ArcoLinux Awesome is an Awesome Window Manager

While ArcoLinux is awesome, I've installed the Awesome WM (window manager) using ArcoLinuxD.  ArcoLinux is based on Arch Linux, the AUR (Arch Users Repository) and ArcoLinux customizations of the Arch Linux.  Since I'm not a programmer, I followed the YouTube Channel of Erik Dubois and his instructions for installing Awesome. 

ArcoLinux has everything for almost everybody if you are looking for an easy alternative to Arch Linux without the command line installation.  If you do the ArcoLinux "D" installer you just go to Erik's YouTube page and search for Awesome, or whatever flavor you want and follow the video instructions.  For me, since I've been watching a lot of Erik.s videos I knew the first Awesome video is # 295, but you need to start at # 294 to get the instructions to install ArchLinuxD using Calamari, which installs the base, or basics of what you need to install any of the flavors that I listed below.  Just looking at the numbers, most people do not install the "D" but install the vanilla ArcoLinux.  I chose the "D" after watching DistoTube's YouTube video of his install of ArcoLinuxD Awesome it look plain and easy enough for me.  DT's distro-hopping this summer and his videos are every educating if you want to learn about Linux, or Gnu-Linux as the purist will call it.  After watching these videos this is what I came up with.

It's getting BAMA football season and I just had to theme it to BAMA colors.

Just so you get an idea of what you can install in ArcoLinux here's a list from the ArcoLinuxD GitHub page.

1. Arco-Plasma (a desktop environment using KDE)
2. Arco-LXQT (a desktop environment of the new LXDE done in QT, pronounce cutie)
3. Arco-Xmonad (a tiling window manager)
4. Arco-XFCE (a desktop environment XFCE is one of the most bullet-proof desktops out there)
5. Arco-Qtile (a tiling window manager)
6. Arco-Openbox (a tiling window manager based on LXDE (maybe now LXQT?))
7. Arco-Mate (a desktop environment based on the old Gnome 2)
8. Arco-i3 (a tiling window manager)
9. Arco-Gnome (a desktop environment based on the newer Gnome 3)
10. Arco-Deepin (a desktop environment done in QT)
11. Arco-Cinnamon (a desktop environment created after Gnome left Gnome 2 to go to Gnome 3)
12. Arco-Budgie (a desktop environment based on Gnome)
13. Arco BSPWM (a tiling window manager)
14. Arco-Awesome (a tiling manager with some use of LUA programming language)
15. Arco-JWM (a tiling manager (Joe's) that is very minimalistic and lightweight with floating windows)
16. Arco-Herbstluftwm (a tiling window manager designed for multiple windows)
17. Arco-Enlightenment (a desktop-environment that is very minimalistic and changes from whichever Linux you download, ie Debian, Arch, RHL, Solaris, etc)

You see two different types of operating systems and they are all based on Arch.  A desktop environment is what most people use.  It has the GUI that anybody using Windows or Apple could switch over and use and feel sort of comfortable with.  The tiling window managers are for using keyboards and not a mouse.  If you have used a laptop as long as I have you might like the idea of a windows manager.  The tiling part and tags, or switching between desktops takes a little getting used to.  You just can't cover-up a window and alt-tab back and forth.  Every time you open a window it will tile side by side.  Awesome is a dynamic tiling manager and handles tiling differently than i3.

Most of these are on here because ArcoLinux is based on Arch Linux and Arch has all these desktop environments and window managers available.  When I look at the ArcoLinux website they do not list many developers, so keeping up with 17 different flavors has got to be hard work, but I'm sure they have a strong community behind them.  Their website is very user-friendly and like I said earlier, Erik has put out lots of videos on most if not all the different environments and lots of reported issues even have videos to help you solve most problems you might encounter.  ArcoLinux will fix issues and some of these videos won't have to be viewed, but if you do have a problem, check out their website and their forum.  

My experience is mostly positive, I do have a problem with Variety, a program that manages your wallpaper and I can't get it to stop changing my wallpaper, after telling it in the autostart.sh and also in the GUI.  Any other problems that I had were self-inflicted so I cannot blame the ArcoLinux team for these.  I will still keep my Mangaro i3 on one of my discs (I don't use Virtual Machine boxes, I change out discs in my laptop and the if I want to use a different distro that I have not erased I just plug my SATA adapter into the disc and then my USB and boot from USB).  Right now I have Awesome in my old Aspire 5750 laptop and I want it to use it day-to-day.  I love Manjaro and I will keep it as a fallback, but with the video support that ArcoLinux has, I want to support them and their time they put into their work.  I can easily update both, Manjaro has Pamac and ArcoLinux has an alias to use in terminal to update Pacman, the AUR, and the ArcoLinux GitHub.

I do want to add that I did get a straight vanilla installation of Arch XFCE and Arch i3 working and enjoying both of them. The i3 I didn't quite finish because I'm not up to the knowledge I need to configure I3 to my liking, and the XFCE wouldn't allow a couple of key programs that I use to work.  That's when I saw Distrotube's video on Awesome and never turned back.

As for Awesome and ArcoLinux, I love the status bar they use, using the LUA language.  The biggest difference between Awesome and i3 is that I don't feel guilty when I use my mouse trackpad.  I've used desktop environments since Windows 95 and just switched to a window manager last month and it's just habit.  I think I've spent more time configuring Awesome than i3 but I blame that on the all the Awesome related videos.  With the exception of the right-clickable desktop and the LUA configuration files, everything else has been close to the same, having to add widevine to Chromium to watch Netflix.  My next little learning project is learning mpd & ncmpcpp music players and visualizations and assigning applications to tags.

If you want to learn more about window managers then check out Distrotube's series on Obscure Window Managers Projects.  This probably has been my longest post I've ever made but the review is well worth it.

This Weeks Distro is...

Manjaro Budgie Desktop

I've gotten a little used to the Budgie Desktop after installing the SwagArch version of it.  I liked the SwagArch distro but (there's always a but) I find some of the updates to not be ready for install but showing up in Pamac (Add Software) and the updates not having the right credentials(?), showing errors and not updating.  Usually the next day the updates would push through but I'm too nitpicky to overlook this and want to do the updates when they show available.  Nothing against SwagArch, it is a fine Budgie desktop and the only desktop environment that SwagArch offers.  I just don't think they have the community that Manjaro has, and the person that runs SwagArch can't do everything as fast as larger, more supported distros.  After writing that last sentence it kind of makes me want to switch back.

Manjaro has basically the same desktop, an Arch-based OS with all the same features, except the Manjaro Budgie comes with a few more programs that I don't use and doesn't include programs like Gimp that I do use.  I can always remove the programs I never use and add Gimp and Inkscape with Pamac, which is probably the best modern Package Manager that I've used, which isn't based on a lot.

Budgie on its own is not very customizable through Settings and the Budgie Desktop Settings.   I can't put my finger on it but it seems when I compare the settings manager in XFCE to the settings manager in Budgie I seem to be missing some things.  Also, I installed the XFCE4 Terminal, keeping Gnome Terminal in case it creates a problem, so I could set some transparency in terminal. I did add Screenfetch to get the system info to printout when I open terminal.  As far as the desktop, the top panel lacks a lot of customization, like right-clicking on the Workspace Switcher and being able to add rows, so to keep my top bar clean, I just have 2 desktops instead of my usual 4.

I do like a lot of things with Budgie.  I say that the top panel is not that customizable but it does allow you to add applets to the center of the panel, which is a plus.  I do like the weather applet allowing you to show the weather on your desktop, sort of like Conky.  I also added Plank, the launcher at the bottom of the desktop.  It's stupidly simple, which is the description of it in Pamac because you just right-click on any open program that shows up in Plank after it has been launched and select "Keep in Dock".  There is no more customization that you can do.  I've used Docky and Cairo but for the simplicity of Budgie, I thought Plank was best suited.  Just remember to add Conky and Plank commands to your autostart in Budgie Desktop Settings.  I was able to disable the IPv6 in my Ethernet settings following the instructions in the ArchWiki on IPv6 to make my VPN support a little happier.  Manjaro has its own wiki but doesn't have the instructions that the ArchWiki has. I haven't tried adding any themes yet, I'm just using the stock themes that came with Budgie but I would like to try a different Icon theme.  Also, I did see a button theme that I want to try on Reddit, sort of a block style, but I don't know how that would look on programs that I use that don't take up much real estate on my desktop.  I've installed  Dropbox since the screenshot, which I installed using the nautilus-dropbox package in Pamac using the AUR repository.  It worked like a charm and Pamac even added Dropbox to my autostart in Budgie Desktop Settings as well as the icon in the top panel.  Now if the thunar-dropbox in XFCE works this well I will be a happy camper.  I've always used the script on the Dropbox download page.

Speaking of Conky, I'm now using it.  I used it back in the old days before Debian moved from Gnome 2 to the modern Gnome 3 style and Ubuntu switching over to its dock style.  I was watching a Solus Budgie review on YouTube and ran across a video by NeonCipher that was a Conky how-to guide and he shared his conky.conf file.  So I downloaded it and made the changes to match my old Acer laptop, like my external IP address that shows up in my screenshot for my privacy.  I've commented the real external IP line out for the screenshot then moved the '#' to the one shown in the screenshot.  I then added my "Manhattanhenge" background that I found on Bing. 

One thing that really surprised me was that late last night Conky was showing me using over 5G or my 8G memory and I didn't have any programs open, and the list of processes shown on my Conky did not show anything using over 5%.  (While I was writing this my memory usage was just under 6G.)  A restart was required for me to fix this since for me to open terminal and look at my processes that were running and killing the PID's would have taken me longer than the restart.  I haven't run Conky on my XFCE SSD yet so I don't know if that is common on my setup or the way I use my OS or if it's a Budgie thing.  Between this issue and the amount of customization allowed in Budgie are the only negatives I have when it comes to using Budgie.  Then again the lack of customization is one of the things I like about Budgie.  So far when it comes to desktop environments Budgie ranks 3rd, behind KDE and XFCE, and above Gnome and Cinnamon.  One day I'll run Mate, but that will probably be a ways off.  I liked this Budgie so much I made a backup of it for easy re-installation if I want to use it again or load it on my main SSD.  I just might use this as my 'go to' OS but I've got to try Manjaro XFCE on a fresh install and compare.

On a different note, I've started adding more links in these 'reviews' to help you and to help my failing memory.