A 'ricing' starting checklist

In order to fully make use of window programs like Firefox, Inkscape, GIMP, Blender, and many others, you have to install a display server (or windows server). Otherwise, you would be stuck using with a command line.

There are many display servers out there but one of the more popular choices are Xorg (an implementation of X protocol) and Wayland.

If your hardware is a bit old, I recommend to stick with Xorg since it is older thus more developed than Wayland. Wayland is still a relatively new technology still in development but still keep an eye for it since it is meant to replace X with simpler options.

Also, I recommend to look at their respective Arch Linux wiki entry if you want to get started. (Pretty much I recommend the Arch Linux wiki for most of the Linux stuff, really.)

In order to have that graphical desktop experience, you either need a desktop environment or a window manager (or even both).

A window manager does what its name does: manages and controls windows from its appearance, content, and behavior. There are many choices to choose from but personally I recommend i3, Sway, Bspwm, and awesome.

Usually with a window manager, you can extend more stuff with it such as a status bar and a lock screen to improve your desktop experience. Anyways, you should try and experiment with the configuration of the window manager of your choosing.

Meanwhile, a desktop environment is a more detailed setup built on top of a window manager. They have more built-in stuff like a status bar, a session manager, a display manager, and a window manager of their own.

Like window managers, You have many choices here. For my personal recommendations, Xfce and KDE Plasma is the top-tier choices.

Usually, desktop environments let you replace their window manager (or any of their components, if they provided one). For example, you can install Xfce and replace their built-in window manager (Xfwm) with i3wm.

Don’t forget to use some themes for the desktop environment of your choice.

A compositor (or a composite manager) is a program that provides an off-screen buffer for application windows. Thus, repainting and rendering application windows will mitigate against common graphical issues such as screen tearing or leaving a "trail" or a black block. Those issues will be way more obvious when moving your windows or using an application with a lot of moving parts on your screen. (I can’t record it since it’s not present when viewing it in a video.)

It can also provide additional processes with those application windows such as adding transitions, adding animations, and applying opacity for the windows. In other words, it can add pizzazz to your setup.

One of the more popular compositors are Compton for X window system and Sway for Wayland.

Once you have configured the compositor, you can certainly see some notable differences with it.

Since I have installed Xorg which is an implementation of the X window system, I’m using Compton. The following videos are demonstrations using without and with Compton running in the background.

Here’s a video of my setup using no Compton.

Here’s another video of my setup using Compton this time. Take note that it uses the default config located at /etc/xorg/compton.conf.

A display manager is a graphical interface for logging in a session. It could be pretty useful for those who are using with multiple users that might be intimidated with using a TTY as their first screen. Most importantly, it could be used for additional swag.

Aside from giving the user login interface a makeover, it can also do other things such as authenticating users and session management.

There is a list of choices out there and my pick is LightDM since I find it easy to start and it does have a cool login interface.

GUI library such as GTK and Qt might have a unified configuration that describes the widgets appearance, color scheme, and fonts.

I’ll be mainly discussing on GTK theming since a lot of widely used programs are built with it.

GTK is a cross-platform free and open source GUI library. Popular programs built (as of this writing) with the library include Firefox, Thunderbird, GIMP, and Inkscape.

There are many ways on configuring your color scheme and icon sets but I recommend to start with LXAppearance or oomox. Even better you could use them to take a look at a GTK config file and edit it yourself afterwards.

You could also not customize it and leave it to the distro. For Arch Linux, it has Raleigh as the default GTK theme which looks very dated if you ask me.

GTK Raleigh theme

For my custom configuration, I chose the Arc theme along with its icon set simply because they’re the popular choice. I also think the darker scheme is pretty cool.

GTK Arc Darker theme

You can look for more GTK themes at GNOME Look.

Having your own color scheme for your setup is very great. However, if you’re inexperienced with choosing your own colors, a color scheme generator can help.

There are a lot software built for it such as Coolors, Adobe Color, and a color pallete sharing site but there are two particular program that I personally recommend because they’re specifically made for ricing.

A status bar is not enough fill up some info especially if it’s not needed that much. A desktop notification system could be handy for those situations. It can also be useful for immediate feedback that is shortly not needed after.

In order to setup a notification system working, you need two components:

For the former, libnotify (with notify-send) is the toolbelt for that.

For the latter, you have more choices. In my setup, I have Dunst since I see it included in a lot of posts at /r/unixporn.

Dunst is also easy to configure and extend. You can change the color of the text and background, change the appearance for notifications of varying urgency levels, and integrate scripts that’ll run whenever a certain type of notification has been recieved. It’s pretty fantastic.

One very useful example in my case is making a notification for screenshots.

I made a script which takes a screenshot which will be binded with the PrintScr key which will be used in i3.

In i3, running a script takes place in the background so there’s no way to know if the screenshot capture is a success or not unless you send some data to a server. Simply sending a notification with notify-send while running Dunst in the background can go a long way.

Using dunst for screenshot notifications

I also made it to send notifications for delayed screenshots.

If you’re curious about the screenshot script, you can find it here.

Managing your dotfiles can be tricky since different programs have different ways on where to store their configuration files.

If you would continue with no tool at all, you would most likely:

Depending on your experience, it could be elegant or a nightmare. Which is why I totally recommend to use a dotfiles manager.

You have some choices (or you know create one yourself) for managing your dotfiles easily. For me, I chose stow since it is widely distributed among Linux-based systems. The runner-up is yadm which integrates the concepts usually found in Git.

Imagine spending time for your setup that you visioned then having to put all of that down for a ridiculous reason.

That’s what backups are for. It’s a simple thing to backup your dotfiles whether through simple copy-pasting it in another storage device, an online drive, or a self-hosted server.

For my dotfiles, I simply use a remote Git repo as my online "backup". I also have the benefit of putting my dotfiles under version control which means I can easily experiment with my settings.

Your usual programs, of course. Your web browser, text editor, terminal, file manager, or even some games (granted that they support it on Linux).

If you feeling adventurous and want to explore more, you can view this application list on Arch Linux wiki. Or explore around on GitHub, GitLab, or wherever that is.

You can also check out this list of components if you want more stuff for your desktop setup.

If you want some inspiration for your ricing journey, be sure to check out /r/unixporn. The amount of creativity is overflowing from the community.

I also have my own set of dotfiles that you can check it up on my GitHub repo (also have it on GitLab as a mirror).

You can find most of the valuable stuff on Arch Linux wiki. Most of the concepts apply even when you’re not using Arch Linux. The documentation is pretty thorough and periodically updated so be sure to check it out often.