I’m at the point in my Linux journey where I have settled into a stable system, configured 99.9% how I want it. Seeing diminishing returns on effort put into tweaking it. But I just keep looking at window managers. I have people who need me in the world but I just can’t stop looking at them. I don’t know what to do.
Every year or so I fire up a VM, install a window manager on it, realize I have no idea WTF I’m doing, and nuke the VM and go back to my regular KDE desktop.
Sweet! I’ve experimented with installing a few bits from gnome look but haven’t made any of my own. How difficult is it? I’ve managed to theme my favourite terminal applications though. A big part of my satisfaction is based on feeling, a large part of which is visual. Diehard instrumentalists may look down on me for it but I am unashamed and not alone.
Honestly, it’s way more convoluted and frustrating than it has any right to be. The only tools I found were cursor-toolbox which allows you to convert SVG templates to the correct set of PNGs and xcursorgen which converts the PNGs to actual cursor files. It took me several tries just get a working cursor set. Then I spent much much longer actually drawing and tweaking my theme using inkscape. It was certainly rewarding to get it working though. Now I smile every time I see the little “busy” animation.
I’m at the point in my Linux journey where I have settled into a stable system, configured 99.9% how I want it. Seeing diminishing returns on effort put into tweaking it. But I just keep looking at window managers. I have people who need me in the world but I just can’t stop looking at them. I don’t know what to do.
Every year or so I fire up a VM, install a window manager on it, realize I have no idea WTF I’m doing, and nuke the VM and go back to my regular KDE desktop.
Do not worry I’m daily driving a window manager and still do not know what I’m doing.
You should try a well-configured window manager to love them.
I have tried using i3wm with default settings and it is very far from the configured system
Try ArchCraft to understand
I’m in the same boat so I started getting my “tweaking” fix by making my own themes. Just got my first cursor theme working and it’s awesome!
Sweet! I’ve experimented with installing a few bits from gnome look but haven’t made any of my own. How difficult is it? I’ve managed to theme my favourite terminal applications though. A big part of my satisfaction is based on feeling, a large part of which is visual. Diehard instrumentalists may look down on me for it but I am unashamed and not alone.
Honestly, it’s way more convoluted and frustrating than it has any right to be. The only tools I found were cursor-toolbox which allows you to convert SVG templates to the correct set of PNGs and xcursorgen which converts the PNGs to actual cursor files. It took me several tries just get a working cursor set. Then I spent much much longer actually drawing and tweaking my theme using inkscape. It was certainly rewarding to get it working though. Now I smile every time I see the little “busy” animation.
You are a true martyr my friend and I feel you!
Same. The temptation is strong but I don’t know if it’ll be worth the time and effort when Xfce already works fine for me.
What do you use? I’m happy with i3 and haven’t looked at other window managers in a while.
GNOME lol!