megane_kun

megane_kun, 8 months ago

I can only speak from experience but from my understanding most people’s knowledge of Linux is derived solely from wanting to do something and then figuring out how to do it, instead of studying a list of “things you must know to use Linux”.

I second this. While I’ve been exposed to Linux quite a while back (Linux Mint, circa mid-2000’s if memory serves me right) and was given a “Linux basics” rundown, I only started daily-driving Linux around late 2019, and by then, my knowledge of Linux pretty much have faded. It still hasn’t prevented me from getting re-familiarized with Linux (Manjaro, then Arch). Of course, some bit of knowledge would help, but a lot of the Linux basics you’d need are already out there if you need it. Just look things up if the need arises.

Also, I find having to learn something I don’t immediately would need to use not very productive, even counterproductive at times since it leads me to having a mindset of “I should already know this, why am I‌ being so stupid?”

So yeah!‌ I second this sentiment of “just use your computer, look things up if you have to, it’s not going to hurt.”

And oh, don’t be afraid to mess with your computer from time to time. If you’re concerned about breaking things, you can install the distro of your choice into an old laptop or something, and use that as a place to “mess things up.”

Edit: I forgot that OP already is using Linux in a virtual box. OP can use that as a laboratory to “mess things up.”

megane_kun, 8 months ago (edited 8 months ago)

Details:

The right screen has the following (KDE Plasma) widgets:

• Alpaca Clock and Weather (top-left)
• Event Calendar (bottom-left)
• System monitor sensor widget of various settings (the five widgets on the right side)

Both screens have side panels containing only a icon-only task manager. These side panels are installed on the outer edges of the screens instead of on the bottom as might be customary.

The top panels of both screens act as one whole top panel. However, both of them also have a collection of widgets (Window Buttons, Window Title, and Window AppMenu) that (should) only come into play if a window is maximized on a screen. That’s what is demonstrated in the first screenshot of the OP.

As for the theming, I used WhiteSur-dark as the global theme, with particulars overriden as follows:

• Plasma Style: Monterey-dark
• Colors: MontereyDark
• Colors, accent color: custom (#636363)
• Window Decorations: Prof Dark
• Window Decorations, Window border size: No Side Borders
• Icons: Ultimate-Plata-Suru-Plus…
• Cursors: macOS-Monterey
• Splash Screen: 1604-Arch-Splash

As for the mouse gestures. I’ve got a mouse with additional buttons, so I used one of those extra buttons to indicate that I’m going to do a mouse gesture. Those mouse gestures are taken by KDE Plasma and act like a custom shortcut, which executes an action, which I defined via KDE‌ Plasma.

The gestures are as follows:

<span style="color:#323232;">Go to the previous Virtual Desktop:                     move right, move up
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Go to the next Virtual Desktop:                         move left, move down
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Move the active window to the previous screen:          move right (a bit), move left
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Move the active window to the next screen:              move left (a bit), move right
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Move the active window to the previous Virtual Desktop: move down (a bit), move up
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Move the active window to the next Virtual Desktop:     move up (a bit), move down
</span>

EDIT: Added theming details

megane_kun, 8 months ago

I actually am trying to get it hooked to my google calendar. That widget used to support that feature and have it work. However, recent changes have borked that functionality, and I can’t seem to find another widget that does the same.

Or I can just move away from google calendar.

megane_kun, 8 months ago

I’ve been working on it on and off since I’ve started using this system. It started with just the basics, tweaking the defaults, wanting more, and so on and so forth.

I usually can spend an entire (weekend’s) afternoon just tweaking things, making a change here and then, and observing if I like the changes I’ve made. Rinse and repeat that over a period of several months.

megane_kun, 8 months ago

I’m weaning myself away from it. However, it’s still unavoidable in my case because my work uses it. Thus, my work-related appointments and such are on there, which is one of the reasons why I had that widget in the first place (to monitor work-related appointments, deadlines, etc).

megane_kun, 8 months ago

Thanks! I’m glad to have inspired you.

While KDE Plasma offers a whole lot of options for customization, it’s really daunting especially if you’re just new to it. What really helped me is to just go with a little bit of customization and tweaking at a time. As I got more experience, I started to want more and more which lead to a lot more customization and tweaking.

megane_kun, 8 months ago

That time was when I was forced to switch from Windows 7. I switched to Linux, found that I can do there most things I usually do on a computer anyways, and never looked back. It reached to the point that someone had to give me an entire SDD with a windows installation just to coax me to use Windows 10. I rarely touch it nowadays, and every time I do, I end up being frustrated with it.