That loop of config hell is real! It has subsided recently because I got enticed into writing my own widgets. Also, yes to rainbow pastel (tho I’m using gruvbox as a base/reference color theme).

Can’t really remember much of how it looked out of the box, since I proceeded to customize it quite heavily. However, though my memory is fuzzy, I remember it looking like a combination of Windows XP and mid 2010’s Ubuntu.

Checking with the xfce website, they have this screenshot of one of their latest versions:

KDE has sane defaults when it comes to windows: it opens a window at cursor position and whether or not it’s fullscreen or maximized depends on what it is when you last closed the window.

So for example, if the LibreOffice Calc is maximized when I last closed it, the next time I use it, it’d be maximized.

Window rules, however, can be as fairly simple or as complicated as you want it to be.

For example, this is my settings for discord:

I set it to open horizontally and vertically maximized, on any virtual desktop in the ‘Background’ activity (not really something most KDE Plasma users make use of, but I do).

I had a similar workflow with maximized screens residing on different workspaces. KDE Plasma also have window rules which you can set on a per-program/application or a per-window basis (for example, main window for a program goes fullscreen into one monitor, in a workspace you specify, and the tools window opens in a different monitor in the same workspace you specify).

I used KDE Plasma for a long time ever since I started daily-driving Linux.

I like how KDE Plasma allows quite a surprising amount of customization. I also had some experience with Gnome via Ubuntu, and XFCE. Gnome looks polished, but doesn’t allow for much customization. XFCE is a lot more customizable than Gnome, but getting it to look quite right took a lot of effort.

I might be displaying my ignorance of TTRPG systems, my Linux distro and my window manager, but here we go!

Arch Linux [uncommon armor]

• manual installation process — +2 WIS
• Arch Wiki — +2 on arcana checks
• AUR — +1 DEX
• system update — after every long rest, roll a d20. on a nat 1, you have disadvantage on dexterity saving throws until the next long rest.
• I use Arch btw — +2 on persuasion checks against people who use this same armor

Customized Hyprland [rare armor, attunement]

• attunement prerequisite: once every long rest, roll arcana with DC 25. must succeed thrice
• unlimited customization — when attuned, +2 CHA
• perpetually under construction — regardless of attunement, -1 DEX

Customized Neovim [rare weapon, attunement]

• attunement prerequisite: once every long rest, roll arcana with DC 25. must succeed thrice
• unlimited customization — when attuned, +2 to attack rolls
• learning cliff — disadvantage to attack rolls when not attuned to this weapon
• I use (neo)vi(m) — regardless of attunement, +2 on persuasion checks against people who use a similar weapon to this one (DM discretion)

Ventoy USB [uncommon accessory]

• various installation media — +1 CON

EDIT: formatting

KDE themes are a mixed bag for me. On one hand, they can potentially provide theming for little to no effort on my part (provided I do find a pre-made theme to my liking), but on the other, I had more luck with mixing and matching (and a lot of tweaking) different theme components (that is: color theme, application style, plasma style, window decorations, icon theme, cursor theme, etc). It’s a lot of work, and the result might not exactly be coherent, but you can really tweak quite a lot.

I haven’t really tried emulating the win7 look and feel by customizing KDE Plasma, but I think it’s possible. Someone in this comment chain claimed there’s a Win7 theme available, albeit not pulling it off perfectly. I guess that can be used as a starting point.

KDE Plasma + Klassy can do that. I think you can pull off a Win7 look with just those two.

KDE Plasma can get you far with its customization options, and Klassy adds more customization on top of that, and adds the translucent/transparent effects you need to emulate the Win7 look.

As far as I understand those selectors work, using shift as the level 3 modifier is a bad idea since …

I suppose customizing the keyboard layout such that SHIFT can be used as L3 modifier can be done. Otherwise, you might want to refer to /usr/share/X11/xkb/rules/evdev.lst.

Here’s the relevant part(s):

It depends on what you need on a terminal. If I just wanted a terminal, I’d go with Foot, but Konsole (on KDE Plasma) might be a good all-around solution.

Not too sure if they outright lied, but I suppose we can say that they used the change to make their drives seem larger!

That’s why I wished computer people had used a prefix system distinct from the SI ones. If we’re measuring our storage devices in yeetibytes rather than gigabytes, for example, then I suppose there’s less chance that we’ve ended up in this situation.

I realized why I didn’t think of base 2 in my previous reply. For one, hexadecimal (base 16) often used in really low-level programming, as a shorthand for working in base 2 because base 2 is unwieldy. Octal (base 8) was also used, but not so much nowadays. Furthermore, even when working in base 2, they’re often grouped into four bits: a nibble. A nibble corresponds to one hexadecimal digit.

Now, I suppose that we’re just going to use powers of two, not base-2, so maybe it’d help if we do a comparison. Below is a table that compares some powers of two, the binary prefixes, and the system I described earlier:

Each row of the table (except for the rows for 2¹⁰ and 2⁵⁰) would be requiring a new prefix if we’re to be working with powers of 2 (four apart, and more if it’d be three apart instead). Meanwhile, using powers of 16 would require less prefixes, but would require larger numerals before changing over to the next prefix (a maximum of 16⁴ - 1 = 2¹⁶ - 1 = 65 535)

One thing that works to your argument’s favor is the fact that 1024 = 2¹⁰. But I think that’s what caused this entire MiB vs. MB confusion in the first place.

However, having said all that, I would have been happy with just using an entirely different set of prefixes, and kept the values based on 2¹⁰.

I guess? I just pulled that example out of my ass earlier, thinking well, hexadecimal is used heavily in computing, so maybe something with powers of 16 would do just fine.

At any rate, my point is that using a prefix system that is different and easily distinguishable from the metric SI prefixes would have been way better.

I think the biggest mistake there is using SI prefixes (such as kilo, mega, giga, tera) with bytes (or bits) to refer to the power of two near a power of ten in the first place. Had computer people had used other names for 1024 bytes and the like, this confusion between kibibytes and kilobytes could have been avoided. Computer people back then could have come up with a set of base·16 prefixes and used that for measuring data.

Maybe something like 65,536 bytes = 1,0000 (base 16) = 1 myri·byte; ‭4,294,967,296 bytes = 1,0000,0000 (base 16) = dyri·byte; and so on in groups of four hex digits instead of three decimal digits (16¹² = tryri·byte, 16¹⁶ = tesri·byte, etc). That’s just one system I pulled out of my ass (based on the myriad, and using Greek numbers to count groups of digits), and surely one can come up with a better system.

Anyways, while it’d take me a while to recognize one kilobyte as 1000 bytes and not as 1024 bytes, I think it’s better that ‘kilo’ always means 1000 times something in as many situations as possible.

If the earliest sports were a way to practice skills needed for hunting or warfare, then making an e-sport out of spreadsheets is going back to the roots of sports. It’s practicing skills needed for your daily job.

I’ve used Librewolf until pretty recently and I say it’s not for everyone. It’s hardened Firefox made into its own thing for people who want the benefits of hardened Firefox but don’t want to go through the effort of hardening their Firefox install.

There are some sites that wouldn’t work in the strictest settings. As far as I remember, the most problematic sites with Librewolf are those that demand way too much in terms of privacy and security, so I took it as a given that if a site doesn’t work with Librewolf (with me using the default settings), it’s not worth it to enter to begin with.

Yeah, I’m sorry. I’m biased against it, thanks to my experience with it.

Well, I can take solace in the fact that 99.9% of the packages you are using are in EndeavourOS too. So, I was mostly right. :)

Yeah, also I think EndeavourOS and Arch moved to Plasma 6 at around the same time too? I tried holding off the update to Plasma 6 for a few days but finally took the update on March 12.

I also wish we could replace Manjaro with a green themed EndeavourOS. Manjaro is the next biggest Linux honeypot after OpenOffice.

I think with enough faffing around customizing things in KDE Plasma, I think a green-themed EndeavourOS is doable. Would I recommend it? Not really, lol! From what I’ve seen, I‌ like EndeavourOS’ default theming.

It’s just a shame EndeavourOS isn’t as known as Manjaro (at least during the time I first jumped into running Linux as a daily driver). But then again, with Manjaro shitting the bed becoming more known, I‌ hope EndeavorOS can take the place of Manjaro as the Arch-based distro for newbies.

Converting Manjaro to Arch in place is a labour of love. I have done it myself and it is was more steps than I expected it to be. Worth it though. Good friend.

Oh yeah, I was there with him when he was doing it. I can’t do any help other than cheering him on, and to have another eye on the screen making sure he doesn’t make any stupid mistakes in the process. At few points, I reminded him of the fact that I’ve backed up my files, and if things really get FUBAR, we can just do a clean install and restore the files from backup.

… I actually use Arch. Sorry.

But really, I would have gone with EndeavourOS (instead of Arch) if it were not for my friend who really strongly advocated for Arch (even installing it for me—or rather, converting my Manjaro install into an Arch one).

If I’ve had any regrets in my Linux journey, it’s choosing Manjaro instead of EndeavourOS as my introduction to Arch-based distros.

I’m with you on liking multi-monitor set-ups. I also have several workspaces and activities (a KDE thing—you can think of it as another set of workspaces accessible via a shortcut key), which means I’ve got tons of “space” to play around with.

I‌ could have my e-mail program run on one workspace, then switch to my main workspace with one screen for VSCode (or whatever) and another for the browser window with lots of tabs that I can just refer to while doing work. And then in a different activity, a multi-media program might be playing a podcast or just some music to help me focus.

My discord is usually on the same activity as my multi-media program though, as I don’t really need to refer to it as often. If there’s a new message for me, my system gives me a notification and an icon in my system tray lights up or something, indicating a new message.

But yeah! You do you with your preferred workflow!