Packages

Recommendations

Window Manager

i3. Install with # apt install i3 --no-install-recommends or # pacman -S i3-wm in order not to install other packages like i3lock and i3status.

Additionally, you can install the libanyevent-i3-perl package (name may vary, depending on the distro) to save your workspace layouts. Just run the following commands:

$ i3-save-tree --workspace 1 > ~/.config/i3/workspace-1.json
$ i3-msg "workspace 1; append_layout ~/.config/i3/workspace-1.json

This will save the workspace layout and then apply it, respectively. You can now open apps manually or with a custom script, and they will be put in their corresponding positions.

Shell

Zsh. For theming, you can use Powerlevel10k.

Plugins:

• zsh-syntax-highlighting
• zsh-autosuggestions

I recommend git-cloning plugins and theme tools in a ~/.zsh directory, example:

.zsh
├── powerlevel10k
├── zsh-autosuggestions
└── zsh-syntax-highlighting

Application Launcher

Rofi. You may need to set up some apps manually for them to appear in the drun menu. For example:

# ln -s /usr/share/spotify/spotify.desktop /usr/share/applications

Similarly, you can modify files from that same /usr/share/applications folder in order to remove some unwanted applications using # nano app.desktop, and then adding NoDisplay=true to the end of it. This is useful for removing packages that are not meant to be run from rofi, like picom or cmatrix. Example:

[Desktop Entry]
Version=1.0
Name=CMatrix
NoDisplay=true

Others

Web Browser: Chromium

Text Editor: VSCode

Snipping Tool: Flameshot

Status Bar: Polybar

Terminal Emulator: Alacritty

Window Compositor: Picom

Wallpaper Setter: Feh

System Monitor: Btop

Notification Daemon: Dunst

File Manager: Nautilus

Painting Tool: Drawing

Considerations

Take in mind that some packages used in the repo dotfiles may be out of date for some special distros, like Arch. For example, Alacritty has swtiched from a .yml config file to a .toml one, Polybar has deprecated the content variable for custom/text modules, etc.