youmaynotknow

No it isn’t minimal if by minimal you mean 0 bars, docks and even menus. However, when coming from Gnome, Cinnamon or Plasma, this is the very definition of minimal in my mind.

My intent is to force myself to move away from the “common” way that most of us are using today to interact with our computers. In my mind this will force me to:

1.- start moving away from the mouse and go back to the keyboard.

2.- point one will force me to commit keybinds to memory without getting stuck because I don’t have an easily available way to just use the pointer and click on something if I’m in a hurry and forget how to open it at that precise moment, which I can guarantee will happen a lot. (I’ve become mentally lazy with how easy it is to commit information to an app instead of to memory, which makes me fear for how detrimental this has been to my cognitive capacity).

3.- declutter my interface even more than I did with Gnome. I believe that, once my desktop is configured the way I want it, regardless of the interface, it should just get out of the way entirely while still looking pretty, sort of like a pet dog, (not a Husky, I have one of those and they do NOT get our of the way unless they choose to).

4.- bragging rights over time (nothing wrong with that, right?)

5.- finally, I want to keep learning how to use different environments by being hands on with their configuration files, as opposed from this ‘click here, then click here’ streamline.

Having said that, I believe you are correct, I used the word ‘minimal’ in the wrong context, and I am sorry if I confused some by using that term, English is like my 5th language or something, lol. And I did look at Sway like you suggested, it does look like what I want my end game to be, but I do not think I’m ready to be there yet without regularly thinking about slamming my laptop on the wall, it’s going to be a few moons before I’m ready for that step.

I ended up with Niri + DMS. I’ll test drive it for a week or so, but if it’s anything like today’s experience (didn’t really go too deep because, we’ll, work), it looks like I’m going to like it. So far the experience is not too different than Gnome, just that my computer feels a bit snappier and the tiling, after configuring it to my taste is amazing.

Finally, someone had to say it. While capitalism is far from perfect, I’d rather have billionaire capitalist assholes that I can then call on their bullshit than so-called ‘socialism’ which is just the pretty way to call a dictatorship. Show me one ‘socialist’ country that has thrived. One, come on.

Or just drop Winblows and finally move to freedom by installing a good Linux distro.

That’s what I’m trying to do, have a very minimal interface and handle as much as possible with keyboard while still having a usable system with only the minimum necessary GUI. It’s going to take a lot of unlearning/learning. I don’t want to rely on pointer as much. And I get that this is not for everyone, I’m already test-driving Niro since it’s closer to my Gnome work flow and may be a learning curve with a bit less friction that Hyprland or Swey.

I tried the last Cosmic, but found it lacks some of my wokflow parts, such as infinite auto-generated virtual desktops. Plus, Cosmic is still pointer first.

I really need to give WMs a try again. It’s a huge switch in Streamline, but I think that if I push through with one of the best WMs for a week or 2, I could get use to the new interactions,eventually.

Any suggestions for a long-time Gnome user that feels very comfortable with CosmicDE as it is right now?

I hate a fee things about Gnome, like how hacky it is to get any screen shot app other than Gnome’s to work. Having said that, I tried KDE for a few days, then I tried to customize it to simulate my workflow I think it Gnome as much as possible. Both experiences were a complete fail. It’s very hard for me to move from Gnome. Let’s see what Cosmic brings to the table in 2026. It’s way closer to Gnome in many ways.

As for tour question, to me the DE is 80% of the experience.

I’m still not connecting NY TV to any network, local or otherwise.

Everything. Self host everything, even your pets.

Same here, only 9 years ago. On the not so bright side, every few months I go in a distro hopping frenzy for a day or 2 but it’s fine, since any distro installed takes me at most 15 minutes.

planning on cutting back some AI features where they don’t make sense.

Lol, that’s basically saying they’ll remove AI from the entire system, 🤣

As is the make and model of her first car. Completely irrelevant.

Intel Arc = 3

This is exactly right. Which brings us to the ‘half-baked’ option of self-hosting anything. For example, if you self-host a matrix server for you and your friends and family (assuming you’re able to get them to use it), your data, on your end, is relatively safe and you’re in control, however, the others may have their devices compromised either by Google on stock Android, Microslop on Windows or iOS on Crapple devices, so whatever you share with them is still at risk of being gathered by these tech giants anyway. It’s a very hard problem to solve. The technology for the solution is there, but it’s unrealistic to expect everyone to just drop everything they know and are used to, since lack of convenience and friction is just too much for most normies to even attempt to deal with.

I don’t know how these laws work when everything you and your environment use is self-hosted, but where I am it’s the one thing you can do to control your data, by law. Not even a warrant allows checking personally owned or company owned devices. However, most, if not all, institutions and companies rely entirely on US based tech hosted in the US. That shit needs to end.

Fuck all that ‘play on our computer and pay us’ bullshit. Jensen can eat a bag of dicks and share it with Nadella and Altman.

Ain’t that the truth? I feel like Distro hopping is an integral part of falling in love with Linux. In my case, I get distro hopping zoomies every few months 🤣

My bad, I apologize, and thanks for clarifying. I think my brain automatically changed shell for terminal, and I could have sworn your reply had a question mark after ‘terminal’. Gotta stop replying here when I’m almost asleep.

For shell, I always end up switching to Zsh, mainly because of the extensive and easy customization.

The reality is, and I say this with a heavy heart, that Crapple is ahead of everyone else in how to keep the money and stock prices moving in their favor. They ‘rent’ AI capabilities from OpenAI and Google and put their money where they always have, making new devices, some good developing and fucking over everyone in their walled garden. Microslop, on the other hand, has completely lost its north.

Full disclosure, I fucking hate Crapple almost as much as I hate Microslop, but they evidently know what they’re doing. How long they can keep their shit up is another conversation for another time.

~~https://alacritty.org/~~

And again, see comment below 😂