The Catalyst
Early this month I updated my computer and rebooted, and all of my clever tweaks and automation turned against me. To be brief it was my fault. There were some issues with my Qtile config and issues with my filesystem. So I took the opportunity to start fresh with a new operating system and updated Qtile configuration.
Stability
I was a little annoyed with the constant updates and occasional breakages in the rolling release format of Manjaro Linux. Manjaro was a great learning experience for me. Being closer to the development of projects gives you better perception of how open source software works, quickly and iteratively. As Eric Raymond says “release early release often.”
However, I had my fill of the bustling transience of the bazaar. I decided to take respite on more stable ground. Fortunately, It was a happy coincidence that Pop-Os was on my USB stick. Pop-Os is a Ubuntu based distribution of Linux. It is maintained by Linux systems integrator System 76. Pop-Os ships on their systems. It uses apt, runs Gnome, and has a static release cycle. It doesn’t have snap packages or telemetry. Pop-Os is like a pair of worn in sneakers if you like Ubuntu.
The Appearance
Ultimately I decided that Qtile was more comfortable than the Pop-Os version of the Gnome shell. So I decided to start over with Qtile Chameleon. First I came up with a new plan for the design. Then I started over with snippets from the old configuration.
The Appearance of Qtile Chameleon has been redesigned. The background of the bar is now black and the powerline effects have been removed. This was to simplify the theme and make it more usable with every wallpaper. In the end, the new theme is more reserved using the colors from the wallpaper in the widgets and window borders rather than the entire bar.
There is no official Qtile package in the latest Ubuntu repositories. So it needed to be built from source rather than a prepackaged binary. Hopefully it should be more stable over the course of time. I will have to see what happens as modules update. However, this means that if I don’t remember to build a new version occasionally I might not know that my config broke up stream.
The Install
I’ve added an install script to the git repository. First, the script automatically makes directories for the Qtile configuration, wallpapers, scripts and start page. Next it clones the repositories and moves the files to their directories. To conclude the install manually set the start-page, and make sure you have the dependencies installed.
Other Changes
In addition to the theme I’ve made some other changes to the project. Most of theses changes are minor. For instance, I made two optical art Wallpapers which are downloaded in the install script. In addition, I’ve changed some hotkeys. Also, mouse callbacks no longer call Qtile and instead call a function, and scripts that use Qtile commands have been updated. The Dmenu script has been updated to be congruent with the color scheme.
What did I Learn?
I Learned a few things rethinking this project. First, having a contingency plan is a good idea. Moving forward, I’m going to keep some redundant software on my system. I’ve also learned, It’s good to revisit a project. This revised version of Qtile Chameleon is more usable and easier to install.