greetings and salutations,
it is i, adron the arkay'zr, aka numbpilled voidrane, or even the lugubrious SPLICER SCORN-
i am here from the far reaches of a world so cold and grey to bring you the fantastic news about linux, arch linux, how to bypass the technicalities of installing arch linux, and finally..... dun dun DUN... LINUX RICING!!
hooray!~
let us begin with the WHY- why should you switch to linux..?
well, in my opinion, which is only one of very many- linux became the only logical answer as soon as microsoft began bombarding 'legacy' users with popup menus upon the starting and stopping of their personal computer imploring them that it is time to update or upgrade or otherwise somehow 'cought it up' and pay them varying amounts of money in order to use what, in my opinion- should already belong to the user in the first place!!
if my rambling dictum is too poetically word-salad-y, i am referring to the following:
it's
obscene! this and this alone should be a heralding moment that will most likely create one of the single largest migrations from windows to linux in the history of anything ever.
what is linux?windows and mac are polished cages. comfortable. padded. curated. they hide the wires because they do not want you to touch them. linux hands you the wires and asks if you are brave enough to reroute the current. every time you step into a terminal you are cutting out the middleman and talking straight to the hardware. you are closer to the pulse of the machine, closer to the truth of computation, closer to that feeling of total ownership that corporate operating systems pretend does not exist.
short explanations for the main distros:
ubuntu: the default gateway into linux. big, soft, friendly, and everywhere. if linux had a welcome mat, it would be ubuntu.
debian: the monastery. stable, ancient, disciplined. packages move slowly because the monks must approve each one.
arch: the forge. everything is sharp and hot and loud. you build your own weapon and learn every part of it. bleeding edge, no apologies.
endeavourOS: arch with a seatbelt. same machine, fewer scars. perfect for people who want power without the migraine.
manjaro: arch with training wheels that sometimes wobble on their own. friendly, polished, occasionally chaotic.
fedora: the research lab. red hat’s experimental playground. modern. fast. very clean.
opensuse: the green control panel. for people who want god-tier configuration tools without having to write a treatise in bash.
gentoo: the pilgrimage. compile everything yourself. wait hours. transcend time. question your choices. achieve enlightenment.
void linux: minimalism sharpened into a blade. independent, efficient, fast boots, no systemd. for the real operators.
pop!_os: ubuntu’s caffeinated cousin built for creators, devs, and gpu monsters. clean, modern, gets out of your way.
nixos: the time machine. a fully declarative system where every configuration is a snapshot carved in stone.
if you are an absolute beginner to the world of linux, check out linux mint, it is easy, and shows you the linux experience in a non overwhelming way. if youre like me and want the most control, arch linux is king, but it is rather overwhelming to install it at first as it is a ton of command-line entrenchment that sometimes breaks and you have to start over... that is why endeavour os exists, it removes that part entirely replacing it with a gui, so people can use arch and not suffer initially.
LINUX RICING: linux ricing is the process of customizing your desktop environment or window manager so it looks and behaves exactly the way you want. it goes far beyond changing a wallpaper. ricing involves modifying themes, system colors, icons, fonts, window borders, panels, widgets, and even the way your system handles animations or keyboard shortcuts. the goal is to build a workflow and visual style that supports how you think and work.
the practical benefit is that ricing forces you to learn how your system fits together. when you change your bar, you learn how it pulls data. when you install a window manager, you learn how it controls windows. when you customize notifications, you learn how different services talk to each other. this knowledge makes you more confident and self sufficient in linux.
rice setups range from minimal tiling window managers with no icons at all, to elaborate desktop environments full of custom widgets and visual effects. popular tools for ricing include window managers like i3, hyprland, openbox, and bspwm, launchers like rofi and wofi, and bars like waybar and polybar. people also rice full desktop environments like kde plasma or gnome, using theme engines and extensions.
in the end, ricing is simply personalizing your system so it feels efficient, comfortable, and yours. it is both an aesthetic exercise and a way to understand your computer on a deeper level.
the holy grail of system customization; EWW. eww, short for elkowar’s wacky widgets, is a toolkit that lets you build your own desktop widgets using simple markup, css, and small scripts. instead of depending on whatever your desktop environment gives you, eww lets you create exactly the components you want. system monitors, music controls, weather panels, todo lists, notifications, dashboards, anything you can imagine. if it can output data, eww can display it.
the power of eww comes from how flexible it is. every widget is built from your own code, so it can look and behave however you want. you are not limited to stock designs or someone else's idea of a workspace. you can build a bar that shows only the information you care about, or a floating panel that appears when you press a key, or a full desktop dashboard that tracks your system in real time.
data driven widgets are especially valuable. they let you bring live information into your workflow instead of switching apps or digging for it. a custom eww widget can pull battery readings, cpu temperature, calendar events, rss feeds, spotify metadata, git status, or anything else you can access with a command. this creates a workspace that reacts to your habits and needs.
creating your own widgets also teaches you how your system works behind the scenes. you gain a better understanding of shell commands, json parsing, timers, async scripts, and service interaction. over time, your widgets become a personal library of tools that support exactly how you like to work.
with eww, your desktop stops being a passive environment and becomes something dynamic. the more you customize it, the more it starts to feel like a system built for you, by you.
the only limit is your imagination.
i hope this is somehow valuable to someone, as i felt like i had found a secret treasure of some sort that satiated my need to customize EVERYTHING to such a high degree, i just had to share it with someone. if you already use linux, please post your desktop in the comments, i would love to see your setups!~
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