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by colordrops 1016 days ago
Speaking of minimalist desktops, I'm really loving the unix-y philosophy behind sway/i3/hyprland/xmonad. Instead of an integrated desktop environment, you start with the simple window manager (Sway in my case), and pick and choose the tools you need for various things, such as a status bar, notifications, launcher, etc. Unless you really trick it out, there is usually very little on your screen other than the apps you are working with, as these window managers are primarly keyboard driven.

Furthermore, I use the tiling functionality heavily. There are about 10 apps I use regularly, and they launch and get bound to a particular workspace on startup. My screen remains uncluttered, with one app filling the viewport, and a single keystroke to switch to the other apps I use. It's pretty close to perfect for my use cases.

Lastly, these WMs are all configured through text files, so your exact configuration can be stored in dot files in git. In my case I use Nix, so I can redeploy my exact setup on any machine without any manual configuration.
3 comments
0x38B 1015 days ago
Sway is fast, minimal, and flexible. Their recommended tools/addons are worth a look: https://github.com/swaywm/sway/wiki/Useful-add-ons-for-sway

From that list I use greetd + tuigreet as my login manager, sway-launcher-desktop for FZF-powered app launching, and wob for lightweight brightness and volume display (send '50' to the wob socket and it'll show 50%; it doesn't get simpler).

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bryceneal 1015 days ago
Interesting. I've been considering toying around with something similar using i3 and Nix. I hadn't considered binding certain applications to various workspaces, but I like that idea as well.

I'm curious if there are any particular guides/examples you would recommend, or whether your Nix config is open source somewhere?

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globular-toast 1015 days ago
sway (and i3 at work as I'm forced to use X, although this pales in comparison to the author's dire situation) are perfect. I've written several simple text based blocks for i3blocks that makes my DE somehow more functional than the bloated ones. It's just so great getting exactly what you want because you write/compose it yourself (yes, I use emacs).

Stumpwm is also very attractive. Less "Unixy" but more Lispy which is a different approach at getting exactly what you want.

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