(No provocation)
I see these reasons:
- newbie
- lazy (don’t wanna edit config files etc.)
- unique features (like assistant/toolbox, some optimizations like in cachyos)
- wanna check how different systems are set up (that’s rather distrohopping)
Personally, I used manjaro i3 when I was beigginer and wanted to see how tiling WM should be configured (check out ranger config, for example). But after some time, I don’t see reasons why not to just customize pure arch (same with debian and debian-based distros).
Definitely seems like a great service so far, agreed!
Ah, nice! I’m also on Niri, but with Noctalia shell. I came from over a decade on i3, then a short while on Hyprland, then on to Niri. Thought I would write my own bar using Quickshell, but it turns out several others had already done so, and a muuuch more comprehensive system as well. 😆 Very nice.
haha indeed, why reinvent the wheel :D I hadn’t heard of Noctalia, it looks beautiful. Once I’m done gawking over DMS, I might try switching :)
Yeah it’s great. I tried DMS and Noctalia very briefly before settling on Noctalia. They’re very similar in purpose and functionality I would say. Mess around with the settings and see what your vibe is and what your gut tells you, is what I would say. Very much down to preference. Best of luck!
I’m on nixOS, I wonder if I can easily swap DMS/Noctalia in/out via the flakes, to check the differences myself. I feel an evening or weekend project coming up :D Thanks for the tip!
This is why I’m not on nix 😆 I just install and run, takes 2 minutes. Don’t like it, uninstall and uncomment the old line back. Should be 15 minutes for the whole thing lol. I hope fiddling with nix is something you enjoy though. 😁 All the best!
I switched to nix not too long ago, and I must say, it’s been a smooth experience. I can’t imagine removing DMS to install the other one via apt or pacman would be safe for the niri config. NixOS could give me a clean separation. And if it doesn’t work, the rollback is easy, with 0 impact on my niri or DMS configs. My days of adventure are over I guess :)
Oh no, the Niri keyboard shortcuts for Noctalia would definitely not work if you removed it, or if you aren’t running it. 😄 And vice versa for DMS.
That’s the beauty of Niri’s include directive, that you can include different config files depending on which environment you are in. Very handy.
I have one for Noctalia bindings e.g.
I guess if you are used to nix already and can work efficiently with it, it’s a net gain of plus minus zero. I guess that’s why I don’t use it. I have to learn something fairly complicated in order to be able to do something I can already do equally efficiently. 😅
hmm those configs get added to the nix files, not sure how I leverage that include directive in such an environment. Should be fun to find out!
NixOS wasn’t that bad. I’m not that familiar with the nitty-gritty of Linux so yes it was tough the first days. Setting up everything just right, recreating the Sway layout from before. Still, once that works, it’s smooth sailing. I’ve not yet had the misfortune of having to do a reinstall, perhaps I’ll reconsider then 🤣
Hopefully you have all your nix configs backed up somewhere? 😅
Ah yeah, I’m guessing you don’t? I don’t really know anything about nix yet so I don’t understand how it can combine keyboard shortcuts for different shells and Niri into one Niri config other than if you add them manually. I feel like keyboard shortcuts are a very personal thing.
Especially it you’re running a custom keyboard like me with Colemak-DH layout. Then the default keyboard shortcuts will most likely not be great. 😅