17 ms·

Linux Desktop Setup

437 points by def- 8y ago

faustocarva 8y ago
Amazing amount of work spent in constructing an efficient workstation. Makes me wonder what i am i doing with only custom .dotfiles. Clapping my hands
oblio 8y ago
So his Linux desktop setup is basically the Linux terminal setup :)
hpaavola 8y ago
My Linux desktop setup at work is latest Ubuntu LTS + Sublime Text + Spotify + Docker. At home I use latest Ubuntu + Sublime Text + Spotify + Steam. If I ever need to reinstall Ubuntu at home or work, I'l go with the minimal installation option. I'm guessing that I get to go with the minimal installation when I buy/get new laptop, since there is no reason to do a fresh install otherwise.
kyranjamie 8y ago
Looks trivial to set up.
lostjohnny 8y ago
That's not a desktop setup. It's much more complicated than the workstation setup I use at work. A desktop setup is my Xiaomi laptop with Ubuntu 18.04 that I use as media caster or to browse amazon while on the couch. It works flawlessly, much better than the preinstalled Windows 10 in chinese.
- andrepd 8y ago
  Same laptop, I've opted for Linux Mint.
- dmos62 8y ago
  I don't see at all why you're saying it's not a desktop setup. It's obviously a workstation computer with media capabilities. The word desktop implies pretty much that. In contrast to desktop, there are portable computers and servers. Today the difference between portable and desktop amounts to just additional power management tools, so it's pretty much the same. So there's just workstation and server, ignoring Androids, Google Chrome laptops, etc. This is certainly not a server. As to the content itself, the insights, configs and tools listed are great. My setups have very similar objectives, but solving a lot of these mundane problems can mean days, so I'm definitely saving this for later.
  - PurpleRamen 8y ago
    > It's obviously a workstation computer with media capabilities. The word desktop implies pretty much that. What? No. A desktop is a computer sitting on the top of your desk. And on the software-side there is the Desktop Metaphor, which describes an interface that behaves like the top of your desk, with free arrangement of all meaning of your work. This article on the other side describes a workspace with multiple machines and mostly no free arrangement of work-elements. So it's not fullfilling the hardware-definition, and pretty weak on the software-definition. This article is clearly about a workspace that blows beyond the classical workspace-definition of a desktop. Which is good IMHO, but means we need better namings for such things, and even if it's just for the sake to distinguish different tools and workflows. We are now moving to integrate Mobile Devices like iOS&Android into our workspaces, and on Windows-tablets we have touch-interfaces which start to be very different from normal mouse&keyboard-interfaces. And then there is also the classical terminal-interface, which this article is very heavy leaning toward.
    - morganvachon 8y ago
      I don't understand the gatekeeping and deliberate misinformation in your post. > A desktop is a computer sitting on top of your desk. Besides the fact that the author indicated he's using a laptop hooked up to a 40" monitor, kind of necessitating the computer to be sitting on his desk, his use of "desktop" in general is referring to his everyday workflow. For some people, that's Windows and Windows specific apps. For others, it's macOS and its specific apps. For yet others, it's a Linux or BSD desktop environment, whether stock or customized. The fact that he's using a laptop as a workstation does not magically render his established work environment "mobile", and even if it did, he's still using a desktop environment of his own making. > This article on the other side describes a workspace with multiple machines and mostly no free arrangement of work-elements. Maybe we're reading different articles, but I see no mention whatsoever of what you're going on about. I see where he at one point mentions "multiple computers", but this in no way invalidates his desktop environment and software setup as violating some made-up rule about what is or isn't a "desktop". I currently use five computers at home not counting my iPhone: A HP EliteDesk set up as a Windows gaming system, a Dell PowerEdge T310 server running Slackware Linux, converted into a workstation by adding a GPU and sound card and tweaking the BIOS, a mac Mini for music production and general Mac-specific things, a Raspberry Pi 3B+ for experimenting with IoT, and a HP Elite X2 convertible laptop for quick tasks away from my desk and occasional use at work. Now, according to your logic apparently I can't possibly have a "desktop" setup because I use more than one computer, of more than one form factor, for more than one task at a time, and not always glued to my desk. That's total bullshit.
- jason_slack 8y ago
  Can you share which laptop you have from Xiaomi?
  - lostjohnny 8y ago
    Of course! It's a Xiaomi Air 12 I bought it almost 2 years ago, never had a problem It runs vanilla Ubuntu without a glitch The specs are not great, but it's a nice home laptop
  - solarkraft 8y ago
    I (not parent poster) have the first-gen 13" model (TM1613 A05)
- codemusings 8y ago
  What a gem of a comment. What is complicated about the setup? What makes you think he can't cast media or browse Amazon on his laptop while sitting on the couch?
  - lostjohnny 8y ago
    > What is complicated about the setup? Everything. > What makes you think he can't cast media or browse Amazon on his laptop while sitting on the couch? I never said he can't, it just took a lot more time for him than it took for me to do it. Are regular drivers going out for groceries tuning their engine to perfection everytime they need to go buy milk? That's what a desktop is all about, a computer sitting on a desktop dedicated to a worker, not a pro, and expert, a tuner, a nerd, a geek, someone who loves machine carnally. Just regular folks that know ho to do what they have to do and that's just it. I've been a Linux user for the past 15 years, I installed my first Slackware in 1996, but I wouldn't say my setup is desktop ready. I don't know how many of my 13 thousands coworkers would have been able to solve the problems I had with Debian and my Lenovo P-70 multi monitor setup. I'm sure many of them think I'm crazy spending so much time on it, when they have a problem they call IT and until IT doesn't solve it, they are not working, and are happier. That's a desktop computer.
    - codemusings 8y ago
      > Everything. Terrific non-answer. You seem to be projecting a lot. He never mentioned that it took him a long time to do anything. And just because he doesn't use a readymade workflow or a graphical user interface for some of his applications his setup is not a Desktop setup? > That's what a desktop is all about, a computer sitting on a desktop dedicated to a worker, not a pro, and expert, a tuner, a nerd, a geek, someone who loves machine carnally. This has to be the weirdest bikeshedding argument I've ever seen. The only reason I can think of why you're so insistent on this distinction is to brag. > I don't know how many of my 13 thousands coworkers would have been able to solve the problems I had with Debian and my Lenovo P-70 multi monitor setup. Yup. There it is.
      - 8y ago
- suprfnk 8y ago
  What makes you the gatekeeper of what constitutes a desktop setup?
  - oblio 8y ago
    I don't know about him, but technically, the definition of a "desktop" kind of "gatekeeps" what that specific word means: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desktop_metaphor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desktop_metaphor
    - cmiles74 8y ago
      When I think of a "desktop" computer, I think of a form-factor suitable for placement on a desk. I can stretch that to include a machine you keep under the desk or even a laptop that is attached to an external keyboard and mouse. I don't think about the software installed on that computer at all. Also: desktop computers, in my opinion, pre-date the "desktop metaphor" and GUI environments.
      - oblio 8y ago
        > Also: desktop computers, in my opinion, pre-date the "desktop metaphor" and GUI environments I kind of doubt that. When the metaphor was introduced by Alan Kay in 1970, there were no desktop computers. If you consider microcomputers the first desktop computers, which you should since their predecessors, minicomputers, were "cabinet" computers, then the Micral N in 1973 would be the first "desktop" computer.
        cmiles74 8y ago
        I think your splitting hairs on this one. The Micral N also didn't have a GUI environment and it was clearly destined for the top of someone's desk. In my opinion that makes it a desktop computer.[0] When Alan Kay was working on GUI environments, it was on equipment that pretty much nobody could access, it was very expensive and few units were sold. Still, it's interesting to note that the Altair was not a desktop computer that could literally sit on a desk: it came in a cabinet that was meant to sit on the floor.[1] ;-) The irony! When Apple released the Macintosh, I believe most people were interacting with desktop computers that lacked a GUI desktop environment. Specifically I was thinking of the IBM PC XT [2], although, as you note, there was more to the field than just that. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micral https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micral [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xerox_Alto https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xerox_Alto [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Personal_Computer_XT https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Personal_Computer_XT
- Yetanfou 8y ago
  It certainly is a 'desktop', it might not be yours but it bears resemblance to mine. The 'desktop' metaphor might have been equated with complicated all-integrated environments like Windows, MacOS, Gnome and KDE but in the end it comes down on something-on-a-computer which provides a place to work and access to the resources the computer has to offer. Like physical desktops these come in al shapes and sizes ranging from an empty slab with a lamp and not much more to ornate baroque monstrosities with a zillion drawers, Rolodexes, mail-in-out-boxes, staple machines, paper dispensers, coffee machines, vortex portals and flux capacitors. Some ascribe to the diction that 'perfection is reached when there is nothing left to take away', depending on your starting point you either end up with a lightweight environment like Xmonad (et al) plus a few tools or at a lobotomised full desktop like Gnome.
  - lostjohnny 8y ago
    > It certainly is a 'desktop', it might not be yours but it bears resemblance to mine It does resemble mine, either. In fact I'm not a desktop user. > or at a lobotomised full desktop like Gnome That's super not nice. Regular people want a tool, not something you fall in love with and spend most of the day refining. Most people have hobbies outside of the tech world, they will spend hours growing their gardens, but couldn't care less about "keyboard focuesed" or "run programs in the terminal" or "I quickly noticed the huge compile time of KDE". If they can't use it properly, like they are used to, it's broken for them. And they're not wrong.
    - likeclockwork 8y ago
      Not everything is about those people.
- arendtio 8y ago
  Well, I would say yours is not a desktop setup ;-) I mean, desktop usage is meant for people who work with computers. They spend several hours a day in front of them and therefore require ergonomic chairs and the like. If you want to use your laptop on your couch, that is completely okay, but you are probably not doing some of the things people at desks are doing (like decrypting compilers errors etc.).
  - lostjohnny 8y ago
    > I mean, desktop usage is meant for people who work with computers Practically everyone works with computers. > They spend several hours a day in front of them and therefore require ergonomic chairs and the like. That includes almost everybody. > like decrypting compilers errors etc I do that on my couch. Desktop setup is a computer set up for desktop use, AKA, _for regular people everyday use_, that come bundled at most with some productivity suite (usually Office or Office clones). Xmonad is not desktop ready, on the contrary, it harms Linux penetration on the desktop segment. Ubuntu is a desktop setup, Fedora is a desktop setup, ElementaryOS is a desktop setup (etc. etc. etc.) If you are compiling, you are already a pro user. A desktop user doesn't fight with the default configuration, a desktop user adapt to the default configuration. They might change the desktop background and WM theme, and that's all.
    - vcavallo 8y ago
      You’re both quite silly. Do you see your comments?
delta1 8y ago
@def- small typo > Since i’s a bitmap font
- benj111 8y ago
  To be fair, the apostrophe indicates missing letters, so they've just missed another letter, and the meaning is clear.
  - delta1 8y ago
    Indeed the meaning is clear, but I was letting the author know about it
- def- 8y ago
  Thanks, fixed!
danilocesar 8y ago
it's always surprises me that linux developers still care about ctags... There are more powerful solutions and easier to setup (YouCompleteMe, for example). I was completly sold out when I tried for the fist time a few years ago. I was pretty happy to drop all my ctags's related scripts.
- def- 8y ago
  I use YouCompleteMe at work for large projects (and it still sometimes struggles with looking up some symbols), but for my rather simple personal projects ctags has always been good enough.
- tom_ 8y ago
  ctags is pretty good for languages it doesn’t support. You can add a new regex-based language definition from the command line.
- arendtio 8y ago
  Recently I came across https://langserver.org https://langserver.org To me, it looks like an upcoming solution to the 'code completion' problem.
  - jamesgeck0 8y ago
    Yep! First class Typescript support makes it great for Javascript development too.
ageofwant 8y ago
r/unixporn can be a good source for ricing inspiration. I can recommend the unaboomer's rice vids for a fun evening https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2eYFnH61tmytImy1mTYvhA https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2eYFnH61tmytImy1mTYvhA
Lapsa 8y ago
I'm heading in similar direction. also using Arch Linux, VIM. do like i3 & tmux, using suckless terminal (I like terminal in true colors). and tend to favor default settings everywhere unless really really forced. installation takes couple hours (IF you know how) - lasts for eternity.
- adambyrtek 8y ago
  Most modern terminals support true color now [1]. My current favourite is Alacritty because of the combination of speed (hardware acceleration), simplicity (no menus or dialogs), and configurability (including key bindings) with a simple plain-text file that can be kept in version control [2]. [1] https://gist.github.com/XVilka/8346728 https://gist.github.com/XVilka/8346728 [2] https://github.com/adambyrtek/dotfiles https://github.com/adambyrtek/dotfiles
fxfan 8y ago
In similar vein but vastly different: Firefox + Tridactyl i3 + i3bar + dmenu + rofi dunst Powershell instead of zsh No desktop manager
- neilsimp1 8y ago
  I have PowerShell installed on Linux, but I don't ever use it. Is that your main shell? How does that work out for you on Linux?
  - fxfan 8y ago
    It's more powerful but lacks a bit in interactive features. I use zsh for regular getting around and opening stuff but anything that needs logic I do in pwsh.
mseidl 8y ago
I'm a veteran of Linux for 23 years, and been Windows free for 15 years or so. I love Linux. I love my lightweight i3 setup. Neovim, neomutt, weechat, ncmpcpp...
- olavgg 8y ago
  I've been using Linux every day for 15 years now. I love Linux desktop, not perfect, but neither is Windows. I started with Gnome 2, jumped over to KDE 4 and now KDE 5. Very happy with how well and smooth everything works.
- virtualwhys 8y ago
  > I love my lightweight i3 setup It's been so many years and I often take for granted what's before my eyes -- i3 is solidly in the "pry it from my cold dead hands" category.
  - xyproto 8y ago
    Until you switch to sway, which is basically i3, but for Wayland. Good bye X11!
    - josteink 8y ago
      Sway has too many bleeding edge dependencies last time I checked, so it’s hard to get built and running on a “conventional” desktop-oriented desktop like Ubuntu. The author has iirc even actively discouraged Ubuntu and Debian from packaging it, because he doesn’t want distro users creating bug reports on older versions (ie noise) for bugs already fixed in git master. Once sway lands for regular distro-users, I’ll be there. For now I’ll stick to i3.
      - matt-snider 8y ago
        Sway is very close to a 1.0 release, 1.0-rc4 was just released: https://github.com/swaywm/sway/issues/1735 https://github.com/swaywm/sway/issues/1735 It is and has been quite stable as a regular user on the sway-git version for awhile, but I can't comment on what it's like for Ubuntu or Debian.
zaggynl 8y ago
Cool setup, being able to mold your Linux desktop into what you need is a good thing! I'm happy on Ubuntu LTS with a couple PPAs for latest mesa and some other applications. More recreational though, gaming through Steam's Proton or Lutris, big thanks to Valve for sponsoring wine, dxvk an various other bits and pieces!
jason_slack 8y ago
I've been using Ubuntu on an Thinkpad L460 for about 9 months now full-time. While there is a curve and I'm always looking for new ways to solve problems. What running Linux has done for me that I didn't expect is to make sure all my code plays nice with other projects. Example: I've got processes that make models out of stock data and does backtesting. Even though I use my own custom code for a lot of things, I make sure that in the end if someone wants to dump into numpy/pandas they can in just 2 lines. I started out with Linux to use a free hand-me-down laptop and I stayed when it was powerful and I could still make a living coding with it.
afraca 8y ago
Slightly offtopic: the author says the background of https://hisham.hm/htop/ https://hisham.hm/htop/ shows live statistics, that's not the case as far as I can tell, just 4 pre-recorded images shown successively. Ontopic: Quite impressive setup. For me it would be too strictly regulated for a comfortable use, though technically I like it. To each it's own.
- amdavidson 8y ago
  From the htop page: Thanks to Alexander Waldeck for the idea of having htop itself as the page background! His page actually presents a live htop session -- mine is just an animated gif with a few frames stolen from his page. :-) The drunken-security.at page is offline as far as I can tell, but as I recall it he eventually had to drop the htop background as people were DDOSing him to see the results.
p4bl0 8y ago
I have been using a very similar setup for 12 years now. In the past few months I've been wondering what the Linux experience is like for newcomers and "normal" users. I am considering doing a clean install with a full fledged modern desktop environment such as KDE. I may not be able to manage such an environment, I fear that it's too constrained compared to controlling everything that runs on my computer. But I'd like to try. Has anyone done a switch from very minimal keyboard first lightweight environment to a modern desktop environment? If so, what was it like?
- johnchristopher 8y ago
  I did. It feels good. The interactions are smoother, file managers are more useful. Had to tweak some shortcuts to emulate some moves I am used to in tiling managers. I went from awesome to KDE (kubuntu 18.04lts). I do webdev, cm and reports at the moment. I believe the terminal only approach suits most sysadmin, devops and the like ; not your run off the mill wordpress dev.
  - p4bl0 8y ago
    In my current setup, I do not even have a file manager installed. I just use the coreutils (cd, ls, mv, cp, rm, etc.). I'm not doing webdev, I mostly program in different languages (Racket, OCaml, C, and Python mostly) and write a lot of LaTeX. Most of my time is spent in Emacs (it's also were I'm doing my emails) and Firefox. In addition to graphical file managers, I'm also wondering what it's like to use a mail client such as Thunderbird, Kmail, or Evolution.
    - johnchristopher 8y ago
      Graphical file managers are really good at managing pictures and random arbitrary selections. I am not using mail clients anymore, only webmail (I have a thunderbird install at work that is used as some kind of back-up/dumpster). I don't spend a lot of time in email or calendars though.
  - Symmetry 8y ago
    If you want both useful features and good shortcuts you can run a tiling window manager within a desktop environment.
Insanity 8y ago
I've been using Linux at home without any windows installation for a couple of years, and about 11 years in dual-boot. But my installation resembles a 'windows' computer much more. I use xfce, but most of my time is spend in a terminal with tmux running for the window configuration. Though, I do have some 'snaps' installed. (Discord, Spotify). So I'm not running entirely inside of the terminal. For me, this balance is perfect, for any serious work I can just use the terminal/tmux/vim setup, and for relaxing I just have spotify, discord, youtube,.. open on a second monitor. As for distro, I'm running Debian. I've tried a few others (openSUSE, Fedora, Ubuntu, #!) and by far #! was my favourite for some time, but when it discontinued I went for Debian. I should check out BunsenLabs :)
pojzon 8y ago
Im surprised there were no changes to the default git diff and merge tools. This is one of the first things i do on a new setup, to chane them to use "meld".
- fookitty 8y ago
  That's probably because he uses vim
  - pojzon 8y ago
    You can change those tools to any editor. Meld is just a popular option.
emgee_1 8y ago
Similarly: OS: openbsd (was slackware) WM: cwm Mail, file mgt, authoring: emacs Agenda calendaring: orgmode Writing: latex Statistics: R ;-)
- mruts 8y ago
  I really love cwm. It’s a really nice window manager. I used to use Emacs a lot too, but now I just use mg for simple file editing and IntelliJ. I switched from OpenBSD awhile ago to Linux because 1) OpenBSD is dog slow and 2) a lot of software doesn’t work right with it. However, it’s probably the nicest operating system I’ve ever used.
agurk 8y ago
He has got a nice setup, especially as he's able to choose all of his own software. I've been using Linux as a primary OS since the 90's but I still need to interact with Windows for work. I used to dual boot my work laptop, which was made easier by Office 365 webapps becoming more usable, but still there were lots of gaps. This summer I got a new work laptop, and just cloned the existing M.2 drive onto a bigger, faster one I purchased. Now I run the work laptop as a VM image through QEMU/KVM on top of my regular Debian desktop. This works remarkably well, and has improved my workflow a lot as I now never have to dual boot. Windows even runs faster this way, due to the faster M.2 drive. I'm not sure how I'm going to explain it to the IT department if I ever have to get the laptop repaired though.
- Phenix88be 8y ago
  > I've been using Linux as a primary OS since the 90's but I still need to interact with Windows for work. My current job force me to use a Windows computer. You know, it's the company policy. Well it's the last time I take a job witch doesn't let me control my computer and use GNU/Linux. It feel like I m using the wrong tool for my job. Like use a stone to put nail instead of a hammer.
  - sfopdxnonstop 8y ago
    LOL I have a "Don't Want" section on my resume that says no Windows. And I found such a job! I program on a Mac.
    - Phenix88be 8y ago
      This is a really good idea !
- morganvachon 8y ago
  > I'm not sure how I'm going to explain it to the IT department if I ever have to get the laptop repaired though. Maybe I'm misunderstanding your setup, but could you not clone the Windows VM partitions to the old M.2 drive (I'm assuming you kept it), swap it back into the machine, make it bare metal bootable, and hand it to IT like that? That way your larger M.2 drive with your whole setup stays safe and secure, and IT is none the wiser.
Vinnl 8y ago
Everyone here scoring serious brownie points with their advanced setups. And here I am, having used Linux for my personal setup for 15 years, using pre-installed Ubuntu on a practically default GNOME desktop. It's wonderful that I can do that and be satisfied with that, without significantly hampering the possibility of advanced setups like the ones here. Despite all the systemd's, PulseAudio's and whatnot's, the customisability is still far greater than it is on OS X and Windows, and we can sometimes fail to appreciate that.
- ktpsns 8y ago
  Absolutely second that. I also had my nerd times when I dedicated every free minute to Gentoo compiling, or to configure my screenrc, Xorg.conf, make menuconfig or whatever was in fashion. But in the end, it's an OS, a GUI, it's the basis for getting real work done. I used xfce, GNOME, KDE, it all gets the job done. But somehow I can no more get enthusiastic about spending hours for configuring a tiling WM like Xmonad. I just cannot seem the benefit behind the steep learning curve. And I use my touchpad and my trackpoint. Sorry for that...
  - perttir 8y ago
    This is why most of people love i3 as tiling wm. Just put it in top of gnome/xfce/whatever, run the first installation wizard and you are done.
    - karussell 8y ago
      On Gnome I can use "Super key" + left key if I need multiple aligned windows on my screen. Can you still convince me to try i3 :) ?
      - opan 8y ago
        You can change window focus from the keyboard, have more than two equally-sized windows, split in both directions, control the wm via i3-msg commands, autostart programs easily.
0x38B 8y ago
Off topic, but I really enjoyed his post about commuting to work by bike[1]. I was in Krakow, Poland, and getting around by bike was a joy. Unfortunately, here in Ukraine drivers are very aggressive and the infrastructure for biking is just not in place. 1: https://hookrace.net/blog/cycling-to-work/ https://hookrace.net/blog/cycling-to-work/
- antongribok 8y ago
  The video of the small airfield on that page is awesome! Reminds me of Gibraltar Airport: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58jaCJ5i9hU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58jaCJ5i9hU
  - def- 8y ago
    Indeed, I'm not even mad when I have to interrupt my commute to let a plane land or take off. Fun to watch every time.
dewijones92 8y ago
awesome setup
- scbrg 8y ago
  Clearly you didn't read the article. It's an xmonad setup ;-)
  - arendtio 8y ago
    For those who don't understand: https://awesomewm.org https://awesomewm.org
psynapse 8y ago
Nice setup. A while back I moved to Arch with Xmonad, dmenu, tmux etc, but for about a year now, my workstation has been the same tools on top of Ubuntu Server. I have an Ansible playbook that I can apply to a fresh install and have almost my whole working environment ready to go - just a few things I haven't got around to including/automating. The great thing about running this kind of setup is that you need a deeper understanding of Linux to do all the things that you would otherwise rely on a fully-fledged DE to do for you. For me, this has translated into greater fluency on servers, because my daily driver more closely resembles one.
- brightball 8y ago
  I use Ubuntu + Ansible too and love it.
- vivab0rg 8y ago
  My setup is Ubuntu Budgie and i3 for hardcore sessions, but I also have been using Ansible even for configuring my desktop with great success. It's really convenient when getting new hardware or doing a reinstall.
pi-rat 8y ago
It's been about 10 years since I used linux on the desktop. I notice this post on the front page and think: "Great! Let's have a look at what a modern linux desktop can look like.." Oh.. It looks exactly like running a high resolution VGA-mode console with tmux and no X. :P (Probably very effective though!)
- the_af 8y ago
  That's not a modern Linux desktop setup. For that, you'll need to see the default install of an up to date distro. Spoilers: it looks like the desktop of any modern OS. For example, GNOME resembles OS X.
- upofadown 8y ago
  Over the years I have been going more and more towards the text interface side. It turned out that very few things are inherently graphical. If you know how to use a shell and a text editor you have the opportunity to do everything in a very straightforward way. That way can be very seductive as it never changes all that much. You can go decades without having to learn anything significantly different. The world of the big time desktop environment is still finding its way. It has been a mostly a bunch of arbitrary changes so far so for now at least I choose the simple way.
- sevensor 8y ago
  Eye candy remains available. One of the things I love about Linux on the desktop is that you're free to use that stuff or not, according to personal taste. And personally, I find that eye candy reduces the space available for text, which is much more information-dense. A screenshot from my machine would look much like the one in the article.
  - jolmg 8y ago
    > I find that eye candy reduces the space available for text Not all eye-candy does that. Some years ago, because I missed having some eye-candy, I installed a compositor, made my windows translucent and got them to do opening and closing animations. I also put a screensaver as a moving background. It looked very cool and was just as information dense as it was originally. However, with so much eye-candy, it was hard to focus on the content and I felt my eyes strained. I ended up feeling much better when I turned it all off. Right now, I don't even have a background, but I find information-dense tiling-wm setups have their own aesthetics. If you asked me what looked cooler / better / more usable, a "modern" GUI (like Windows, OSX, or Ubuntu's default) or a tiling-wm setup with mainly terminal windows, I'd have to say it's the latter.
Arbalest 8y ago
I recently saw a thing about xmonad not under any circumstances being ported to wayland, due to its very high level of integration with X. Which to me read as, would require a rewrite rather than there can be no successor. Still, someone does have to actually put in the work.
javipas 8y ago
I'm always kind of amazed at this kind of desktop setups, and I guess they're not suitable for lots of people for the simple reason that most users have a "consumer" relationship with computers and not a "producer" one. My biggest question here for people with this kind of text setup would be: don't you surf the web? Do you use then lynx or another text web browser? What about services and platforms that are designed from scratch with images and video as a prominent part of that UI? (Twitter, Facebook, Amazon store for example)? I guess you simply switch to a visual browser and some visual tool to play video (vlc, mplayer), but I'm curious and I wonder if that text/keyboard mode can be satisfying or convincing for users that are used on the traditional visual UI with windows, icons and the mouse paradigm. I see the advantages here (OP mentions some of them), but I wonder if the trade offs for the normal user are to big to work in this kind of setup. Who would you recommend this to?
- jstanley 8y ago
  It's not all-or-nothing. Just because you use a tiling window manager and like to operate it with the keyboard doesn't mean you can't use your mouse any more. I used to use i3, and I used Firefox for browsing. I used the keyboard to layout the windows where it was more convenient, but I clicked on buttons with a mouse when that was more convenient. I now use the standard Ubuntu setup, not for any particular reason, just because it's the default. I often miss being able to conveniently layout terminal windows with just a few keystrokes. Trying to keep terminal windows neatly tiled with a non-tiling window manager is so annoying that I don't even bother.
  - javipas 8y ago
    That makes perfect sense, of course. The way the author speaks about that setup could make someone guess that he does everything in text mode. It would help to add information about those other user cases in which the mouse and a visual app comes forward.
  - karussell 8y ago
    > I often miss being able to conveniently layout terminal windows You should be able to do that using the "Super key" + e.g. left or right
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
vpcsilva 8y ago
Really nice setup. I'm using ubuntu for a little while and I'm hooked with the idea of deeply customizing a linux setup to be energy efficient and highly productive.
wycy 8y ago
> I quickly noticed the huge compile time of KDE, which made it a no-go for me Is compile time of the desktop environment really a discriminating factor?
- 24gttghh 8y ago
  10-15 years ago? I'd say yes.
- sfopdxnonstop 8y ago
  No. It's a virtue signal. Which is fine for him, just not a value shared by you and me.
Uplink 8y ago
How does your setup work with a second monitor that comes and goes? Use case: I have a laptop that I take everywhere for me, but I plug into a second monitor while at work. I also use multiple desktops, and this pattern is sometimes causing windows to jump to another desktop when disconnecting the monitor.
- jbjorge 8y ago
  I had the same issue using unity/gnome on a laptop with 1-3 monitors. After I switched to i3 I was forced to set the monitor config manually with xrandr. I set up keyboard shortcuts for switching between 1-3 monitors. This fixed all the issues with automatic window placement since the window manager no longer tries to do this in an automatic fashion. Tiling window managers definitely have a learning curve, but after I spent a weekend switching to one, I can't see myself ever wanting to go back to floating windows.
- Symmetry 8y ago
  My setup isn't the exact same as his but I've never had any problems plugging in a projector on my XMonad laptop. In the XMonad schema windows are always associated with one of the 9 workspaces and each screen displays one workspace with the windows all scaled to fit nicely in the display. When you unplug a screen the windows on the associated workspace stay on that workspace and don't go anywhere else.
- minieggs 8y ago
  I have two bash scripts that set things appropriately -- laptop.sh and desktop.sh. Xrandr, xinput, xset things. There's probably a better way to handle this but it's not inconvenient enough to make me figure it out (or duckduckgo it).
_e 8y ago
The author mentions the loss of vim-like web browser controls when the Pentadactyl extension didn't convert over to the webextensions api. You get the vim functionality back with the following extensions: Firefox -- Vim Vixen (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/vim-vixen/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/vim-vixen/) Chrome -- cVim (https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/cvim/ihlenndgcmojhcghmfjfneahoeklbjjh https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/cvim/ihlenndgcmojh...)
- mgbmtl 8y ago
  A bit tangential, but would you know if there is an extension that would provide Vim bindings only in textfields? I really miss not being able to use regular expressions (or simple search) in a plain text input.
  - davewongillies 8y ago
    Wasavi does exactly what you want: http://appsweets.net/wasavi/ http://appsweets.net/wasavi/ https://github.com/akahuku/wasavi https://github.com/akahuku/wasavi
    - mgbmtl 8y ago
      wow, this extension is awesome! Thank you!
- jamesgeck0 8y ago
  The Firefox Vimium port is also pretty decent. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/vimium-ff/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/vimium-ff/
- tobeportable 8y ago
  Firefox -- Tridactyl
- ayoisaiah 8y ago
  I would also like to mention Surfing Keys which is what I use in Chrome and Firefox: https://github.com/brookhong/Surfingkeys https://github.com/brookhong/Surfingkeys
moocowtruck 8y ago
linux user/dev here since 1995, few years ago went back to windows.. never looked back.. happier now I never have to worry about shit not working and just do my kernel dev in different ways. I'm no longer interested in tons of desktop config either, more interested in apps that can do more for me, with less of me interacting with the computer to make that happen
- rmujica 8y ago
  I've been developing on Windows for the past year, from a mixed OS X / Linux background, and it has been a seamless experience, the only things I miss are the ease of installing packages like Node or Redis or Postgres, but those are done only the first time I boot up a new Windows installation so the pain is amortized in the time I spend not worrying about random lockups or drivers not working.
adrianrocamora 8y ago
Even though Pentadactyl is not under active development anymore, I'm pretty happy with Vim-Vixen. It doesn't have "caret mode" (from what I can tell) but the switch was very smooth. There are also a lot of other options for vi-browsing for Firefox now.
- vivab0rg 8y ago
  Vimium is my favourite because its just good enough and it also works on Chrome.
accnumnplus1 8y ago
Mine is tmux/vim, and firefox. If someone changed the rest of it, I'd think something looked a little odd, but I'm not entirely sure if I'm using Mint Mate or Mint Cinnamon.
Symmetry 8y ago
Once upon a time I ran a very minimal setup with using awesome. Tiling windows were great but I found I missed some things that Gnome had done for me. So I'm back on Gnome but replaced Metacity with XMonad, which was a surprisingly easy change. That was back in 2012. Since then there's a lot of churn in Ubuntu with first Unity then Gnome 3. But it hasn't taken that much work to keep everything trucking along, especially thanks to gekkio's PPA that now does most of the work in getting xmonad integrated with Gnome. I might change one or two things every year, moving from gnome terminal to kitty recently, for instance, but I'm happy with my setup and it's served me well. https://github.com/aclough/dotfiles https://github.com/aclough/dotfiles
- clinta 8y ago
  I do something similar, but running plasma, replacing kwin with i3. I think a solid desktop environment with a tiling window manager is the best of both worlds.
jccalhoun 8y ago
Every time I have to use the slow windows computers at the college I teach at I wish they would put a lightweight linux on them. I wouldn't go full command line but all I'm doing is a browser and word processing. A chromeos-like experience would be fine. Of course what really kills my work computer is the anti-virus. I f I could just disable that then the computer would be a lot more usable.
- duxup 8y ago
  I think a lot of places are finding that for them, a ChromeOS experience is all they need. So many places are just running a webapp on a number of their computers, and that's it.... generally for many tasks ChromeOS is all they need.
- ForHackernews 8y ago
  Can you just boot off a live USB? I used to do that on lab computers at my university.
  - jccalhoun 8y ago
    I was doing that for a couple months but the tech guy detected it and told me not to do it...
    - ForHackernews 8y ago
      Your university has a more paranoid or more competent IT department than mine did.
- pfranz 8y ago
  I was super happy when about 10 years ago I went to the local public library near my parent's house and they had installed Linux onto their card-catalog workstations. I hope it worked out for them. I know it was more likely to perform better than another OS on the same hardware.
htor 8y ago
this is a terminal, not a desktop. and it's really great at being that.
- cmiles74 8y ago
  I disagree, I think that a terminal implies connection to a larger computer that is doing most of the work. In this case all of the work is being done on the local machine. I do agree that this person has many terminal sessions open, but they are also running Firefox, playing music, etc.
mruts 8y ago
I use cwm (initially from OpenBSD) and it’s pretty great. Zenburn terminal colors with anti-aliased Consolas as my font. I don’t understand why someone would prefer bitmapped fonts vs ttf. They really hurt my eyes and look god awful...
sirusdas 8y ago
Amazing article!
FerretFred 8y ago
This is great fun. I'm running a very similar setup on a Raspberry Pi Zero W. I can plug it into an HDMI screen to start it up but then I can just run it headless via SSH.The "disk" size is 8Gb and my setup occupies 1.6Gb. 12 hours battery life with a 6000mA/Hr battery...
jpmattia 8y ago
Background: Started using vtwm back in the early 90s, then on linux once it became viable. I now have a muscle memory associated with switching and manipulating virtual desktops to the point that I can't even tell you what keys I'm hitting without thinking about it. Whenever a linux-windows-setup post appears on the HN or reddit front page, I look at it with interest, and then realize that there's no way I'd achieve any productivity gains in a reasonable time. So maybe the moral of the story is: Choose correctly the first time, because you might be using your wm until you become an old guy/gal too set in your ways to even think about switching.
crimsonalucard 8y ago
I'm not gonna lie windows and osx wins on all fronts in terms of useability. I only use linux because of the server software and bash interface. Post like these are almost masturbatory in the sense of "look how complicated much more complicated my setup is then yours." Dude let's be real.
mixmastamyk 8y ago
Ubuntu Mate FTW, hit the tweak control panel and dark theme, done.
jancsika 8y ago
> rem -m -b1 -q -cuc12 -w$(($(tput cols)+1)) | sed -e "s/\f//g" | less Regarding composability: Suppose I want to add the following to that calendar: 1. two little emojis (or ASCII art) at the top to scroll among months. Bound to left/right arrow keys, and also clickable with mouse. This is a common feature of the calendar widgets I've seen. 2. clickable mutable daily content. So if I peruse my calendar and spot an error I can click to select, fix it, then click off it to update it. Can this be achieved only using shell scripting?
tutfbhuf 8y ago
Try tmux, it works very nice together with vim. I can also recommend polybar.
satysin 8y ago
Great read. Only thing missing was the hardware. I am always interested to see what kind of hardware people are running on.
- p2t2p 8y ago
  It says Thinkpad x200
  - satysin 8y ago
    Doh how did I miss that! Bit older than I was expecting. I had assumed a ThinkPad T series. Maybe a T420 with the 1440x900 resolution.
- def- 8y ago
  https://hookrace.net/blog/broken-hardware-fixes-hacks-8-years/ https://hookrace.net/blog/broken-hardware-fixes-hacks-8-year... https://hookrace.net/blog/new-hardware-hacks/ https://hookrace.net/blog/new-hardware-hacks/
purplezooey 8y ago
Wish there were a terminal calendar program that could sync with O365.
maxmayer 8y ago
is there other desktop wtup tips?

437 points by def- 8y ago

Amazing amount of work spent in constructing an efficient workstation. Makes me wonder what i am i doing with only custom .dotfiles. Clapping my hands

oblio 8y ago

So his Linux desktop setup is basically the Linux terminal setup :)

hpaavola 8y ago

My Linux desktop setup at work is latest Ubuntu LTS + Sublime Text + Spotify + Docker. At home I use latest Ubuntu + Sublime Text + Spotify + Steam. If I ever need to reinstall Ubuntu at home or work, I'l go with the minimal installation option. I'm guessing that I get to go with the minimal installation when I buy/get new laptop, since there is no reason to do a fresh install otherwise.

kyranjamie 8y ago

Looks trivial to set up.

lostjohnny 8y ago

That's not a desktop setup. It's much more complicated than the workstation setup I use at work. A desktop setup is my Xiaomi laptop with Ubuntu 18.04 that I use as media caster or to browse amazon while on the couch. It works flawlessly, much better than the preinstalled Windows 10 in chinese.

andrepd 8y ago
Same laptop, I've opted for Linux Mint.
dmos62 8y ago
I don't see at all why you're saying it's not a desktop setup. It's obviously a workstation computer with media capabilities. The word desktop implies pretty much that. In contrast to desktop, there are portable computers and servers. Today the difference between portable and desktop amounts to just additional power management tools, so it's pretty much the same. So there's just workstation and server, ignoring Androids, Google Chrome laptops, etc. This is certainly not a server. As to the content itself, the insights, configs and tools listed are great. My setups have very similar objectives, but solving a lot of these mundane problems can mean days, so I'm definitely saving this for later.
- PurpleRamen 8y ago
  > It's obviously a workstation computer with media capabilities. The word desktop implies pretty much that. What? No. A desktop is a computer sitting on the top of your desk. And on the software-side there is the Desktop Metaphor, which describes an interface that behaves like the top of your desk, with free arrangement of all meaning of your work. This article on the other side describes a workspace with multiple machines and mostly no free arrangement of work-elements. So it's not fullfilling the hardware-definition, and pretty weak on the software-definition. This article is clearly about a workspace that blows beyond the classical workspace-definition of a desktop. Which is good IMHO, but means we need better namings for such things, and even if it's just for the sake to distinguish different tools and workflows. We are now moving to integrate Mobile Devices like iOS&Android into our workspaces, and on Windows-tablets we have touch-interfaces which start to be very different from normal mouse&keyboard-interfaces. And then there is also the classical terminal-interface, which this article is very heavy leaning toward.
  - morganvachon 8y ago
    I don't understand the gatekeeping and deliberate misinformation in your post. > A desktop is a computer sitting on top of your desk. Besides the fact that the author indicated he's using a laptop hooked up to a 40" monitor, kind of necessitating the computer to be sitting on his desk, his use of "desktop" in general is referring to his everyday workflow. For some people, that's Windows and Windows specific apps. For others, it's macOS and its specific apps. For yet others, it's a Linux or BSD desktop environment, whether stock or customized. The fact that he's using a laptop as a workstation does not magically render his established work environment "mobile", and even if it did, he's still using a desktop environment of his own making. > This article on the other side describes a workspace with multiple machines and mostly no free arrangement of work-elements. Maybe we're reading different articles, but I see no mention whatsoever of what you're going on about. I see where he at one point mentions "multiple computers", but this in no way invalidates his desktop environment and software setup as violating some made-up rule about what is or isn't a "desktop". I currently use five computers at home not counting my iPhone: A HP EliteDesk set up as a Windows gaming system, a Dell PowerEdge T310 server running Slackware Linux, converted into a workstation by adding a GPU and sound card and tweaking the BIOS, a mac Mini for music production and general Mac-specific things, a Raspberry Pi 3B+ for experimenting with IoT, and a HP Elite X2 convertible laptop for quick tasks away from my desk and occasional use at work. Now, according to your logic apparently I can't possibly have a "desktop" setup because I use more than one computer, of more than one form factor, for more than one task at a time, and not always glued to my desk. That's total bullshit.
jason_slack 8y ago
Can you share which laptop you have from Xiaomi?
- lostjohnny 8y ago
  Of course! It's a Xiaomi Air 12 I bought it almost 2 years ago, never had a problem It runs vanilla Ubuntu without a glitch The specs are not great, but it's a nice home laptop
- solarkraft 8y ago
  I (not parent poster) have the first-gen 13" model (TM1613 A05)
codemusings 8y ago
What a gem of a comment. What is complicated about the setup? What makes you think he can't cast media or browse Amazon on his laptop while sitting on the couch?
- lostjohnny 8y ago
  > What is complicated about the setup? Everything. > What makes you think he can't cast media or browse Amazon on his laptop while sitting on the couch? I never said he can't, it just took a lot more time for him than it took for me to do it. Are regular drivers going out for groceries tuning their engine to perfection everytime they need to go buy milk? That's what a desktop is all about, a computer sitting on a desktop dedicated to a worker, not a pro, and expert, a tuner, a nerd, a geek, someone who loves machine carnally. Just regular folks that know ho to do what they have to do and that's just it. I've been a Linux user for the past 15 years, I installed my first Slackware in 1996, but I wouldn't say my setup is desktop ready. I don't know how many of my 13 thousands coworkers would have been able to solve the problems I had with Debian and my Lenovo P-70 multi monitor setup. I'm sure many of them think I'm crazy spending so much time on it, when they have a problem they call IT and until IT doesn't solve it, they are not working, and are happier. That's a desktop computer.
  - codemusings 8y ago
    > Everything. Terrific non-answer. You seem to be projecting a lot. He never mentioned that it took him a long time to do anything. And just because he doesn't use a readymade workflow or a graphical user interface for some of his applications his setup is not a Desktop setup? > That's what a desktop is all about, a computer sitting on a desktop dedicated to a worker, not a pro, and expert, a tuner, a nerd, a geek, someone who loves machine carnally. This has to be the weirdest bikeshedding argument I've ever seen. The only reason I can think of why you're so insistent on this distinction is to brag. > I don't know how many of my 13 thousands coworkers would have been able to solve the problems I had with Debian and my Lenovo P-70 multi monitor setup. Yup. There it is.
    - 8y ago
suprfnk 8y ago
What makes you the gatekeeper of what constitutes a desktop setup?
- oblio 8y ago
  I don't know about him, but technically, the definition of a "desktop" kind of "gatekeeps" what that specific word means: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desktop_metaphor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desktop_metaphor
  - cmiles74 8y ago
    When I think of a "desktop" computer, I think of a form-factor suitable for placement on a desk. I can stretch that to include a machine you keep under the desk or even a laptop that is attached to an external keyboard and mouse. I don't think about the software installed on that computer at all. Also: desktop computers, in my opinion, pre-date the "desktop metaphor" and GUI environments.
    - oblio 8y ago
      > Also: desktop computers, in my opinion, pre-date the "desktop metaphor" and GUI environments I kind of doubt that. When the metaphor was introduced by Alan Kay in 1970, there were no desktop computers. If you consider microcomputers the first desktop computers, which you should since their predecessors, minicomputers, were "cabinet" computers, then the Micral N in 1973 would be the first "desktop" computer.
      - cmiles74 8y ago
        I think your splitting hairs on this one. The Micral N also didn't have a GUI environment and it was clearly destined for the top of someone's desk. In my opinion that makes it a desktop computer.[0] When Alan Kay was working on GUI environments, it was on equipment that pretty much nobody could access, it was very expensive and few units were sold. Still, it's interesting to note that the Altair was not a desktop computer that could literally sit on a desk: it came in a cabinet that was meant to sit on the floor.[1] ;-) The irony! When Apple released the Macintosh, I believe most people were interacting with desktop computers that lacked a GUI desktop environment. Specifically I was thinking of the IBM PC XT [2], although, as you note, there was more to the field than just that. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micral https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micral [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xerox_Alto https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xerox_Alto [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Personal_Computer_XT https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Personal_Computer_XT
Yetanfou 8y ago
It certainly is a 'desktop', it might not be yours but it bears resemblance to mine. The 'desktop' metaphor might have been equated with complicated all-integrated environments like Windows, MacOS, Gnome and KDE but in the end it comes down on something-on-a-computer which provides a place to work and access to the resources the computer has to offer. Like physical desktops these come in al shapes and sizes ranging from an empty slab with a lamp and not much more to ornate baroque monstrosities with a zillion drawers, Rolodexes, mail-in-out-boxes, staple machines, paper dispensers, coffee machines, vortex portals and flux capacitors. Some ascribe to the diction that 'perfection is reached when there is nothing left to take away', depending on your starting point you either end up with a lightweight environment like Xmonad (et al) plus a few tools or at a lobotomised full desktop like Gnome.
- lostjohnny 8y ago
  > It certainly is a 'desktop', it might not be yours but it bears resemblance to mine It does resemble mine, either. In fact I'm not a desktop user. > or at a lobotomised full desktop like Gnome That's super not nice. Regular people want a tool, not something you fall in love with and spend most of the day refining. Most people have hobbies outside of the tech world, they will spend hours growing their gardens, but couldn't care less about "keyboard focuesed" or "run programs in the terminal" or "I quickly noticed the huge compile time of KDE". If they can't use it properly, like they are used to, it's broken for them. And they're not wrong.
  - likeclockwork 8y ago
    Not everything is about those people.
arendtio 8y ago
Well, I would say yours is not a desktop setup ;-) I mean, desktop usage is meant for people who work with computers. They spend several hours a day in front of them and therefore require ergonomic chairs and the like. If you want to use your laptop on your couch, that is completely okay, but you are probably not doing some of the things people at desks are doing (like decrypting compilers errors etc.).
- lostjohnny 8y ago
  > I mean, desktop usage is meant for people who work with computers Practically everyone works with computers. > They spend several hours a day in front of them and therefore require ergonomic chairs and the like. That includes almost everybody. > like decrypting compilers errors etc I do that on my couch. Desktop setup is a computer set up for desktop use, AKA, _for regular people everyday use_, that come bundled at most with some productivity suite (usually Office or Office clones). Xmonad is not desktop ready, on the contrary, it harms Linux penetration on the desktop segment. Ubuntu is a desktop setup, Fedora is a desktop setup, ElementaryOS is a desktop setup (etc. etc. etc.) If you are compiling, you are already a pro user. A desktop user doesn't fight with the default configuration, a desktop user adapt to the default configuration. They might change the desktop background and WM theme, and that's all.
  - vcavallo 8y ago
    You’re both quite silly. Do you see your comments?

delta1 8y ago

@def- small typo > Since i’s a bitmap font

benj111 8y ago
To be fair, the apostrophe indicates missing letters, so they've just missed another letter, and the meaning is clear.
- delta1 8y ago
  Indeed the meaning is clear, but I was letting the author know about it
def- 8y ago
Thanks, fixed!

danilocesar 8y ago

it's always surprises me that linux developers still care about ctags... There are more powerful solutions and easier to setup (YouCompleteMe, for example). I was completly sold out when I tried for the fist time a few years ago. I was pretty happy to drop all my ctags's related scripts.

def- 8y ago
I use YouCompleteMe at work for large projects (and it still sometimes struggles with looking up some symbols), but for my rather simple personal projects ctags has always been good enough.
tom_ 8y ago
ctags is pretty good for languages it doesn’t support. You can add a new regex-based language definition from the command line.
arendtio 8y ago
Recently I came across https://langserver.org https://langserver.org To me, it looks like an upcoming solution to the 'code completion' problem.
- jamesgeck0 8y ago
  Yep! First class Typescript support makes it great for Javascript development too.

ageofwant 8y ago

r/unixporn can be a good source for ricing inspiration. I can recommend the unaboomer's rice vids for a fun evening https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2eYFnH61tmytImy1mTYvhA https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2eYFnH61tmytImy1mTYvhA

Lapsa 8y ago

I'm heading in similar direction. also using Arch Linux, VIM. do like i3 & tmux, using suckless terminal (I like terminal in true colors). and tend to favor default settings everywhere unless really really forced. installation takes couple hours (IF you know how) - lasts for eternity.

adambyrtek 8y ago
Most modern terminals support true color now [1]. My current favourite is Alacritty because of the combination of speed (hardware acceleration), simplicity (no menus or dialogs), and configurability (including key bindings) with a simple plain-text file that can be kept in version control [2]. [1] https://gist.github.com/XVilka/8346728 https://gist.github.com/XVilka/8346728 [2] https://github.com/adambyrtek/dotfiles https://github.com/adambyrtek/dotfiles

fxfan 8y ago

In similar vein but vastly different: Firefox + Tridactyl i3 + i3bar + dmenu + rofi dunst Powershell instead of zsh No desktop manager

neilsimp1 8y ago
I have PowerShell installed on Linux, but I don't ever use it. Is that your main shell? How does that work out for you on Linux?
- fxfan 8y ago
  It's more powerful but lacks a bit in interactive features. I use zsh for regular getting around and opening stuff but anything that needs logic I do in pwsh.

mseidl 8y ago

I'm a veteran of Linux for 23 years, and been Windows free for 15 years or so. I love Linux. I love my lightweight i3 setup. Neovim, neomutt, weechat, ncmpcpp...

olavgg 8y ago
I've been using Linux every day for 15 years now. I love Linux desktop, not perfect, but neither is Windows. I started with Gnome 2, jumped over to KDE 4 and now KDE 5. Very happy with how well and smooth everything works.
virtualwhys 8y ago
> I love my lightweight i3 setup It's been so many years and I often take for granted what's before my eyes -- i3 is solidly in the "pry it from my cold dead hands" category.
- xyproto 8y ago
  Until you switch to sway, which is basically i3, but for Wayland. Good bye X11!
  - josteink 8y ago
    Sway has too many bleeding edge dependencies last time I checked, so it’s hard to get built and running on a “conventional” desktop-oriented desktop like Ubuntu. The author has iirc even actively discouraged Ubuntu and Debian from packaging it, because he doesn’t want distro users creating bug reports on older versions (ie noise) for bugs already fixed in git master. Once sway lands for regular distro-users, I’ll be there. For now I’ll stick to i3.
    - matt-snider 8y ago
      Sway is very close to a 1.0 release, 1.0-rc4 was just released: https://github.com/swaywm/sway/issues/1735 https://github.com/swaywm/sway/issues/1735 It is and has been quite stable as a regular user on the sway-git version for awhile, but I can't comment on what it's like for Ubuntu or Debian.

zaggynl 8y ago

Cool setup, being able to mold your Linux desktop into what you need is a good thing! I'm happy on Ubuntu LTS with a couple PPAs for latest mesa and some other applications. More recreational though, gaming through Steam's Proton or Lutris, big thanks to Valve for sponsoring wine, dxvk an various other bits and pieces!

jason_slack 8y ago

I've been using Ubuntu on an Thinkpad L460 for about 9 months now full-time. While there is a curve and I'm always looking for new ways to solve problems. What running Linux has done for me that I didn't expect is to make sure all my code plays nice with other projects. Example: I've got processes that make models out of stock data and does backtesting. Even though I use my own custom code for a lot of things, I make sure that in the end if someone wants to dump into numpy/pandas they can in just 2 lines. I started out with Linux to use a free hand-me-down laptop and I stayed when it was powerful and I could still make a living coding with it.

afraca 8y ago

Slightly offtopic: the author says the background of https://hisham.hm/htop/ https://hisham.hm/htop/ shows live statistics, that's not the case as far as I can tell, just 4 pre-recorded images shown successively. Ontopic: Quite impressive setup. For me it would be too strictly regulated for a comfortable use, though technically I like it. To each it's own.

amdavidson 8y ago
From the htop page: Thanks to Alexander Waldeck for the idea of having htop itself as the page background! His page actually presents a live htop session -- mine is just an animated gif with a few frames stolen from his page. :-) The drunken-security.at page is offline as far as I can tell, but as I recall it he eventually had to drop the htop background as people were DDOSing him to see the results.

p4bl0 8y ago

I have been using a very similar setup for 12 years now. In the past few months I've been wondering what the Linux experience is like for newcomers and "normal" users. I am considering doing a clean install with a full fledged modern desktop environment such as KDE. I may not be able to manage such an environment, I fear that it's too constrained compared to controlling everything that runs on my computer. But I'd like to try. Has anyone done a switch from very minimal keyboard first lightweight environment to a modern desktop environment? If so, what was it like?

johnchristopher 8y ago
I did. It feels good. The interactions are smoother, file managers are more useful. Had to tweak some shortcuts to emulate some moves I am used to in tiling managers. I went from awesome to KDE (kubuntu 18.04lts). I do webdev, cm and reports at the moment. I believe the terminal only approach suits most sysadmin, devops and the like ; not your run off the mill wordpress dev.
- p4bl0 8y ago
  In my current setup, I do not even have a file manager installed. I just use the coreutils (cd, ls, mv, cp, rm, etc.). I'm not doing webdev, I mostly program in different languages (Racket, OCaml, C, and Python mostly) and write a lot of LaTeX. Most of my time is spent in Emacs (it's also were I'm doing my emails) and Firefox. In addition to graphical file managers, I'm also wondering what it's like to use a mail client such as Thunderbird, Kmail, or Evolution.
  - johnchristopher 8y ago
    Graphical file managers are really good at managing pictures and random arbitrary selections. I am not using mail clients anymore, only webmail (I have a thunderbird install at work that is used as some kind of back-up/dumpster). I don't spend a lot of time in email or calendars though.
- Symmetry 8y ago
  If you want both useful features and good shortcuts you can run a tiling window manager within a desktop environment.

Insanity 8y ago

I've been using Linux at home without any windows installation for a couple of years, and about 11 years in dual-boot. But my installation resembles a 'windows' computer much more. I use xfce, but most of my time is spend in a terminal with tmux running for the window configuration. Though, I do have some 'snaps' installed. (Discord, Spotify). So I'm not running entirely inside of the terminal. For me, this balance is perfect, for any serious work I can just use the terminal/tmux/vim setup, and for relaxing I just have spotify, discord, youtube,.. open on a second monitor. As for distro, I'm running Debian. I've tried a few others (openSUSE, Fedora, Ubuntu, #!) and by far #! was my favourite for some time, but when it discontinued I went for Debian. I should check out BunsenLabs :)

pojzon 8y ago

Im surprised there were no changes to the default git diff and merge tools. This is one of the first things i do on a new setup, to chane them to use "meld".

fookitty 8y ago
That's probably because he uses vim
- pojzon 8y ago
  You can change those tools to any editor. Meld is just a popular option.

emgee_1 8y ago

Similarly: OS: openbsd (was slackware) WM: cwm Mail, file mgt, authoring: emacs Agenda calendaring: orgmode Writing: latex Statistics: R ;-)

mruts 8y ago
I really love cwm. It’s a really nice window manager. I used to use Emacs a lot too, but now I just use mg for simple file editing and IntelliJ. I switched from OpenBSD awhile ago to Linux because 1) OpenBSD is dog slow and 2) a lot of software doesn’t work right with it. However, it’s probably the nicest operating system I’ve ever used.

agurk 8y ago

He has got a nice setup, especially as he's able to choose all of his own software. I've been using Linux as a primary OS since the 90's but I still need to interact with Windows for work. I used to dual boot my work laptop, which was made easier by Office 365 webapps becoming more usable, but still there were lots of gaps. This summer I got a new work laptop, and just cloned the existing M.2 drive onto a bigger, faster one I purchased. Now I run the work laptop as a VM image through QEMU/KVM on top of my regular Debian desktop. This works remarkably well, and has improved my workflow a lot as I now never have to dual boot. Windows even runs faster this way, due to the faster M.2 drive. I'm not sure how I'm going to explain it to the IT department if I ever have to get the laptop repaired though.

Phenix88be 8y ago
> I've been using Linux as a primary OS since the 90's but I still need to interact with Windows for work. My current job force me to use a Windows computer. You know, it's the company policy. Well it's the last time I take a job witch doesn't let me control my computer and use GNU/Linux. It feel like I m using the wrong tool for my job. Like use a stone to put nail instead of a hammer.
- sfopdxnonstop 8y ago
  LOL I have a "Don't Want" section on my resume that says no Windows. And I found such a job! I program on a Mac.
  - Phenix88be 8y ago
    This is a really good idea !
morganvachon 8y ago
> I'm not sure how I'm going to explain it to the IT department if I ever have to get the laptop repaired though. Maybe I'm misunderstanding your setup, but could you not clone the Windows VM partitions to the old M.2 drive (I'm assuming you kept it), swap it back into the machine, make it bare metal bootable, and hand it to IT like that? That way your larger M.2 drive with your whole setup stays safe and secure, and IT is none the wiser.

Vinnl 8y ago

Everyone here scoring serious brownie points with their advanced setups. And here I am, having used Linux for my personal setup for 15 years, using pre-installed Ubuntu on a practically default GNOME desktop. It's wonderful that I can do that and be satisfied with that, without significantly hampering the possibility of advanced setups like the ones here. Despite all the systemd's, PulseAudio's and whatnot's, the customisability is still far greater than it is on OS X and Windows, and we can sometimes fail to appreciate that.

ktpsns 8y ago
Absolutely second that. I also had my nerd times when I dedicated every free minute to Gentoo compiling, or to configure my screenrc, Xorg.conf, make menuconfig or whatever was in fashion. But in the end, it's an OS, a GUI, it's the basis for getting real work done. I used xfce, GNOME, KDE, it all gets the job done. But somehow I can no more get enthusiastic about spending hours for configuring a tiling WM like Xmonad. I just cannot seem the benefit behind the steep learning curve. And I use my touchpad and my trackpoint. Sorry for that...
- perttir 8y ago
  This is why most of people love i3 as tiling wm. Just put it in top of gnome/xfce/whatever, run the first installation wizard and you are done.
  - karussell 8y ago
    On Gnome I can use "Super key" + left key if I need multiple aligned windows on my screen. Can you still convince me to try i3 :) ?
    - opan 8y ago
      You can change window focus from the keyboard, have more than two equally-sized windows, split in both directions, control the wm via i3-msg commands, autostart programs easily.

0x38B 8y ago

Off topic, but I really enjoyed his post about commuting to work by bike[1]. I was in Krakow, Poland, and getting around by bike was a joy. Unfortunately, here in Ukraine drivers are very aggressive and the infrastructure for biking is just not in place. 1: https://hookrace.net/blog/cycling-to-work/ https://hookrace.net/blog/cycling-to-work/

antongribok 8y ago
The video of the small airfield on that page is awesome! Reminds me of Gibraltar Airport: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58jaCJ5i9hU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58jaCJ5i9hU
- def- 8y ago
  Indeed, I'm not even mad when I have to interrupt my commute to let a plane land or take off. Fun to watch every time.

dewijones92 8y ago

awesome setup

scbrg 8y ago
Clearly you didn't read the article. It's an xmonad setup ;-)
- arendtio 8y ago
  For those who don't understand: https://awesomewm.org https://awesomewm.org

psynapse 8y ago

Nice setup. A while back I moved to Arch with Xmonad, dmenu, tmux etc, but for about a year now, my workstation has been the same tools on top of Ubuntu Server. I have an Ansible playbook that I can apply to a fresh install and have almost my whole working environment ready to go - just a few things I haven't got around to including/automating. The great thing about running this kind of setup is that you need a deeper understanding of Linux to do all the things that you would otherwise rely on a fully-fledged DE to do for you. For me, this has translated into greater fluency on servers, because my daily driver more closely resembles one.

brightball 8y ago
I use Ubuntu + Ansible too and love it.
vivab0rg 8y ago
My setup is Ubuntu Budgie and i3 for hardcore sessions, but I also have been using Ansible even for configuring my desktop with great success. It's really convenient when getting new hardware or doing a reinstall.

pi-rat 8y ago

It's been about 10 years since I used linux on the desktop. I notice this post on the front page and think: "Great! Let's have a look at what a modern linux desktop can look like.." Oh.. It looks exactly like running a high resolution VGA-mode console with tmux and no X. :P (Probably very effective though!)

the_af 8y ago
That's not a modern Linux desktop setup. For that, you'll need to see the default install of an up to date distro. Spoilers: it looks like the desktop of any modern OS. For example, GNOME resembles OS X.
upofadown 8y ago
Over the years I have been going more and more towards the text interface side. It turned out that very few things are inherently graphical. If you know how to use a shell and a text editor you have the opportunity to do everything in a very straightforward way. That way can be very seductive as it never changes all that much. You can go decades without having to learn anything significantly different. The world of the big time desktop environment is still finding its way. It has been a mostly a bunch of arbitrary changes so far so for now at least I choose the simple way.
sevensor 8y ago
Eye candy remains available. One of the things I love about Linux on the desktop is that you're free to use that stuff or not, according to personal taste. And personally, I find that eye candy reduces the space available for text, which is much more information-dense. A screenshot from my machine would look much like the one in the article.
- jolmg 8y ago
  > I find that eye candy reduces the space available for text Not all eye-candy does that. Some years ago, because I missed having some eye-candy, I installed a compositor, made my windows translucent and got them to do opening and closing animations. I also put a screensaver as a moving background. It looked very cool and was just as information dense as it was originally. However, with so much eye-candy, it was hard to focus on the content and I felt my eyes strained. I ended up feeling much better when I turned it all off. Right now, I don't even have a background, but I find information-dense tiling-wm setups have their own aesthetics. If you asked me what looked cooler / better / more usable, a "modern" GUI (like Windows, OSX, or Ubuntu's default) or a tiling-wm setup with mainly terminal windows, I'd have to say it's the latter.

Arbalest 8y ago

I recently saw a thing about xmonad not under any circumstances being ported to wayland, due to its very high level of integration with X. Which to me read as, would require a rewrite rather than there can be no successor. Still, someone does have to actually put in the work.

javipas 8y ago

I'm always kind of amazed at this kind of desktop setups, and I guess they're not suitable for lots of people for the simple reason that most users have a "consumer" relationship with computers and not a "producer" one. My biggest question here for people with this kind of text setup would be: don't you surf the web? Do you use then lynx or another text web browser? What about services and platforms that are designed from scratch with images and video as a prominent part of that UI? (Twitter, Facebook, Amazon store for example)? I guess you simply switch to a visual browser and some visual tool to play video (vlc, mplayer), but I'm curious and I wonder if that text/keyboard mode can be satisfying or convincing for users that are used on the traditional visual UI with windows, icons and the mouse paradigm. I see the advantages here (OP mentions some of them), but I wonder if the trade offs for the normal user are to big to work in this kind of setup. Who would you recommend this to?

jstanley 8y ago
It's not all-or-nothing. Just because you use a tiling window manager and like to operate it with the keyboard doesn't mean you can't use your mouse any more. I used to use i3, and I used Firefox for browsing. I used the keyboard to layout the windows where it was more convenient, but I clicked on buttons with a mouse when that was more convenient. I now use the standard Ubuntu setup, not for any particular reason, just because it's the default. I often miss being able to conveniently layout terminal windows with just a few keystrokes. Trying to keep terminal windows neatly tiled with a non-tiling window manager is so annoying that I don't even bother.
- javipas 8y ago
  That makes perfect sense, of course. The way the author speaks about that setup could make someone guess that he does everything in text mode. It would help to add information about those other user cases in which the mouse and a visual app comes forward.
- karussell 8y ago
  > I often miss being able to conveniently layout terminal windows You should be able to do that using the "Super key" + e.g. left or right

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

vpcsilva 8y ago

Really nice setup. I'm using ubuntu for a little while and I'm hooked with the idea of deeply customizing a linux setup to be energy efficient and highly productive.

wycy 8y ago

> I quickly noticed the huge compile time of KDE, which made it a no-go for me Is compile time of the desktop environment really a discriminating factor?

24gttghh 8y ago
10-15 years ago? I'd say yes.
sfopdxnonstop 8y ago
No. It's a virtue signal. Which is fine for him, just not a value shared by you and me.

Uplink 8y ago

How does your setup work with a second monitor that comes and goes? Use case: I have a laptop that I take everywhere for me, but I plug into a second monitor while at work. I also use multiple desktops, and this pattern is sometimes causing windows to jump to another desktop when disconnecting the monitor.

jbjorge 8y ago
I had the same issue using unity/gnome on a laptop with 1-3 monitors. After I switched to i3 I was forced to set the monitor config manually with xrandr. I set up keyboard shortcuts for switching between 1-3 monitors. This fixed all the issues with automatic window placement since the window manager no longer tries to do this in an automatic fashion. Tiling window managers definitely have a learning curve, but after I spent a weekend switching to one, I can't see myself ever wanting to go back to floating windows.
Symmetry 8y ago
My setup isn't the exact same as his but I've never had any problems plugging in a projector on my XMonad laptop. In the XMonad schema windows are always associated with one of the 9 workspaces and each screen displays one workspace with the windows all scaled to fit nicely in the display. When you unplug a screen the windows on the associated workspace stay on that workspace and don't go anywhere else.
minieggs 8y ago
I have two bash scripts that set things appropriately -- laptop.sh and desktop.sh. Xrandr, xinput, xset things. There's probably a better way to handle this but it's not inconvenient enough to make me figure it out (or duckduckgo it).

_e 8y ago

The author mentions the loss of vim-like web browser controls when the Pentadactyl extension didn't convert over to the webextensions api. You get the vim functionality back with the following extensions: Firefox -- Vim Vixen (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/vim-vixen/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/vim-vixen/) Chrome -- cVim (https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/cvim/ihlenndgcmojhcghmfjfneahoeklbjjh https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/cvim/ihlenndgcmojh...)

mgbmtl 8y ago
A bit tangential, but would you know if there is an extension that would provide Vim bindings only in textfields? I really miss not being able to use regular expressions (or simple search) in a plain text input.
- davewongillies 8y ago
  Wasavi does exactly what you want: http://appsweets.net/wasavi/ http://appsweets.net/wasavi/ https://github.com/akahuku/wasavi https://github.com/akahuku/wasavi
  - mgbmtl 8y ago
    wow, this extension is awesome! Thank you!
jamesgeck0 8y ago
The Firefox Vimium port is also pretty decent. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/vimium-ff/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/vimium-ff/
tobeportable 8y ago
Firefox -- Tridactyl
ayoisaiah 8y ago
I would also like to mention Surfing Keys which is what I use in Chrome and Firefox: https://github.com/brookhong/Surfingkeys https://github.com/brookhong/Surfingkeys

moocowtruck 8y ago

linux user/dev here since 1995, few years ago went back to windows.. never looked back.. happier now I never have to worry about shit not working and just do my kernel dev in different ways. I'm no longer interested in tons of desktop config either, more interested in apps that can do more for me, with less of me interacting with the computer to make that happen

rmujica 8y ago
I've been developing on Windows for the past year, from a mixed OS X / Linux background, and it has been a seamless experience, the only things I miss are the ease of installing packages like Node or Redis or Postgres, but those are done only the first time I boot up a new Windows installation so the pain is amortized in the time I spend not worrying about random lockups or drivers not working.

adrianrocamora 8y ago

Even though Pentadactyl is not under active development anymore, I'm pretty happy with Vim-Vixen. It doesn't have "caret mode" (from what I can tell) but the switch was very smooth. There are also a lot of other options for vi-browsing for Firefox now.

vivab0rg 8y ago
Vimium is my favourite because its just good enough and it also works on Chrome.

accnumnplus1 8y ago

Mine is tmux/vim, and firefox. If someone changed the rest of it, I'd think something looked a little odd, but I'm not entirely sure if I'm using Mint Mate or Mint Cinnamon.

Symmetry 8y ago

Once upon a time I ran a very minimal setup with using awesome. Tiling windows were great but I found I missed some things that Gnome had done for me. So I'm back on Gnome but replaced Metacity with XMonad, which was a surprisingly easy change. That was back in 2012. Since then there's a lot of churn in Ubuntu with first Unity then Gnome 3. But it hasn't taken that much work to keep everything trucking along, especially thanks to gekkio's PPA that now does most of the work in getting xmonad integrated with Gnome. I might change one or two things every year, moving from gnome terminal to kitty recently, for instance, but I'm happy with my setup and it's served me well. https://github.com/aclough/dotfiles https://github.com/aclough/dotfiles

clinta 8y ago
I do something similar, but running plasma, replacing kwin with i3. I think a solid desktop environment with a tiling window manager is the best of both worlds.

jccalhoun 8y ago

Every time I have to use the slow windows computers at the college I teach at I wish they would put a lightweight linux on them. I wouldn't go full command line but all I'm doing is a browser and word processing. A chromeos-like experience would be fine. Of course what really kills my work computer is the anti-virus. I f I could just disable that then the computer would be a lot more usable.

duxup 8y ago
I think a lot of places are finding that for them, a ChromeOS experience is all they need. So many places are just running a webapp on a number of their computers, and that's it.... generally for many tasks ChromeOS is all they need.
ForHackernews 8y ago
Can you just boot off a live USB? I used to do that on lab computers at my university.
- jccalhoun 8y ago
  I was doing that for a couple months but the tech guy detected it and told me not to do it...
  - ForHackernews 8y ago
    Your university has a more paranoid or more competent IT department than mine did.
pfranz 8y ago
I was super happy when about 10 years ago I went to the local public library near my parent's house and they had installed Linux onto their card-catalog workstations. I hope it worked out for them. I know it was more likely to perform better than another OS on the same hardware.

htor 8y ago

this is a terminal, not a desktop. and it's really great at being that.

cmiles74 8y ago
I disagree, I think that a terminal implies connection to a larger computer that is doing most of the work. In this case all of the work is being done on the local machine. I do agree that this person has many terminal sessions open, but they are also running Firefox, playing music, etc.

mruts 8y ago

I use cwm (initially from OpenBSD) and it’s pretty great. Zenburn terminal colors with anti-aliased Consolas as my font. I don’t understand why someone would prefer bitmapped fonts vs ttf. They really hurt my eyes and look god awful...

sirusdas 8y ago

Amazing article!

FerretFred 8y ago

This is great fun. I'm running a very similar setup on a Raspberry Pi Zero W. I can plug it into an HDMI screen to start it up but then I can just run it headless via SSH.The "disk" size is 8Gb and my setup occupies 1.6Gb. 12 hours battery life with a 6000mA/Hr battery...

jpmattia 8y ago

Background: Started using vtwm back in the early 90s, then on linux once it became viable. I now have a muscle memory associated with switching and manipulating virtual desktops to the point that I can't even tell you what keys I'm hitting without thinking about it. Whenever a linux-windows-setup post appears on the HN or reddit front page, I look at it with interest, and then realize that there's no way I'd achieve any productivity gains in a reasonable time. So maybe the moral of the story is: Choose correctly the first time, because you might be using your wm until you become an old guy/gal too set in your ways to even think about switching.

crimsonalucard 8y ago

I'm not gonna lie windows and osx wins on all fronts in terms of useability. I only use linux because of the server software and bash interface. Post like these are almost masturbatory in the sense of "look how complicated much more complicated my setup is then yours." Dude let's be real.

mixmastamyk 8y ago

Ubuntu Mate FTW, hit the tweak control panel and dark theme, done.

jancsika 8y ago

> rem -m -b1 -q -cuc12 -w$(($(tput cols)+1)) | sed -e "s/\f//g" | less Regarding composability: Suppose I want to add the following to that calendar: 1. two little emojis (or ASCII art) at the top to scroll among months. Bound to left/right arrow keys, and also clickable with mouse. This is a common feature of the calendar widgets I've seen. 2. clickable mutable daily content. So if I peruse my calendar and spot an error I can click to select, fix it, then click off it to update it. Can this be achieved only using shell scripting?

tutfbhuf 8y ago

Try tmux, it works very nice together with vim. I can also recommend polybar.

satysin 8y ago

Great read. Only thing missing was the hardware. I am always interested to see what kind of hardware people are running on.

p2t2p 8y ago
It says Thinkpad x200
- satysin 8y ago
  Doh how did I miss that! Bit older than I was expecting. I had assumed a ThinkPad T series. Maybe a T420 with the 1440x900 resolution.
def- 8y ago
https://hookrace.net/blog/broken-hardware-fixes-hacks-8-years/ https://hookrace.net/blog/broken-hardware-fixes-hacks-8-year... https://hookrace.net/blog/new-hardware-hacks/ https://hookrace.net/blog/new-hardware-hacks/

purplezooey 8y ago

Wish there were a terminal calendar program that could sync with O365.

maxmayer 8y ago

is there other desktop wtup tips?