Altgans—Linux setup and ricing

Less of a guide and more of a dumping ground for ideas, todos and links

Maybe change the shell? I use kitty (created by the same guy who also created Calibre ❤️), but ghostty also looks promising.
It may be yet another opportunity to set up espanso.
Fish
- starhip shell
- GPG keyring + SSH keys
unified password sync, backup and file sharing
- synology, borg, rsync
- KeepassXC, bitwarden, 1password?
better editor setup for blogging
- nvim, lazynvim
- Obsidian
coding setup
- manage environments with nvm, mise-en-place
- VS Code, zed, emacs, kakoune, ... ?
Other
- localsend
- vlc, mpv
- calibre
- firefox!
- Mixxx
- Krita
see if I can remove manjaro-sway-settings, etc

RANDOM TODO I like the website style of https://shinglyu.com/web/2024/09/17/my-wayland-adventure.html

Network

Tailscale to connect to my Synology NAS and to troubleshoot my family? - pihole

Ricing

Yak-shaving? Motivation!

Change my wallpaper
Unify the system GUIs
- GTK4?
Quickshell
- DankMaterialShell
- Noctalia :: has a better name than DankShell, will start with this
Scrollable WM
- Hypraland? :: I think this is too much of a Gentoo uber-rice thing. I prefer simplicity and quiet
- Niri

Distro hopping 2025-10-12

What i want:

Arch-based
supports my use-cases, doesn't get in the way (Cough, Nixos, cough)
stable
pretty

What I cooked up

EndeavourOS
- I use this container: https://hub.docker.com/r/alex5402/endeavouros
- distrobox create -n my-endeavouros -i docker.io/alex5402/endeavouros:latest
- distrobox enter my-endeavouros
- Actually, this is a too-deeply integrated way to test the distro. Should have used a VM instead.
Wayland
Niri
- reasoning
- Alternatives: hyprland, but looks less stable and I don't want too much rice in the system
Noctalia
- All in one swaybar replacement
- Alternatives: DankMaterialShell, but I don't like the name
GTK4

How to migrate

Test everything on distrobox first
- Need to figure out how to fix Error: configure storage: kernel does not support overlay fs: 'overlay' is not supported over extfs at "/home/me/.local/share/containers/storage/overlay": backing file system is unsupported for this graph driver first
- E: apparently installing fuse-overlayfs does the trick (source)
Locally backup everything
- figure out what needs to remain, then backup to my NAS? Or just to an usb stick. Probably both, to be safe
Wipe system
- ext4? btfs? zfs?

Switching

Decided to just use my Manjaro, as it is stable :)

I ran the following command

sudo pacman -S greetd greetd-tuigreet xdg-desktop-portal xdg-desktop-portal-wlr alacritty swaybg xwayland-satellite udiskie fuzzel xdg-desktop-portal-gtk xdg-desktop-portal-gnome gnome-keyring nautilus kanshi brightnessctl inter-font ttf-roboto

After switching, I encountered these problems

black screen --> reboot
- hindsight: never switch your core WM/DMs without backup! very risky!
niri loads, I see an ugly status bar and randomly click it --> put laptop into flight-mode with no way to enable the internet again --> rfkill unblock all (I may have also pushed the wrong button/function-key on my keyboard..)
wrong terminal (alacritty) --> change in .conf/niri
wrong shell (zsh) --> chsh doesn't work --> for some reasone zsh was set as default in .profile

Shoppinglist / todos

understand whatever I just installed
- greetd?
customize quickshell
- change gtk theme
- change wallpaper
- autologin
customize niri hotkeys, appearance
- quick jump to window (alt+1 = firefox)
improve ssh, keyshell, gpg keys setup
go shopping for other cool applications
- zen browser
  - zen-browser-bin is the binary version, ie. compiled
- dolphin filebrowser; or nemo? or midnight commander? or pcman fm?
improve manjaro setup
- doas
- pavu, yay, pacman?
- quick way to see and install software, maybe by opening an app launcher that runs yay
- fingerprint launcher revisited?
- system stats, disk space usage
configure obsidian, nvim
font setup
password setup
backup
'webapps' like in Omarchy that launch a website, ... (https://learn.omacom.io/2/the-omarchy-manual/63/web-apps)
limine bootloader? https://github.com/limine-bootloader/limine
mise :: Installing Mise | mise-en-place
gron https://github.com/adamritter/fastgron?tab=readme-ov-file
x command https://www.x-cmd.com/
ranger tui (or similar)
paperless or similar
syncthing
firefox addons and block list to remove ai slob

Deciding on an aur helper

yay, paru, trizen or pikaur?

yay :: Go, default in Manjaro
trizen :: Pearl, has some extra features. Didn't like the search interface
pikaur :: Python. Asks all the questions before installation
paru :: Rust. Asks to review packages by default, which is a good approach to AUR package security. May be annoying after some time

I like it when I can see the news/changelogs of packages. E: But it is damn annoying to see all of this on system update! (Pikaur)

TODO: Look at https://github.com/topgrade-rs/topgrade aswell

paru -Sua --upgrademenu

log

2025-10-15 changed pacman.conf to enable

Color
ParallelDownloads = 5
ILoveCandy
Architecture = auto
CheckSpace
HoldPkg     = pacman glibc <...system packages>
VerbosePkgLists

2025-10-15 22:03 changed paru.conf

# Paru conf
# See paru.conf
Include = /etc/paru.conf

[options]
BottomUp
SudoLoop
CleanAfter
NewsOnUpgrade
UpgradeMenu

[bin]
FileManager = lf
#Sudo = doas

2025-10-15 22:24 set up doas (OpenDoas)

permit persist setenv {PATH=/usr/local/bin:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/bin:/usr/sbin} :wheel

2025-10-15 22:48 removed opendoas again, as it needs to be rebuilt to support fingerprint/PAM

2025-10-15 23:02 added tidal-hifi and enables scrobble to last.fm and musicbrainz DBs

2025-10-15 23:15 will look into ghostty as alternative to kitty there is also wezterm not sure I like ghostty, will stay with kitty e: convinced to give ghostty a try -- the theming preview convinced me :)

theme = Solarized Osaka Night
background = 
foreground = 
background-image = 
background-image-opacity = 
background-opacity = 0.9
background-blur = true
#link
link-url = 
link-previews = true
selection-background = 
selection-foreground =
# title =
# class =
window-inherit-working-directory = 
window-decoration = false
bell-features = no-audio

2025-10-16 17:32 will replace ranger with yazi (skipping lf) looks great out of the box DONE: config yazi

2025-10-16 17:38 TODO: configure my starship shell prompt look at Geist font for terminal

2025-10-17 17:16 how to improve ghostty startup? it is way slower than kitty it is slow because of GTK; we can try to run an empty shell at startup, as subsequent ghostty windows are faster

spawn-at-startup  "ghostty --gtk-single-instance=true --quit-after-last-window-closed=false --initial-window=false"

2025-10-17 17:27 add a command-not-found hook to explain missing commands interesting packages: pay-respects, filkoll, find-the-command decided on filkoll, as pay-respects looks as if it does too much (and needs more config) and find-the-command looks abandoned enabled filkoll update-service: sudo systemctl enable --now filkoll-update.timer enabled filkoll: source /usr/share/doc/filkoll/command-not-found.fish

2025-10-17 17:46 I have to say I really like how crispy all the fonts look on ghostty

2025-10-17 17:58 choosing starship over oh my posh, as i value my time :) TODO: choose sane PDF and document viewer (maybe steal from Omarchy)

2025-10-17 20:52 how to list user-installed packages? (so I know which PDF tools I have installed) TODO: agree on a single git gui (lazygit, gitui) TODO: use timeshift for backups (to external drive? stick?) TODO: vim-keys on zen-browser TODO: add niri hotkey to turn neovim into 80 chars width terminal (for better readability and line break) TODO: CLI reminder when not using the most fancy-rust tools (ls instead of lsd. Best to also add an alias)

2025-10-17 21:52 want to set up autosave for nvim find a plugin figure out how to install the plugin (auto-save.nvim) discover there are erros when autosave and autoformat are combined (endless loop) need to update lazyvin encounter more errors need to install luarocks to fix them install mise to set up my dev environments remove nvm in favor of mise nvm installed via fisher (fish plugin manager) figure out how to remove nvm-fish and fisher fisher list | fisher remove DONE: does mise also means I can remove my python install? (no, python is required for many applications..) activate mise in fish: echo 'mise activate fish | source' >> ~/.config/fish/config.fish actually don't need to install luarocks..

2025-10-17 22:43 autosave set up!

local excluded_filetypes = {
    -- this one is especially useful if you use neovim as a commit message editor
    "gitcommit",
    -- most of these are usually set to non-modifiable, which prevents autosaving
    -- by default, but it doesn't hurt to be extra safe.
    "NvimTree",
    "Outline",
    "TelescopePrompt",
    "alpha",
    "dashboard",
    "lazygit",
    "neo-tree",
    "oil",
    "prompt",
    "toggleterm",
}

local excluded_filenames = {
    -- "do-not-autosave-me.lua",
}

local function save_condition(buf)
    if
        vim.tbl_contains(excluded_filetypes, vim.fn.getbufvar(buf, "&filetype"))
        or vim.tbl_contains(excluded_filenames, vim.fn.expand("%:t"))
        -- don't save for special-buffers
        or vim.fn.getbufvar(buf, "&buftype") ~= ""
    then
        return false
    end
    return true
end

return {
    "okuuva/auto-save.nvim",
    version = "^1.0.0", -- see https://devhints.io/semver, alternatively use '*' to use the latest tagged release
    lazy = false,
    cmd = "ASToggle", -- optional for lazy loading on command
    -- event = { "InsertLeave", "TextChanged" },
    opts = {
        debounce_delay = 1000, -- ms delay before save
        write_all_buffers = false, -- only save the current buffer
        noautocmd = false, -- do not execute autocmds when saving
        condition = save_condition,
    },
    keys = {
        { "<leader>uv", "<cmd>ASToggle<CR>", desc = "Toggle autosave" },
    },
}

2025-10-17 22:44 TODO: ghostty doesn't ready my SSH key for github pushes.. setting up starship mkdir -p ~/.config && touch ~/.config/starship.toml by default, I prefer text over icons, as I don't know what the icons mean starship preset plain-text-symbols -o ~/.config/starship.toml changed a few icons (mainly OS symbols) to NerfFonts icons figuring out how to add support for TOML schemas to nvim thinking about adding yanky.nvim added taplo to nvim, but now I get this file has been excluded

2025-10-17 23:41 fixed it

-- File: lua/plugins/lsp-taplo.lua
-- https://old.reddit.com/r/neovim/comments/1fkprp5/how_to_properly_setup_lspconfig_for_toml_files/
return {
    "neovim/nvim-lspconfig",
    opts = {
        servers = {
            taplo = {
                filetypes = { "toml" }, -- ensure it attaches to TOML files
                root_dir = require("lspconfig.util").root_pattern("*.toml", ".git"),
                settings = {
                    evenBetterToml = {
                        schema = {
                            enabled = true,
                        },
                    },
                },
            },
        },
    },
}

2025-10-17 23:42 continuing on starship config how to insert emoji and unicode in linux with my system menu (drun?) DONE figure out which menu I run (fuzzel) configuring niri I like centering containers, but then I can't edit side-by-side.. DONE change screenlocker to quickshell/noctalia (away from swaylock) niri hotkeys seem like extremely sane defaults. Also, the variable names are sane, too! DONE change niri logout keybinds to trigger quickshell logout

2025-10-18 00:16 want to change my noctalia profile picture (~/.face) want to copy my profile pictyre via yazi as .face added a yazi shell wrapper to be able to change the dir

function y
 set tmp (mktemp -t "yazi-cwd.XXXXXX")
 yazi $argv --cwd-file="$tmp"
 if read -z cwd < "$tmp"; and [ -n "$cwd" ]; and [ "$cwd" != "$PWD" ]
  builtin cd -- "$cwd"
 end
 rm -f -- "$tmp"
end

learned that you can press F1 to display yazi keymaps move files via x (cut yank)

2025-10-18 00:27 found out how to quickshell IPC for logout from niri

Mod+Shift+E { spawn "qs" "-c" "noctalia-shell" "ipc" "call" "sessionMenu" "toggle";}``

still need to figure out how to insert unicode via my fuzzel DONE decide on fuzzel, rofi, dmenu, ... (bemenu, wofi, wmenu, ilia, ...) and configure them TODO save my dotfiles (don't want to lose them...) TODO research yubikey for auth

2025-10-18 00:48 decided on fuzzel looking for unicode pickers, but this doesn't seem to be available. Closest is bemoji and rofimoji -- no unicode though? DONE remove rofi can also use unipicker and then add it to fuzzel

2025-10-18 01:06 removed sway, manjaro-sway-settings, .. check if the following are needed/useful

## The following packages are installed but not required (anymore):
argagg
bc
bluetuith
btop
calcurse
foot
gdb
grimshot
gtklock
idlehack
kvantum-theme-matcha
libappimage
manjaro-base-skel
matcha-gtk-theme
nwg-wrapper
papirus-maia-icon-theme
pyalpm
rofimoji
smartmontools
swappy
swayidle
swayr
wf-recorder
wl-clip-persist
wlroots0.19
wob
xcursor-breeze
xdg-terminal-exec

2025-10-18 01:11 Added my preferred terminal char ↳!

2025-10-18 13:30 anyrun seems as if it would do the perfect job for launching apps and searching for unicdoe https://github.com/anyrun-org/anyrun?tab=readme-ov-file walker is also a good contender THOUGHT a new file format that splits all TODO into separate 'threads', as these represent a decision-making fork; I can only do one thing at a time, and every additional TODO needs to be queued and done later. Having a journal that supports this mental model, where I select branches of TODO and journal down on them may also represent a true Zettelkasten approach

2025-10-18 13:52 Installed all of walker, rofi, fuzzel and anyrun don't like the anyrun symbols browser walker is the fastest, but needs to configure elephant decided to set up walker elephant service enable and systemctl --user start elephant.service TODO why is there not auto complete for elephant in fish?

2025-10-18 14:28 seems there is an OOO bug with walker trying to set a systemd service that restarts when hitting 500mb

[Unit]
Description=Walker GApplication Service
After=graphical-session.target

[Service]
ExecStart=/usr/bin/walker --gapplication-service
Restart=always
RestartSec=5
MemoryMax=500M
Environment=WAYLAND_DISPLAY=%EWAYLAND_DISPLAY%
Environment=XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP=niri
Environment=GDK_BACKEND=wayland

[Install]
WantedBy=default.target

2025-10-18 14:37 cleaning up old packages removed emacs, alacritty, autotiling, pamac, yay walker starts slow, is the service not running properly?

2025-10-18 22:50 how to copy to clipboard in wayland? wl-copy fixed walker service with the help of grok

[Unit]
Description=Walker GApplication Service
PartOf=graphical-session.target
After=graphical-session.target
Wants=graphical-session.target

[Service]
Type=simple
ExecStart=/usr/bin/walker --gapplication-service
Restart=always
RestartSec=5
MemoryMax=500M
Environment=WAYLAND_DISPLAY=wayland-1

[Install]
WantedBy=graphical-session.target

will change my niri conf to use walker now (but still keep fuzzel as backup :) DONE configure walker DONE use the faster launch command nc -U /run/user/1000/walker/walker.sock in my niri conf DONE walker directly closes and doesn't do anything.. Not sure I want to continue struggling with walker...

2025-10-19 00:05 some more attempts at fixing walker, but it didn't work removed walker and elephant, waste of time

2025-10-19 01:01 played around with anyrun, but I don't like the visual style. it is very annoying to style, and the gtk4 css doesn't work as expected

2025-10-19 14:35 snooping around anyrun directory but gave up styling it let's just stick with fuzzel DONE investigate how to open dedicated emoji/unicode picker (maybe via ghostty?) set up tidal-hifi looking around neovim plugin management and zen-mode. I don't want to open a terminal and then navigate to specific dotfiles over again, I just want to navigate to a saved folder location from within my terminal. THOUGHT maybe make my .dirinfo spec come true? Place a .dirinfo into targeted dirs, which serves as readme and description. It can also be used with a picker to directly jump into that dir DONE set up lazy snacks zen for nvim actually, it's already set up by default :) DONE set up MPRIS keybinds to skip a song (can be done via quickshell)

2025-10-19 15:36 installed dolphin notice that all it's styling is broken (black white, invisible fonts, ..) removed dolphin fixed yazi change-directory-on-exit wrapper

2025-10-19 16:53 reading up on bemoji, don't like that they don't include full unicode configured fuzzel defaults, really like the man-page removed bemoji, rofi settled on rofimoji, which can also use fuzzel DONE figure out why rofimoji-fuzzel shows weird emoji chars (maybe because of the font?)

2025-10-19 18:53 fixed rofimoji --selector fuzzel showing outline-only emojis by adding font=Hack:weight=medium:size=20,Noto Emoji:size=22 into my fuzzel config removed swaylock figured out that I can lock my screen by calling this quickshell IPC qs -c noctalia-shell ipc call sessionMenu lockAndSuspend TODO mediakyes for quickshell qs -c noctalia-shell ipc call media next

2025-10-19 19:30 looking to set up ssh and gpg, again goal: unlock the keyring until I lock the screen again (or am idle 15 min) grok seems more useful for tech support than chatGPT

2025-10-19 20:27 discovered some zsh and bash config files -- should I remove them? TODO notify my when I run a command for which I have a fish alias/function (like yazi instead of y)

2025-10-19 20:43 added a shortcut for opening my syncthing localhost url via fuzzel (by creating an .desktop file in /home/jst/.local/share/applications) I think this is a good way to remember localhost URLs (syncthing, paperless, synology-gui, gitea, pihole, ...)

[Desktop Entry]
Name=Syncthing Web UI
Type=Application
Exec=xdg-open http://127.0.0.1:8384/
Icon=text-html
Terminal=false

installed cliphist, need to figure out what it does -- just another wl-copy? E: requires wl-clipboard, so seems to sit 'above' we can run cliphist list | fuzzel -d | cliphist decode | wl-copy to have fuzzel show the last pastes TODO set a hotkey for this, and/or use the quickshell variant TODO check my screenshot setup and/or maybe set up grim and slurp removed pnpm added keychain to my fish.conf eval (keychain --eval --quiet KEY_ID) :: gpg --list-secret-keys --keyid-format=long, it's the part after sec rsa4096/ check agents: ssh-add -l (lists SSH keys) and gpg --list-keys TODO look into SSHFS for remote-mounting to/from synology TODO set up ssh aliases TODO set up hypralax

2025-10-19 21:53 installed nemo looks nice, very similar to pcmanfm TODO transform all my niri startups into systemd services, for better support setup niriswitcher, very nice, fills a gap to make niri more useful (don't have to scroll across thousands of windows..) -- https://github.com/isaksamsten/niriswitcher?tab=readme-ov-file TODO take a look at nirius (https://sr.ht/~tsdh/nirius/) TODO take a look at stasis for better idle handling (https://github.com/saltnpepper97/stasis?tab=readme-ov-file)

2025-10-19 22:15 I think I am mostly done configuring everything

niri and noctalia are configured
ghostty and fish work
i can switch and applications
i can search for emojis
i can enter my ssh password (not perfect yet)

TODO

neovim config
obsidian config (same folder as neovim)
dotfiles backup
system backup!
transform this writeup and post it on my website
wallpapers and theming with mutagen

2025-10-19 22:36 More ricing? Instead of quickshell there is also aylur :) TODO also, i could check my icons and gtk theme DONE decrease fuzzel font size removed google-chrome set cool wallpaper TODO configure standard utils for opening images, pdf, .. TODO accidentally removed my gtk theme when cleaning unused packages :) fixed nemo not opening a terminal by calling gsettings set org.cinnamon.desktop.default-applications.terminal exec ghostty removed etcher set nemo as default file launcher xdg-mime default nemo.desktop inode/directory application/x-gnome-saved-search TODO xdg-open vs gtk-launch

2025-10-20 20:38 need to change gtk theme and everything... best if there is a way to write this to a config or have a gui? looking to install the arc theme, but no idea how :) installed gtk-tweaks, but seems useless installed gtk-engine-murrine, papirus-icon-theme and arc-gtk-theme DONE how to copy from fish directly into system clipboard when using vim mode? found a script that makes use of the fish_killring. afterwards, just change the hotkeys to make use of this function afterwards (https://joaocosta.dev/blog/17>)

function yank_to_clipboard -d "Insert latest killring entry into the system clipboard"

    printf "%s" "$fish_killring[1]" | fish_clipboard_copy

end

2025-10-20 21:18 check that themes are installed in /usr/share/themes/Arc-Dark and /usr/share/icons/Papirus it seems that lxappearance and gnome-tweaks are indeed the way to go. also check in ~/.config/gtk-3.0/settings.ini, ~/.config/gtk-4.0/settings.ini, ~/.config/environment.d/qt.conf, ~/.config/Kvantum/kvantum.kvconfig and ~/.config/qt5ct/qt5ct.conf (5 and 6) I really like Juno-Palenight in combination with Papirus-Dark removed pcmanfm-gtk3

2025-10-20 21:47 figure out why keychain doesn't work properly -- should only store my auth when I need my ssh keys the first time, and not whenever I open fish... TODO can I see which package installed which? TODO show news in paru TODO figure out how to change cursor theme maybe this works better for keychain in my fish conf

if status is-interactive
    # Commands to run in interactive sessions can go here
    keychain --quiet --nogui ~/.ssh/id_ed25519
    if test -f ~/.keychain/$HOSTNAME-fish
        source ~/.keychain/$HOSTNAME-fish
    end
end

2025-10-20 22:44 added a desktop icon for fritz.box TODO look into pihole (+ hardware) >> Desktop Beelink GK35 maybe? TODO change firefox userchrome css to style the blank loading page to something dark (no more blinding white #fff) -- https://stackoverflow.com/questions/26680708/customize-firefox-background-color-of-the-browser-between-page-load