My Desktop Stack

I'm currently running Pop! OS, an Ubuntu based Linux distribution I chose because it's on Wayland and is already setup such that I shouldn't need to tinker much - it even has a tiling WM built in! Plus if I ever get another laptop it would likely be from System76 anyways, so this'll make it easier to recreate the DE if/when that happens.

Before this, I was using Windows exclusively for several years, since around the end of college (during which I used Void linux). Although I was/am running Arch on my homeserver and run Incremental Social off an Ubuntu VPS.

Here’s a list of the tinkering I had to do anyways:

• Follow this guide so that I can switch between headphones and speakers, although unfortunately it shows the speakers output as “analog-output-speaker-split” and sometimes messes up setting volume via the applet, and despite turning off auto mute and saving my settings I have to unmute “Front” regularly in order for sound to come out of the speakers.
• Configure auto mounting various drives.
• Installing Docker required a much lengthier process than I found justified.
• The script to enable the clipboard manager didn’t work for me.

Browser

I use Zen browser. You can see more details on My Browser Stack.

Development

I use VSCodium for development (installed via the deb, not the package manager, due to the integrated terminal being in the nfsnobody group otherwise), due to the great extension ecosystem but without the Microsoft telemetry or AI integrations. I use these extensions:

• Nord
• Vue (at work I use Svelte instead)
• ESLint
• Prettier
• SQLTools (specifically the one for Postgres)

And these settings:

{
  "workbench.startupEditor": "none",
  "workbench.colorTheme": "Nord",
  "editor.formatOnSave": true,
  "editor.defaultFormatter": "esbenp.prettier-vscode",
  "[sql]": {
    "editor.defaultFormatter": "mtxr.sqltools"
  },
  "editor.codeActionsOnSave": {
    "source.fixAll.eslint": "explicit"
  },
  "emmet.showExpandedAbbreviation": "never",
  "git.autofetch": true,
  "references.preferredLocation": "view",
  "git.enableSmartCommit": true,
  // Only at work:
  "svelte.enable-ts-plugin": true,
  "eslint.validate": ["svelte", "typescript"]
}

I also use Sublime Text for quickly opening text files, although admittedly that is becoming rarer over time.

I use Sublime Merge as my git client of choice, although admittedly I don't have any strong reasons why besides habit (and my support for the sublime devs) and it being very lightweight. Its extendability is nice, but I believe alternatives tend to have a stronger out of box experience. I'm tempted to explore other options, such as a FOSS VSCodium extension.

I’m currently experimenting with dropping the sublime suite though, and instead just using vscodium as a “all in one” IDE by using Git Graph and Better Git Line Blame (plus SQLTools, as already mentioned). I also started using the integrated terminal and build tasks rather than using a terminal window. It’s admittedly nice having it all setup in one application rather than opening 3+ tools when I’m ready to start development.

Terminal

I use zsh and zim with this setup:

• Powerlevel10k theme for its instant prompt feature
• Meslo nerd font
• zsh-nvm
• The default packages, like autocomplete suggestions

Gaming

I use Lutris launcher alongside Steam (so the games appear in Lutris) as well as Prism Launcher for Minecraft.

Just mentioning here that I’m unhappy with existing services and I currently rotate between various matrix clients (Fluffy Chat, Element, and Cinny all through Incremental Social), discord, and signal and have issues with all of them. Yay...

Desktop

I’ve riced my desktop based off these dotfiles but for Cosmic’s compositor, which is wayland-based. I also already have cosmic’s panel for a bar, so I just focused on music controls and that very cool wallpaper with audio visualizer. My config files are mostly just the eww config, which you can find here, and unfortunately I couldn’t get the audio visualizer working efficiently within eww’s available widgets.

Sometime when I have more time to dedicate to ricing I’ll want to look into alternatives to displaying the audio visualizer - like how the original rice used glava instead of eww. I just wasn’t really finding anything similar to glava for wayland at this time.

I’m also considering replacing the cosmic panel with an eww-built bar, because the cosmic bar can’t float and doesn’t have any community applets for things I’d like, such as displaying the name/art of the currently playing music. I’d like to roughly use this rice as a reference, although at the moment I can’t proceed because there’s no utilities for cosmic’s compositor’s workspaces (getting the active workspace or total workspaces). The ecosystem is pretty new - I set all this up within a month or two of cosmic being out!