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What's a unique customization on your Linux machine you think no one else has?

Just wondering since I know a lot of people quietly use a screen-area-select -> tesseract OCR -> clipboard shortcut.

  • I separate subjects of interest into different Firefox windows, in different workspaces -- so I have an extension title them and a startup script parse text to ask the compositor to put them in the correct workspace (lets me restart more conveniently).
  • I have automatically-set different-orientation wallpapers for using my 2-in-1 depending on whether I use it in portrait or landscape (kind of just for looks, but I don't think if anyone else adds a wallpaper change to their screen rotation keybind).
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  • On my desktop, I wrote a Python script that pulls a random Star Trek: The Next Generation or Deep Space Nine script from a folder and prints it in STDOUT. I use this in the XScreenSaver Text Manipulation > Program option to turn Star Trek into a screen saver.

    Currently, I use it with the Apple II screensaver, but in its original incarnation, I used the Star Wars intro screensaver. 😈

  • Maybe a bit plain since I'm only at mediocre level in my Linux journey, but I use my favorite fonts for Kitty. Recursive Mono Linear and then for italics and comments in neovim I use Recursive Mono Casual Italic.

    Recursive Linear is so tidy and neat, with just the lightest touch of personality. And Casual keeps that style but tweaks it just ever so slightly to a more comic. And they have sans versions of both as well for everything else.

    I also made my own Starship prompt to match my desktop. It runs an easily reconfigurable color palette and uses color coded chevrons to denote different git statuses.

  • I've got basically the bspwm workflow, but on KDE.

    So, bspwm has tiling of windows and doesn't want you to minimize (nowadays, it actually has a minimize-feature, but back when I last used it, it didn't). As a result, if a window is open, it is visible on some workspace. If you want to hide windows, put them on a different workspace.
    I like that workflow, because while it probably seems complex when you first hear about it, it actually simplifies things. When you're looking for a window, you don't have to check all the workspaces and minimized windows and behind other windows.

    KDE adds to that, in that I can have a workspace overview in my panel, so where I can see all workspaces with the windows that are visible on them (which with this workflow is all windows on that workspace). I like to call it my minimap.
    It makes the workflow a lot easier to use, but it also allows me to group workspaces by location. So, if I'm working on a topic, I often have a Firefox window on one workspace, my text editor on the workspace below and then a terminal on the workspace below that. If I then realize, I need to quickly look up something for a related topic, I'll open up a new Firefox window two workspaces below that (leaving an empty workspace as separator). If I do something completely different, I might leave a whole bunch of empty workspaces in between. Or, well, KDE actually allows grouping workspaces with a feature called "Activities", so I'll often switch Activities.

    I find that works a lot better for multi-tasking than the traditional Windows workflow of one window per application, with all kinds of different topics mixed into all kinds of ungrouped windows. If I switch between topics, I just go to the right location on my minimap and I've all the topic-related information in the windows that are there.

  • my awesome wm config has a lot of customization. We're talking 5+ years of basically re-writing an entire theme, along with behaviours, widgets, and bindings.

  • I'm using XFCE with Compiz, and since I have two monitors I have a 3D octagon instead of a 3D cube desktop.

  • I use this app (webapps is the name I think) to make apps for YouTube, Mubi and TorrentLeech and I have then pinned on the task bar and use them as apps instead of webpages. This is in my hometheater pc

  • Mine is probably more of a combo of things to streamline my workflow than anything else.

    I use Sways multiple workspaces to segregate my apps into different workspaces for different tasks on startup of that app using the assign function in my Sway config. For example VS Code and one particular Firefox window always goes to Workspace 3.

    I use the Layman Sway scripts to force all my normal workspaces to different layouts that is appropriate for that function. So workspace 3 with VS Code and a Firefox window is set in a 75/25 split with VS Code set to always take the bigger share. I can switch the two sides from largest on the left to largest on the right, or swap the apps between the two splits, or make a window full-screen with simple keyboard shortcuts.

    Odd workspaces are on my left monitor, even ones on the right. This coupled with per workspace wall paper (all my windows are translucent, not for everybody I know) and particular tasks locked to predefined workspaces means I am never hunting around for something. Even if I did lose something I can use rofi to switch to it. If its an essential app I can use my keyboard shortcut that I use to launch the app, switch to it using swayr by activating the shortcut again.

    I have used QMK for my keyboard to reduce the number of keys I must use to activate most of my shortcuts, and move them to my number row and home row using layers, double taps, and holds. I try to layer up the same family of functions on the same key but on different layers, so for example, the VI arrow keys move between windows, resize windows, move windows, depending on which layer I have chosen.

  • "yubi [website name]" in Alt+F2 — asks yubikey for a TOTP code for a website and autotypes it into wherever I've got my focus

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