Furthermore the speed of a system with so little bloat is what dragged me to Linux and opensource anyway.
I used to not care about the older software on Stable. Stable+backports was perfect for me. Now with flatpaks and appimages it’s even better. On one machine I went through 3 major release updates with debian stable with 0 problems. It’s nice having a system that basically can’t break.
I tried out Sid and for more than a year now I haven’t had any issues. It is nice having newer software tbf.
More or less the same here, though I never switched to sid for longer than a few months. Flatpak chosen specifically on software I want a new feature on has made stable without backports plenty for me. After all, why care if all the software is newer, if I’ll only use the extra stuff on three or four packages? Older software (usually) runs faster on slower machines anyway, and sense the laptop referenced with the prior neofetch is the fastest machine in my household, that is an important factor.
yeah I agree with all of that. It’s also really remarkable how stable Debian is
If you have older hardware and want to try something new check out netbsd!
Sounds great! I’ll be sure to try it on an old netbook I have.
