Xfce works nicely with Bspwm window manager. I dont need polybar or other hard to configure status bars. Xfce panels are easier and you can make them looking like a typical polybar if you want 😉. Maybe Mate can do the same, idon’t know.

Kiss linux. Gobolinux. They are both alien, but interesting, each one in its own way.

Alpine Linux is the most sane distro I tried. The absence of glibc brought limitations unfortunately, but it is the fault of developers that uses that shit instead of pure libc.

I do a bit of programming. Git help is about terminal commands. There are graphical front ends but I have to learn how to use them. I use terminal also for package management for the same reasons.

I can’t use something else than bspwm.

There is an option to display all widgets into a single window.

I encountered limitations on NixOS, as instance Ly display manager, or using an app compiled by myself. Maybe there are solution but it is not always simple. Archlinux is way more flexible. Updates can theorically breaks the system , but since one year I never broke Arch despite updates on 200+ packages.

Notice I favors minimalist graphic environments (WM that don’t need updates ) and minimalists apps as much as possible, such as MPV and nsxiv. I don’t fear of some keyboard shortcuts. This philosophy probably helps Arch updates. Sometimes I had problem on apps (Inkscape and Dolphin-emu), I use appimages for them. Nothing is perfect, but Arch put lighter roadblocks than NixOS.

My OS, shipped with the PC, became slow.

Arch because the packages are recent. Arch has no shiny innovation and even the performance is not that fast, but I always find a way to make everything working. It is the only distro like that for me.

Sorry I edited my post, I was wrong.

.config stores many apps settings. But unfortunately some apps stores that directly in ~ as hidden files and directories. Personnally I make a backup of my whole home.

There is a pacman command that prints the list of all packages installed by users. I don’t remenber the command sorry but you’ll find that here:

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Pacman/Tips_and_tricks

Its probably “pacman -Qe”.

Then it should be easy to create a script that install all that automaticcally. If your are cautious you should have a backup of your home anyway on some storage device .

These tentacular megacorporations are a problem. Amazon is OK as a merchant, MS as an OS developer, Google as a search engine… If they do vertical integration the market is corrupted.

This is useful for proprietary software.

Its frustrating because Alpine gave me the fastest desktop. I dropped Alpine because some apps requires Glibc extensions !

Some differences can be explained. Pacman was created after the Debian package manager (I guess that because Debian is older than Arch) . It is justified because Pacman is faster than Apt. But its too much work to replace Apt by Pacman comparing to the benefits.

But in some cases I don’t know why. As instance I wonder why a distro, such as Void, created its own package manager instead of using the Alpine one. If Alpine is younger than Void, invert the sentence of course.

I like that for Windows phones. I still have one. Screen space is saved. You choose the app you want on the main screen from a clean list instead of an icon profusion. Nowadays all phones interfaces are the same and less good than the Windows Phone interface.

Its cool on phones, but I admit, I don’t need that on PC.

Bash.

I customize the shell prompt in the PS1 variable. Its unpleasant to work with that unreadable language, but I do that once for years and I reuse it across distros.

I know SpaceFM as a DE-independant GUI file manager.

The Xfce one. I don’t see the point of simple WM for floating windows. I use a WM because it is the only solution for a proper tiling window manager.