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https://github.com/jluttine/nide

Niche i3 Desktop Environment: Keyboard-driven DE installed in the home directory
https://github.com/jluttine/nide

desktop-environment i3 keyboard-interface nixos

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Niche i3 Desktop Environment: Keyboard-driven DE installed in the home directory

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README 

        
# NiDE - Niche i3 Desktop Environment



*In Finnish, "nide" means a book or a volume and refers to the binding that ties

the pages together. In English, "nide" means a group of pheasants. Similarly,

NiDE ties a collection of amazing software packages together to form a desktop

environment.*



## Overview



NiDE is a light keyboard-driven Linux desktop environment installed in the home

directory. NiDE is constructed from a collection of amazing software packages to

provide a full desktop-environment experience similar to GNOME, KDE, XFCE and

many other desktop environments. NiDE aims to provide a simplistic and light but

powerful desktop environment with good support for keyboard interface and tiling

windows. It can be easily installed and configured in the home directory without

system administrator. NiDE is installed in a separate directory so it won't mess

up your other desktop environments and existing configurations.



**NOTE: Previously NiDE was called "NixOS i3 Desktop Environment" and it was a

configuration just for NixOS. That is deprecated but still available in

`nixos-nide` branch. Currently, NiDE works on any Linux operating system and it

can be installed in the user home directory without root. But there is still

good support for NixOS similar to what it used to be.**



**NOTE: NiDE is currently very much work in progress and it's mainly configured

for my personal needs at the moment. There are still many things that are

missing or aren't working properly. Also, no effort has yet been put to the

visual appearance.**



NiDE is constructed by putting together numerous amazing open-source software

packages. The point of NiDE is to select these great packages and put them

together with a decent default configuration. When selecting the software

packages, the following guidelines are taken into account if there are multiple

options. The software package should preferably:



- not be bloated nor overly complex but still do well what it's supposed to do

- have good keyboard user interface

- be configurable with text files

- use standards for things it does

- work well with a tiling window manager

- not fill the window with graphical garbage (e.g., large menu/icon bars) but

  rather try to maximize the space for the actual content



The following non-exhaustive list mentions some of the awesome software packages

used to form NiDE:



- [i3](https://i3wm.org/) for window management

- [Polybar](https://polybar.github.io/) as the status bar

- [Rofi](https://github.com/davatorium/rofi) as a generic menu and launcher

- [Pulseaudio](https://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/PulseAudio/) for sound

  management

- [NetworkManager](https://wiki.gnome.org/Projects/NetworkManager) for network

  connection management

- [pass](https://www.passwordstore.org/) for storing passwords and passphrases

- [pass-secret-service](https://github.com/mdellweg/pass_secret_service/) for

  integrating pass with the standard secret service D-Bus interface.

- [Dunst](https://dunst-project.org/) for showing desktop notifications

- [Dex](https://github.com/jceb/dex) for autostarting desktop applications when

  logging in

- [Alacritty](https://github.com/alacritty/alacritty) as the default terminal

- [Simple X Image Viewer (sxiv)](https://github.com/muennich/sxiv) as the

  default image viewer

- [Luakit](https://luakit.github.io/) as the default browser with vim-like

  keybindings and minimal visual garbage

- [udiskie](https://github.com/coldfix/udiskie) for automounting removable

  media

- [kbdd](https://github.com/qnikst/kbdd) for managing keyboard layouts per

  window

- [light](https://haikarainen.github.io/light/) for controlling the screen

  backlight

- [actkbd](https://github.com/thkala/actkbd) for keybindings that work also in

  virtual terminals

- [XSecureLock](https://github.com/google/xsecurelock) as a lock screen

- [autorandr](https://github.com/phillipberndt/autorandr) for managing monitor

  configurations automatically

- .. and many other amazing open-source software packages



Some small possibly interesting details:



- Keyboard layouts are window-specific.

- Computer locking with `Ctrl+Alt+L` works also in virtual terminals if the user

  has logged in.

- Brightness and volume control keybindings work also in virtual terminals.



## Installation



Copy this repository under `~/.nide`. You can use `git` to clone:



```

git clone https://github.com/jluttine/NiDE ~/.nide

```



Alternatively, you can download a tarball of your choice



- Releases: https://github.com/jluttine/NiDE/releases

- Latest development snapshot: https://github.com/jluttine/NiDE/archive/master.zip



Unpack the tarball to `~/.nide`.



Now you just need to run `~/.nide/bin/nide` as your X session startup script.

For instance, use it as your `~/.xsession` script and at log-in time choose a

session that will run that script (at least in NixOS `xterm` session does that):



```

ln -s ~/.nide/bin/nide ~/.xsession

```



Other (and better) ideas of how to launch NiDE are welcome!



The packages NiDE uses need to be installed for NiDE to work. How to install

those packages depends on the Linux distro, see below for some examples.



### Nix/NixOS



There are two ways to install the dependencies on NixOS as described below:



#### Home-directory installation of dependencies



In `~/.nide` directory, run:



```

nix-build

```



Now, there should be `~/.nide/result` directory (or, more precisely, a symlink

to a directory) that contains the dependencies. When NiDE is launched, it'll add

those paths to relevant environment variables, so they are available (only) when

running NiDE without affecting your entire system or other desktop environments.

This also makes it possible to update the environment while running it without

needing to restart NiDE because only the target of the symlink changes.



Note that with this approach, you need to take care of updating the packages

manually (i.e., running `nix-build`) because they won't be updated automatically

when the system is updated. This can have its pros and cons but it's something

to be aware of.



#### System-wide installation of dependencies



In your `configuration.nix`, import NiDE configuration and add the packages:



```

{ pkgs, ...}:

let

  nide = builtins.fetchTarball "https://github.com/jluttine/NiDE/archive/master.tar.gz";

in {

  imports = [

    ...

    "${nide}/nix/configuration.nix"

  ];

  config = {

    ...

    services.xserver.desktopManager.nide = {

      enable = true;

      installPackages = true;

    };

    nix.extraOptions = ''

      tarball-ttl = 0

    '';

  };

}

```



The nix extra option sets tarball cache to zero seconds, so the tarball isn't

cached but always downloaded. However, it's recommended to pin the tarball to a

specific commit or tag and then set `sha256`:



```

nide = builtins.fetchTarball {

  url = "https://github.com/jluttine/NiDE/archive/SOME_REV_HERE.tar.gz";

  sha256 = "SHA256 HASH HERE";

};

```



That isn't done here because it's difficult to maintain in this README file. Of

course, you can also use your local check-out of the repository and import from

that path instead of GitHub.



Note that it is not mandatory to install the packages system wide: set

`installPackages = false;` to disable. Personally, I import `configuration.nix`

to enable configurations that cannot be done by the user in the home directory,

but I disable `installPackages` because I want to maintain those packages in the

home directory as described in the previous section.



### Ubuntu and others



TODO



## Usage



The user is assumed to be familiar with basic i3 usage. Here are some important

keybindings that are configured in NiDE:



- `Super` is the i3 modifier key.

- `Super+Space` opens the Rofi application launcher.

- `Super+Esc` closes the current window.

- `Super+Enter` opens a terminal.

- `Ctrl+Alt+L` locks the computer.

- `Ctrl+Alt+Del` opens a system power menu.

- `Super+Shift+Space` switches the keyboard layout.

- `Super+h/j/k/l` move focus to another window.

- `Super+Shift+h/j/k/l` move the focused window.

- `Super+w/e/s` switch to tabbed/split/stacked mode.

- `Super+1/2/3/...` move to workspace 1/2/3/...

- `Super+Shift+1/2/3/...` move window to workspace 1/2/3/...



Also, `Caps Lock` key is used as `Esc`.



## TODO



- Use Dhall to provide a high-level configuration syntax for NiDE and then

  compile these to the actual dotfiles that the various software package read.

  Similarly as nix is used to configure NixOS.

- Make keybindings configurable. Almost everything is now hard-coded.

- Configure solarized dark and light color themes for the desktop environment.

- Allow other keyboard layouts than `fi` and `us`.

- Find a decent graphical email client.

- Add X11 lock screen and dimmer.

- Define XDG default applications.

- Define user XDG directories.

- Run/source correct dotfiles from the user home directory (e.g., `.profile`).

- Add icons

- Customize rofi-file-browser appearance after

  https://github.com/marvinkreis/rofi-file-browser-extended/issues/24

- Overlay notifications for brightness and volume:

  - https://www.reddit.com/r/unixporn/comments/9i5seg/brightness_and_volume_notifications_with_dunst_oc/

  - https://askubuntu.com/questions/670602/event-handler-even-more-low-level-than-acpid

  - https://stackoverflow.com/questions/34936783/watch-for-volume-changes-in-alsa-pulseaudio#comment119780742_57722672

  - https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Dunst#Using_dunstify_as_volume/brightness_level_indicator



## Contributions



Contributions are most welcome. Just open an issue or a pull request. Feel free

to suggest better default applications or configurations.



## Copyright



*The following copyright information holds for the files in this git repository.

NixOS and all the packages that are used by NiDE have their own licenses.*



Copyright (C) 2019-2020 Jaakko Luttinen



NiDE is licensed under the MIT License.