6 ms·

Noctia: A sleek and minimal desktop shell thoughtfully crafted for Wayland

97 points by doener 9mo ago

gigatexal 9mo ago
Should pair well with my tons of noctua fans [1] ;-) [1]https://gigatexal.blog/assets/images/about/workstation.JPEG https://gigatexal.blog/assets/images/about/workstation.JPEG All jokes aside, it looks really well done!
Cyphase 9mo ago
s/Noctia/Noctalia/g
miduil 9mo ago
Wow, Noctalia looks amazing! I'm especially excited about the automatic theme by background image, that means my live updating wallpaper also tweaks the theme :) super fun.
- gunalx 9mo ago
  That is exactly the only feature I would like to disable. (have custom theming already)
  - miduil 9mo ago
    Checkout the Settings panel, in the GitHub screencast this feature is shown in the there.
arikrahman 9mo ago
I don't know, dank-material-shell fills the same niche, and works better on NixOS out of the box, making it easier to setup while highly configurable. It seems broader than Noctalia in scope as well, so there are more components and they play nicer with each other. Noctalia seems like it would fit more slimmer builds that want to move away from waybar.
- arikrahman 9mo ago
  Noctia* Gnome's Nautilus stuck in my mind gahh
  - zerocrates 9mo ago
    It actually is Noctalia; mistake in the HN title.
while_true_ 9mo ago
Still using X11, so no Noctia for me. Patiently waiting for somebody/someone to get remote desktop on Wayland. https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=481912 https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=481912
- its_ubuntu 9mo ago
  [dead]
  - mrln 9mo ago
    This is not a window manager, so thanks for stating the obvious. You might not like wayland and that's fine with me, but if you decide to hate on it, you should at least know what you are hating on. There are good reasons to prefer a wayland compositor over X11. If you don't care about these reasons, that doesn't mean nobody should.
    - hulitu 9mo ago
      > This is not a window manager, so thanks for stating the obvious. So what exactly is a "shell" ?
      - its_ubuntu 9mo ago
        [dead]
      - mrln 9mo ago
        My attempt at a definition of a desktop shell would be: The collection of all the software that aids a compositor (or a window manager on X11) in providing a more complete desktop experience. Now that's kind of vague and probably also not quite correct, so a more concrete explanation would be: A program or collection of programs that gives you desktop notifications, a taskbar (with a system tray), volume controls and more stuff like that, maybe even a neat menu to configure most of this. Usually for standalone compositors/window managers you'd usually use a collection of tools like dunst, polybar, and the like, but with newer tools like quickshell, which was used here, it's reasonably easy to build a single tool which handles most of that. And that's what we're looking at here ^^
theYipster 9mo ago
I’ve been trying out both DMS and Noctalia in separate VMs this week (both on Niri.) I like them both. Noctalia seems a bit more refined out of the box. DMS is more customizable. I foresee both taking over from .dotfile packs (and maybe even Omarchy) as better ways to bootstrap a Nir or Hyprland.
- snapplebobapple 9mo ago
  it doesnt have dotfiles? how fp you sync c(nfig between machibes?
  - gunalx 9mo ago
    It does habe dotfiles. (.config/noctalia. it is possible to declare mostly declaratively if you want)
dfc 9mo ago
At first I thought "desktop shell" was supposed to be compositor, but that's not the case, a wayland compositor like sway is a requirement. I've been using sway for years I have no idea what a "shell" is? It's somewhere in between a desktop environment and a theme?
- dmit 9mo ago
  Yes. It occupies the spot in the Sway tutorials that recommend you "waybar, fuzzel, tofi, [etc]" to fill out the necessities. Noctalia, DMS, and other Quickshell projects cover that void.
- sbinnee 9mo ago
  I have no idea what shell means either! Isn’t it called ricing to customize desktop environment? Since when do people started calling it shell?
  - Valodim 9mo ago
    I'm not sure about Linux, but on Windows it's been called that since forever https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_shell https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_shell
    - mxmilkiib 9mo ago
      I wonder where where LiteStep is at used it (and sometimes SharpE) for a number of years until about idk 20y ago http://litestep.net http://litestep.net https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LiteStep https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LiteStep https://reddit.com/r/LiteStep/comments/1fjnj9y/litestep_revival_megathread https://reddit.com/r/LiteStep/comments/1fjnj9y/litestep_revi... https://sharpe.sourceforge.net https://sharpe.sourceforge.net
- tvshtr 9mo ago
  Noctalia (it's quickshell theme/env underneath) is to compositor as KDE Plasma is to Kwin. Coincidentally both arr built on QtQuick.
- 9mo ago
Tiberium 9mo ago
Quite cool that it's possible now to create entire shells with AI-assisted programming
gedy 9mo ago
DankMaterialShell[0] with catpuccin theme is close to this and way much easier (for me at least) to set up. [0] https://danklinux.com/ https://danklinux.com/

97 points by doener 9mo ago

Should pair well with my tons of noctua fans [1] ;-) [1]https://gigatexal.blog/assets/images/about/workstation.JPEG https://gigatexal.blog/assets/images/about/workstation.JPEG All jokes aside, it looks really well done!

Cyphase 9mo ago

s/Noctia/Noctalia/g

miduil 9mo ago

Wow, Noctalia looks amazing! I'm especially excited about the automatic theme by background image, that means my live updating wallpaper also tweaks the theme :) super fun.

gunalx 9mo ago
That is exactly the only feature I would like to disable. (have custom theming already)
- miduil 9mo ago
  Checkout the Settings panel, in the GitHub screencast this feature is shown in the there.

arikrahman 9mo ago

I don't know, dank-material-shell fills the same niche, and works better on NixOS out of the box, making it easier to setup while highly configurable. It seems broader than Noctalia in scope as well, so there are more components and they play nicer with each other. Noctalia seems like it would fit more slimmer builds that want to move away from waybar.

arikrahman 9mo ago
Noctia* Gnome's Nautilus stuck in my mind gahh
- zerocrates 9mo ago
  It actually is Noctalia; mistake in the HN title.

while_true_ 9mo ago

Still using X11, so no Noctia for me. Patiently waiting for somebody/someone to get remote desktop on Wayland. https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=481912 https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=481912

its_ubuntu 9mo ago
[dead]
- mrln 9mo ago
  This is not a window manager, so thanks for stating the obvious. You might not like wayland and that's fine with me, but if you decide to hate on it, you should at least know what you are hating on. There are good reasons to prefer a wayland compositor over X11. If you don't care about these reasons, that doesn't mean nobody should.
  - hulitu 9mo ago
    > This is not a window manager, so thanks for stating the obvious. So what exactly is a "shell" ?
    - its_ubuntu 9mo ago
      [dead]
    - mrln 9mo ago
      My attempt at a definition of a desktop shell would be: The collection of all the software that aids a compositor (or a window manager on X11) in providing a more complete desktop experience. Now that's kind of vague and probably also not quite correct, so a more concrete explanation would be: A program or collection of programs that gives you desktop notifications, a taskbar (with a system tray), volume controls and more stuff like that, maybe even a neat menu to configure most of this. Usually for standalone compositors/window managers you'd usually use a collection of tools like dunst, polybar, and the like, but with newer tools like quickshell, which was used here, it's reasonably easy to build a single tool which handles most of that. And that's what we're looking at here ^^

theYipster 9mo ago

I’ve been trying out both DMS and Noctalia in separate VMs this week (both on Niri.) I like them both. Noctalia seems a bit more refined out of the box. DMS is more customizable. I foresee both taking over from .dotfile packs (and maybe even Omarchy) as better ways to bootstrap a Nir or Hyprland.

snapplebobapple 9mo ago
it doesnt have dotfiles? how fp you sync c(nfig between machibes?
- gunalx 9mo ago
  It does habe dotfiles. (.config/noctalia. it is possible to declare mostly declaratively if you want)

dfc 9mo ago

At first I thought "desktop shell" was supposed to be compositor, but that's not the case, a wayland compositor like sway is a requirement. I've been using sway for years I have no idea what a "shell" is? It's somewhere in between a desktop environment and a theme?

dmit 9mo ago
Yes. It occupies the spot in the Sway tutorials that recommend you "waybar, fuzzel, tofi, [etc]" to fill out the necessities. Noctalia, DMS, and other Quickshell projects cover that void.
sbinnee 9mo ago
I have no idea what shell means either! Isn’t it called ricing to customize desktop environment? Since when do people started calling it shell?
- Valodim 9mo ago
  I'm not sure about Linux, but on Windows it's been called that since forever https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_shell https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_shell
  - mxmilkiib 9mo ago
    I wonder where where LiteStep is at used it (and sometimes SharpE) for a number of years until about idk 20y ago http://litestep.net http://litestep.net https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LiteStep https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LiteStep https://reddit.com/r/LiteStep/comments/1fjnj9y/litestep_revival_megathread https://reddit.com/r/LiteStep/comments/1fjnj9y/litestep_revi... https://sharpe.sourceforge.net https://sharpe.sourceforge.net
tvshtr 9mo ago
Noctalia (it's quickshell theme/env underneath) is to compositor as KDE Plasma is to Kwin. Coincidentally both arr built on QtQuick.
9mo ago

Tiberium 9mo ago

Quite cool that it's possible now to create entire shells with AI-assisted programming

gedy 9mo ago

DankMaterialShell[0] with catpuccin theme is close to this and way much easier (for me at least) to set up. [0] https://danklinux.com/ https://danklinux.com/