The Perfect System

The perfect system is stable, reliable, and does everything you need it to, while it feels amazing to use.

Twitch Livestream going over DWM Rice 5/24/2023 Noon CST

Timestamps:
00:00 The Perfect System
01:44 The Base and Packages
04:38 My Old Systems
05:17 Good Rices with minimal dependancies
08:10 My Future Systems .

[magnusharkonen]

The hardier and more complicated Chris's project - the more unshaved he becomes :D

[ghost-user]

I find the more I get into customizing a desktop environment, the less I actually accomplish anything. So diminishing returns are very real. And also once I start I don’t really know when to stop because there’s always one more tweak.

Getting something like MacOS or an out of the box Linux Distro and doing some basic quality of life changes is more powerful than trying to rice anything beyond some basic aesthetics and binding fundamental shortcuts.

Sometimes I enjoy actually just running a very simple out of the box MacOS with very limited customization and I find I actually am forced to focus on the work I actually want to do. I do use open source tools to add window management and ui tweaks but it’s very lightweight.

Once I open the Pandora’s box of ricing Linux or rainmetering Windows or anything too granular I get lost in endless hours of playing games *with* my desktop environment. Ultimately I’d rather just play games _on_ my desktop at that point.

[bornknightmare]

Chris thank you so much for helping us little guys. Your love and passion for this stuff is apparent in your videos and it goes a long way in helping people learn this stuff.

Instead of being deprived of information, like those before us, my generation and upcoming generations are drowning in a vast sea of false information. The internet is crowded with echo chambers that produce ideologist and tribes. Instead of being united, we are being divided by the things we are being led to see via bias search engines and news channels. Thank you for being as unbias as possible and creating a healthy community that's full of students and not ideologist. Also, thank you for helping me get microsoft out of my life. I no longer feel the urge to drop kick my laptop lol

[sanketgupta]

Love your channel! I've been subscribed for like 2 years now, and this is my favorite channel of this niche. Can't really describe how much I've learned thanks to you!

Keep up the good work 🎉

[davidg]

The perfect linux system for me has been Xubuntu for a while now. No matter how much distro hopping I do, I always land back on Xubuntu.
For my desktop, I like a setup with almost no active elements. The few active elements I use live in the taskbar and just give numbers (like CPU/RAM utilization, temperature, bitrate, etc.).

[thepi]

I used bspwm for about 2 years now. Just yesterday I switched over to using gnome. I set up some keybinds for some simple actions and rofi. My reasoning was that most of my workflow is now usually just me having apps open in fullscreen on several desktops, and I think gnome is better for that sort of workflow. I am hoping to get back on bspwm, maybe once I get a wider monitor where having windows side by side is actually useful.

[entelin]

You only truly reach transcendence when there is no longer a gui visible. We come full circle and all there is left is the terminal, albeit with better font's dimensions and colors. This is why the default dwm look is nearly ideal, ctrl+b and perfection has been achieved.

[Downloader]

0:10 The phrase "Chasing the dragon" 🐲 is definitely not the same as idiom "Chasing the end of a rainbow for a pot of gold". I don't have the heart to speak frank. Help me out guys and gals.

[yusefaslam]

I have also came to the same realization, like you I'm also not that good at designing and recently I've gone back to a very minimal XMonad setup with only some minor changes to the default configuration. I started to hate the complexity of my previous XMonad configuration because it required a lot of packages (it started like 10 programs when I logged in) and the config was very large, I also had other programs that needed their own huge configurations. I like the simplicity of a system that is minimal and stays close to the defaults, and I enjoy using it more because there is less mental overhead and a lot less to maintain.

[Anthony]

All this and then you spend 80% of the time watching a browser or a vscode window

[jannepelto]

I gave up the perfect system some years back, still I come back here =). There will never be the one (Neo), the world needs change, feeling etc. I admire you still fight hard for something perfect. Ity shows your hunger for something better like a true engineer. Nowadays I am happy when I make really cool tools that first of all, automates as much as possible (Linux, Windows, Mac and other managers/systems. I do miss one of my systems with compiz back in about 2006 I think it was. Yes, I could probably set up a similar system today but I prefer to build new tools. =) Great video btw Chris. =)

[alexstone]

3:40 i wanted to try that too, i always thought that would be the best way to structure an operating system, a base stable system then overlay that is not critical which is newer and can break without making system unbootable

[GaetanLepage]

Great video Chris !
I think that you would absolutely love learn more about Nix and especially at NixOS and home-manager.
It affords you the tools to make your entire desktop configuration (distribution/system + user/ricing) declarative and reproducible.
Once you get in that train you can never go back to traditional package management and configuration !

[nishantshokeen]

I like chris when he is attuned with Force... internalizing, focus and refining the hunger to build...

May the force be with you.

[sumdamwog]

Function over form. Now I know why I can relate to you and what you do. The thing about the perfect desktop is it's like a model railway, "It is finished but never completed"

[KETO_DIET]

Thanks for keeping your shirt on this time....!🤣😜 Interesting System...👍‍

[Mikesco]

I've been really happy with Manjaro XFCE, however I like what you're doing, I've heard a lot of people happy with PopOS' Cosmic and their variant of gnome.
But I really like what the Nix project is doing.

[erascarecrow]

It's difficult to find more the minimum where you're happy with it not looking ugly while not using many resources. I've ended up going XFCE and lightweight choices, but i'd prefer it much lighter, as i generally end up running more server setups and background processes and less using it directly.

[HHerzan]

I still use your ArchTitus and it's great! I wanna see your next build! Keep on the good work!

[revcliff]

The core of my favorite desktop is openbox/plank/polybar/albert. There's a little fluff like variety for a wallpaper switcher because I like the randomness of it. But overall, that's about all I need. With minimal modification, ll leads to a nice looking desktop that is quite minimal.