The Perfect Operating System Isn’t Windows Or macOS
Arch Linux encourages a user-controlled environment where no one but you — the user — chooses the desktop environment, kernel, workspace setup, packages, and many more.
When it comes to operating systems, there’s never one true best answer. Everyone has their own preference, whether they prefer something simple or complex, and their own needs, whether it be gaming, graphical design, or even just note-taking. Windows is usually preferred over others for gaming due to its graphics driver compatibility, while MacOS is often preferred for graphical design due to its simplicity and the MacBook’s display quality.
There are always limits to these operating systems. Every few months, Windows forces you to update your computer, or macOS would decide not to connect to WiFi. Picture your ideal desktop screen, what colour theme you would prefer, how your status bar should look, and what your keyboard shortcuts should be. What if there was a way you could get your computer to work exactly the way you want?
Linux
Linux is a free, open-source operating system kernel which has many distributions or distros, such as Ubuntu, Debian, Fedora, or Linux Mint. Every distribution specializes in its own purpose, for example, Ubuntu is simple and notably customizable.
Arch Linux is a Linux distro which allows the user to customize just about everything. For starters, the installation is all done through a command line which is fully documented and lets you choose which packages to install Arch with.
After installing Arch Linux with the necessary packages, it is highly recommended to install a Display Manager, which is the interface you are greeted with upon booting Arch, used to log in or choose a Window Manager or Desktop Environment, whichever one you prefer.
Tiling Window Managers
A window manager controls the behaviour of the frames or ‘windows’ open by modifying their size, border, or title bar.
Many Arch users work on a laptop, and detest the slow and inefficient trackpad movement to switch tabs, open, and resize windows, or switch workspaces. Tiling window managers minimize the need for using the trackpad since most functions are replaced by keyboard shortcuts, making it much easier to multitask. The most popular tiling window managers are awesome, bspwm, i3, and dwm.
The dmenu package can run a command (or open an application) through a keyboard shortcut followed by the application's name — similar to using the Windows key on a Windows computer, but without taking up a quarter of your screen.
Desktop Environments
A desktop environment comes with its own window manager and provides a graphical user interface with icons, toolbars, wallpapers, widgets, and its own applications.
A desktop environment is sometimes preferred over a window manager because of its similarity to Windows or macOS, and its utter simplicity. Most desktop environments come with preinstalled applications such as a browser, terminal, file explorer, and settings menu. The most popular desktop environments are KDE Plasma, Cinnamon, GNOME, and MATE.
Ricing
The major setback of customizing your operating system on your own is that you either have to do all the dirty work yourself or copy someone else’s rice. Desktop environments usually have official and user-made theme presets available to download, but they don’t exactly give you the “I riced my own desktop” pass. In the end, you downloaded Arch Linux to get a feel of your own setup… your own rice.
The best part is, you can change it up at any time. Most packages use config files to customize them, so you can design your own presets with multiple config files, and choose a different one if you’re tired of using the same colours over and over.
After choosing and installing your preferred window manager or desktop environment, install a program launcher such as dmenu or rofi, a status bar such as polybar or tint, a terminal emulator such as kitty or alacritty, and neofetch just for the sake of staring at a colourful text preview which displays your system information.
All of these packages are documented on ArchWiki or their respective websites. Other ricing tools can be found in the eye candy section of ArchWiki, and don’t forget, if you can’t figure everything out through reading the wiki, YouTube tutorials are your best friend.
Finishing Up
By this point, you’ve added visual and logical improvements to your computer, but what now? You designed such a cool desktop but no one gets to see it? Upload your config files or dotfiles to a GitHub repository with screenshots, then release it to the public through posting on r/unixporn or the Arch Linux Community Discord. To go a step further, you could create a makefile on your GitHub repository so people can copy your rice in one click.
Benefits of using Arch:
- A near-perfect operating system — configured by none but yourself
- Easier to deal with lag and fast battery loss
- You can now say “I use arch btw” and “I riced my own desktop”
