Spent lots of time with Gnome 2.

In Dec 2024 I got hooked in Hyprland on Arch and have a cool rice for it. But I’ve tried KDE on desktop now with Parrot OS since Plasma is popular. Still need to find some cool dot files or rice it myself.

I’ve noticed SwayFX getting lots of love lately. I might use that as an option with Plasma but am afraid of conflicts. I’m excited about it since Linux has now officially replaced windows on my gaming rig, which is the very last MS computer left in my house.

  • cdzero@lemmy.ml
    0·
    2 months ago

    Cinnamon. I tried KDE but I didn’t like it. I saw a video where someone customised Cinnamon through settings and extensions so I’ve done a bit of that.

    • skaicats@piefed.caEnglish
      0·
      2 months ago

      I’ve actually gotten so used to the workflow I think I’m more productive on Niri+Nocalia now (especially on my laptop with a smaller screen). That said, when I’m using programs which assume I’m using a traditional window manager (usually games tbh, but sometimes electron apps as well), I do consider that it may be easier to just give in an use Plasma.

    • sakphul@discuss.tchncs.de
      0·
      2 months ago

      I would almost agree to this response. But there is one single Extension that I think is crucial: Appindicator. Without this things like Nextcloud or Synology Drive cannot be used propperly.

      I was leaning to also include copyous. But it is not absolutely mandatory.

  • Maerman@lemmy.world
    0·
    2 months ago

    I’m on Mango, and it’s amazing for me. It’s well documented, as well as extremely flexible. I love it.

    • ScoffingLizard@lemmy.dbzer0.comOP
      0·
      2 months ago

      I was on Mate back in the day since I did not have good enough computer to upgrade to Cinnamon. Used it for several years to finish Master’s thesis. It certainly gets the job done.

  • Veraxis@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    2 months ago

    KDE. I don’t even do much to customize it. I think it looks pretty good out of the box.

    • comrade_twisty@feddit.orgEnglish
      0·
      2 months ago

      The only thing I customize is to turn off the floating panel, I just can’t stand the small gap on the bottom and the sides. It just looks off to me.

      • wltr@discuss.tchncs.de
        0·
        2 months ago

        I’d like to compliment on it changing that when you open a full screen app. Yet, these tiny pixels look so little difference that it looks very much off to me indeed. And I’d prefer to have no dock at all. So I use Sway for myself. It’s that I interact with KDE sometimes.

  • A_norny_mousse@piefed.zipEnglish
    0·
    2 months ago

    Still on Openbox/Xorg. Inevitable is the switch to wayland, what is the closest equivalent?

    edit: for me, OB’s greates strength is having tons of options for manual tiling while still being a stacking window manager. Plus tons of keyboard shortcuts and inbuilt menus.

      • A_norny_mousse@piefed.zipEnglish
        0·
        2 months ago

        I’m aware of labwc.

        I wonder if people have experience with it, and would like to share it.

        It uses OB’s theme spec and all other familiar config files afaics, that’s good. Almost (? again, asking for experience) a drop-in replacement.

        I seem to remember there were one or two other candidates though.

        • IceVAN@beehaw.org
          0·
          2 months ago

          I’ve been using openbox for more than a decade and a half and 3 years ago I moved to wayland with labwc. The theme is compatible and the config syntax similar but you can’t just copy the openbox config and load it into labwc. The experience is VERY similar to openbox…but better. I’m not going back.

          • A_norny_mousse@piefed.zipEnglish
            0·
            2 months ago

            Thanks, sounds good. No paper cuts at all? (Not that openbox doesn’t have any)

            config syntax similar but you can’t just copy the openbox config and load it

            Sure; I’m not opposed to a migration process, it’s just that I have so much muscle memory with all my key- and mousebinds. But would you like to expand on this a little? I guess at the very least
            <openbox_config xmlns="http://openbox.org/3.4/rc">
            will be replaced with
            <labwc_config xmlns="http://labwc.org/x.x/rc">
            or some such?

            • IceVAN@beehaw.org
              0·
              2 months ago

              A little from my config:

              
<?xml version="1.0"?>
...
<core>
    <decoration>server</decoration>
    <gap>0</gap>
    <adaptiveSync>no</adaptiveSync>
    <reuseOutputMode>no</reuseOutputMode>
	<primarySelection>no</primarySelection>
	<allowTearing>no</allowTearing>
	<autoEnableOutputs>yes</autoEnableOutputs>
	<xwaylandPersistence>no</xwaylandPersistence>
  </core>
...
 <keybind key="A-Tab"><action name="NextWindow" /></keybind>
...
 <mousebind button="Right" action="Drag"><action name="Resize" /></mousebind>
...
<windowRule identifier="xfce4-appfinder" matchOnce="false" fixedPosition="yes" serverDecoration="no">
      <skipTaskbar>yes</skipTaskbar>
	  <skipWindowSwitcher>yes</skipWindowSwitcher>
	  <ignoreConfigureRequest>yes</ignoreConfigureRequest>
	  <fixedPosition>yes</fixedPosition>
      <action name="ToggleAlwaysOnTop"/>
      <action name="MoveToEdge" direction="up" snapwindows="false" />
      <action name="MoveToEdge" direction="right" snapwindows="false" />
    </windowRule>

              …etc etc.

    • First_Thunder@lemmy.zip
      0·
      2 months ago

      I hear that river wants to try to sort of become the Xorg of wayland (in the sense of providing a simpler interface to build a window manager upon, without needing the whole compositor)

        • juipeltje@lemmy.world
          0·
          2 months ago

          I think what he’s saying is that there might be more options coming for stacking compositors (if they haven’t been created already) since the new River framework makes it easier to create them

  • Telorand@reddthat.com
    0·
    2 months ago

    Niri + Noctalia shell. I find the scrolling tiles to be excellent for my workflow, and the desktop shell feels nice and polished. Plus, Niri supports the Wayland zwlr_layer_shell, which means I can finally use Wallpaper Engine; there’s even a Noctalia plugin for it.

    Niri has been great for gaming and streaming, so be sure to check it out if you haven’t.

    I would be hesitant to use anything but KWin with Plasma. They were designed together as a set (like Mutter and Gnome), and I suspect replacing the WM would be no small task.

    • wltr@discuss.tchncs.de
      0·
      2 months ago

      Do you mind elaborating on that Wallpaper Engine thing and also Natalia shell. What are they? I’m familiar with Niri, but never used it myself. (Not sure I like scrolling logic, I use barebones Sway.)

      • Calfpupa [she/her]@lemmy.mlEnglish
        0·
        2 months ago

        Noctalia is a Quickshell fork that’s preconfigured. It’s pretty solid, lightweight, and with the most Niri integration I’ve seen. Comes default in the Cachyos Niri config.

      • Telorand@reddthat.com
        0·
        2 months ago

        Noctalia is a fork of Quickshell, and it provides a bar, dock, background handling, plugins store, and easy settings menus to adjust everything. It feels nice and polished, and it’s got a lot of “nice to haves” covered. It also works with Sway! The scrolling logic is a Niri thing, so no need to worry about that.

        Wallpaper Engine is a tool hosted through Steam that allows people to have animated desktops, sometimes ones that have sound and even interactivity. The problem is that it’s 100% built to work with Windows only. Because it’s changing something on your system and not just drawing things on screen like a game, there’s really no way for Proton or Wine to help.

        And that’s what Linux Wallpaper Engine is for! It can take the wallpaper resources and apply them to window managers that support the zwlr_layer_shell protocol, which allows a z-positioning order for the background for Wayland clients. Noctalia has a plugin that makes that integration much easier to manage, so it feels like it’s part of the system rather than a hacky workaround.

    • ScoffingLizard@lemmy.dbzer0.comOP
      0·
      2 months ago

      So Hyprland with Plasma would be no bueno? Honestly, if I can get my dots right, tile some windows, and get the hotkeys set up similarly, it might be just as good.