Linux customization and indie software
Posted on September 7, 2024
I delved deep into this rabbit hole during lockdown and it was fun. Here are some cool things you can try if you are a Linux user:
Check out r/unixporn and deskto.ps to see some cool setups.
Tiling Window Managers
TWMs are really popular on r/unixporn and a good starting point is i3wm. It seems to be the most popular one. Tsoding and ThePrimeagen use this one. I used dwm because it was the most minimal one and it’s somewhat hard to setup but you get to learn a bit of C programming and things about patching together software.
Terminal Emulators
You will be editing files in the terminal a lot so picking a terminal with good customizability is necessary. Changing the font and colorscheme can make great difference. I’d recommend kitty, I’ve used it for a long time and have had little issues. st is a lightweight terminal you can use if you’re using an old laptop.
Terminal Applications
There a lot of terminal applications which aim to replace GUI applications. Here are some popular ones:
Custom Keyboard Shortcuts
I used sxhkd to create shortcuts for commonly used software and scripts. This is very useful and its really cool working without your mouse.
Automation with Shell Scripts
This is the most useful thing you can learn from all of this. Learning cli like grep, find etc. can boost your productivity. You can automate a lot of repetitive tasks by making shell scripts
Config Files
Editing config files or dotfiles is how you control everything about your setup. It is good to pick a text editor that runs in the terminal, nano can be a good starting point. You can search for config files on Github if you are trying new software and don’t know much about them. You can learn to use Neovimif you edit a lot of files. It’s harder to learn but makes editing files way faster.