Back to the sources... open sources !

I have been using Windows for quite some time now (I remember using Ubuntu a few years ago), but I always had an interest in Linux and I never was able to justify why. Recently, as my bachelor degree final project, I released an open-source project (perhaps, a blog post about it will come :D) and after making some researches I am now somewhat able to explain why I like free open-source software. In short: I like collaboration, I like sharing and I like having total control. When using almost any Linux distribution, you get all that and more ! Now, I am not skilled enough to contribute to the Linux kernel or to any distribution base system but I like the idea. But giving me total control on my operating system ? Shut up and take my money ! Oh.. it's free ?! Yay !!

In the past, I scrapped a lot of my Linux or BSD installation by doing things I didn't quite understand. With great power comes great responsibilities after all. But today, I am less immature (because I cannot say I am mature yet) and more aware of what I can and should do. So, I decided to install Arch Linux on my workstation !

Why Arch Linux ? Actually, why installing a certain Linux distribution instead of another ? It is a matter of choice. I tried Gentoo in the past and as much as I like the total control and the range of things I can customize, I just didn't like how emerge was pretty long to install or update some packages (i.e.: x11.. oh boy grab yourself a few movies). As mentioned before, I used Ubuntu before but it is "too" user-friendly for me. So much that when I tried the latest version, I just didn't know how to do simple things (because I like to do things, the complicated way). Fedora.. I like it, but I feel it is waaaaay to heavy but maybe that's just me. I also used FreeBSD for a few years but I wanted to see more.

So I ended up with Arch Linux. I tried it before on my eeePC because it decided to stop working. What I liked about it is that it was relatively easy to install, fast and you decide to install what YOU want. After a fresh install, you do not end up with apps you will discover a few months later and realize you never used. Pacman is also really fast and easy to use in my opinion. It is also backed by a very large community (3 official repositories and a users' project repository).
After messing around for hours, I got something I am pretty much proud of:
















So my installation consists of:

• OpenBox: No Desktop Environment, just a Window Manager. Onyx is my OB theme but I also applied a GTK+ theme for the look and feel: Orta by using lxappearance.

• SLiM: My login manager, works and looks great.

• My "desktop" only has 3 things: conky (that line of text at the top of the screen), pypanel (the taskbar at the bottom of the screen) and feh to apply a wallpaper that actually switches every 15 minutes (I wrote a bash script that those that). You decide what Conky and PyPanel are displaying, which is why it got my attention.

• Very basic "essential" packages: chromium, sublime text 2, xterm, git. Everything else are extras.
  EDIT: I switched to tilda for my terminal. Tilda is basically a drop-down terminal that I make appear by pressing a single button and i can also make it disappear with that same button. And it opens multiple tabs !!

• python, ruby, Apache, etc. Things I must have to program.

I discovered some pretty nice packages too along the way:

• cmus: C* Music Player. A text-based music player. It works great ! You can add medias to your library and just play them, create playlists and pretty much do whatever you want to do with a music player.

• beets: A text-based media manager. It even corrects the tags of your files and it acts as the database of your mp3 files.

• yaourt: Yet AnOther User RepOsitory. Same as pacman but you can also update AUR packages.

• ranger: a text-based file manager with vi-like key bindings

• task warrior (task): A simple text based todo list.

I seem to like text-based programs huh ? Well yeah. They are usually faster and once you get a grip of the basic, pretty much easy to use.
Now, I am learning the shell more in depth to automate more oft-repeated tasks and I hope to find more cool packages in the repositories.

Config can be found at: https://github.com/nylogavins/arch-config