Happiness is finding people with the same mental illness as you...

WDstudios · 2023-10-22 22:28:57

I've been distro-hopping for at least a decade, and experimenting in some way or another with Linux for ~2 decades. My initial reasons for wanting to migrate from Windows to Linux were that Vista and Win7 sucked, and I knew I couldn't use XP forever. Eventually, I learned about Classic Shell/Open Shell, and I learned how to take ownership of the "Program Files" directory, and I learned how to beat Win7 into something that was actually pretty tolerable... but by then, Win8 had come out, and Flat Design was here to stay, and I had a whole different reason for wanting to switch to Linux. The problem with switching to linux was that every Linux distro I found was also hopping on the Flat Design bandwagon.

A few months ago, I learned about Q4OS Trinity and XPQ4. I thought I had found the answer to my prayers. I didn't take long to learn how absolutely godawful the Konqueror file manager was.

So, now, I'm once again looking for a Linux distro with tolerable functionality and tolerable aesthetics. I remember looking at Devuan several years ago and rejecting it, partially because of the user-unfriendliness of its installation and partly because of its oppressively red color scheme. But Devuan 5.0 is different. Devuan 5.0 is blue. Poking around a bit more, I notice some other things. Icons have color gradients instead of solid colors. They have dark, 1-pixel-thick borders to improve the contrast between them and the background. The minimize, maximize, and close buttons in the upper right corner of every window are actual buttons, not symbols branded directly onto the title bar. Yes, all of this could be accomplished in other distros by messing with the settings, but here's the kicker: the Firefox that comes with Devuan has its title bar turned on by default. Ideally, both the Title and Menu Bars would be enabled by default, but I'll take what I can get.

The combination of these things is more than just aesthetic. It tells me that the Devuan developers have a different mindset. It tells me that they are among the few sane people left in the IT world. It tells me that I can trust them to make decisions in the future that won't make me go distro-hopping again.

I have found my people.

golinux · 2023-10-23 01:44:40

Indeed, it is a special pond in which we all swim at Devuan. Welcome to our world!

As to the theming . . . all the past themes should be available in the Devuan repository but it is uncertain how much longer they will be viable. I am getting lots of xsession-errors because the gtk3 elements are being deprecated/replaced. I have been responsible for all the theming since the fork but someone else will need to take on that task going forward or we'll just recycle the old ones.

WDstudios · 2023-10-23 14:21:10

golinux wrote:

I have been responsible for all the theming since the fork

In that case, could I ask you for a favor?

There are software packages that are theoretically supposed to replicate the look and feel of the Windows Classic and Luna themes on Linux systems. I could only ever get them to partially work. If you could get them fully working and include them in future versions of Devuan, that would be awesome

golinux · 2023-10-23 14:48:34

And here I was hoping you might want to jump in and take over the Devuan theming! LOL! Sorry . . . my theming days are over and if they weren't I would still only do tasks specifically related to Devuan not unrelated "wish-list" stuff.

EDX-0 · 2023-10-25 22:01:17

speaking of themes, i've been playing with adw-gtk3 and how configurable it is, the styling room to adjust the radius elements and colors, with somthing i'm working to build themes to apply to adw-gtk3 and libadwaita (via gradience) and qt via kvantum there will be possible to have fully consistent themeing on linux with the small caveat that all the wdigets use the adwaita styling... which is not compact...

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#1 2023-10-22 22:28:57

Happiness is finding people with the same mental illness as you...

#2 2023-10-23 01:44:40

Re: Happiness is finding people with the same mental illness as you...

#3 2023-10-23 14:21:10

Re: Happiness is finding people with the same mental illness as you...

#4 2023-10-23 14:48:34

Re: Happiness is finding people with the same mental illness as you...

#5 2023-10-25 22:01:17

Re: Happiness is finding people with the same mental illness as you...

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