Sep 17, 2017 | ArchMerge, Linux
ArchMerge is a merger of 3 desktop environments. Xfce4, Openbox and i3. We think this order is the ideal roadmap to learn more about linux and Arch Linux. The complexity of the desktops increases gradually but your settings of your applications, icons, themes and your...
Jul 22, 2017 | i3, Installation Linux Mint i3, Linux, Linux Mint i3
You can install i3 on ANY Linux Mint 18.2. I3 is a window tiling manager. It will automatically tile your windows/applications on your screens and workspaces. I have set it to 10 workspaces. It means I have 10 virtual monitors. On this website you can find a menu just...
Jul 22, 2017 | Installation of LM, Linux, Linux Mint, Linux Mint Cinnamon
In my mind there are four major steps in the installation procedure of any distribution. get an iso or an usb to boot from clean install of your operating system installing all needed software customize the system 1. Boot from iso or usb You can download the iso from...
Jul 20, 2017 | Linux, Linux Mint, Linux Mint Cinnamon, Linux Mint Mate, Linux Mint Xfce, Mint-Y Based Themes, Themes
The goal is to make scripts that make it easy to change the green accent colour of the Mint-Y theme to be found on https://github.com/linuxmint/mint-y-theme. Mint-Y is a theme that is provided when we install Linux Mint The scripts, to change the colour, can be found...
Jul 20, 2017 | Arc Based Themes, Linux, Linux Mint, Linux Mint Cinnamon, Linux Mint Mate, Linux Mint Xfce, Themes
The goal is to make scripts that work on any linux distro that make it easy to change the colours of the Arc-Theme to be found on https://github.com/horst3180/. Arc is a flat theme with transparent elements for GTK 3, GTK 2 and Gnome-Shell which supports GTK 3 and GTK...
Jul 19, 2017 | ArchLabs, ArchLabs i3, i3, i3wm, Linux, Settings ArchLabs i3, Special
After pressing the startup button of your computer, you want to auto login and end up in i3. These settings are manipulated in /etc/lightdm/lighdm.conf. We have a menu that will make it easy to edit it. This menu is going to edit this file as sudo otherwise we can not...
Jul 18, 2017 | ArchLabs, ArchLabs i3, i3, i3wm, Linux, Maintenance, Settings ArchLabs i3
After making the tutorial of changing the standard conky into AUR-Nemesis I noticed my i3wm was not coloring. I switched ssd’s and now I am on an older version of i3. How to have the latest configuration files of i3 on your computer? All new developments are...
Jul 18, 2017 | ArchLabs, ArchLabs i3, Conky, i3, i3wm, Linux, Nemesis, Settings ArchLabs i3
We have recently created a conky to measure also the used memory for the study of my memory usage in this article. We want to have AUR-Nemesis conky in i3wm. All applications have been activated and Vivaldi with many tabs is open. This article is NOT about memory...
Jul 17, 2017 | ArchLabs, Linux, Special
After using R2-D2 for 10 days and listening to various Youtube bloggers I wanted to measure our memory usage. Some say the memory usage is low. Others say it can be even lower. Measuring is knowing. Minimal setup The following items have been looked at in order to get...
Jul 17, 2017 | ArchLabs, Menu, Special
Obmenu-generator is taking care of the creation of the menu. If you do not use the icons in the openbox menu than this article is not for you. You can use a static or a dynamic (pipe) menu. And you can choose to have an icon or not in the menu. Loading icons will...
Jul 16, 2017 | ArchLabs, ArchLabs i3, Desktop Tuning, i3, i3wm, Settings ArchLabs i3, Theming
After the creation of all the 103 extra Sardi icons it is time to make pimp my desktop. A beautiful wallpaper has been supplied by variety and I will make all other elements follow the coloring. My menu has been changed to a ‘bigger menu’. Variety...
Jul 16, 2017 | ArchLabs, Flexibility, Linux, Modularity, Overview, Sardi, Sardi Extra
July 2017 Sardi 9.3 was released and with it a new way to download and install all the variations and mixing of the icons. At this point in time you can choose from 103 Sardi icon variations + 20 Sardi core icons All these Sardi icons will NOT slow down your computer....
Jul 16, 2017 | ArchLabs, Linux, Need to know
Many of the laptops out there have these FN-KEYS. They are the blue ones in the picture. If your numeric key is on, you will type 4 instead of u or 5 instead of i. You get the drift. ArchLabs has an autostart where you can launch all applications you would like to be...
Jul 15, 2017 | ArchLabs, Modularity, Sardi, Sardi Icons
July 2017 Sardi version 9.3 has been released. A new icon theme was added Sardi Mono ArchLabs. You have 6 different application icons and 11 different folder icons to use or mix. Objectives Sardi is distro independent Sardi is lean and clean Sardi is flexible Sardi is...
Jul 15, 2017 | ArchLabs, Flexibility, Linux, Sardi, Sardi Icons
July 2017 Sardi version 9.3 has been released. A new icon theme was added Sardi Mono ArchLabs. You have 6 different application icons and 11 different folder icons to use or mix. Objectives Sardi is distro independent Sardi is lean and clean Sardi is flexible Sardi is...
Jul 11, 2017 | ArchLabs, Linux, Special
Standard you will see a computer icon when you login. If you want to change this, you need to go to Preferences / LightDM Appearance. This is just a graphical application to will pass the information to a file that is in /etc/lightdm/ folder. Changing that file will...
Jul 10, 2017 | ArchLabs, Linux, Livestream
Topics on the agenda 1. History 2. goals 3. clean install 4. 2 desktops 5. i3 6. help 7. betatesters 8. Clean install 1. History (2:05) 2. goals (4:12) The release of R2-D2 or ArchLabs 5.0 https://erikdubois.be/category/linux/archlabs/ 3. clean...
Jul 9, 2017 | ArchLabs, Installation, Linux
Clean install or not. That is the question. We get this question quite often. We are a rolling release. Arch Linux is rolling and in the meantime we have our own ArchLabs packages on the AUR. Any update in these packages will be installed automatically. BUT as I said...
Jul 9, 2017 | ArchLabs, Linux, Plank
Plank is a dock application. You can pin the most important applications to it. It is also very theme-able. Plank is hashtagged out in the ~/.config/openbox/autostart file. Just delete the hashtag in front of it and reboot. With CTRL + SHIFT + right click mouse...
Jul 7, 2017 | ArchLabs, ArchLabs i3, i3, i3wm, Linux, Settings ArchLabs i3
We have decided to have two different compton files. One for ArchLabs Openbox in 1 ~/.config/compton.conf and one for ArchLabs i3 in 1 ~/.config/i3/compton.conf This means that you can try out other settings in one desktop environment and it will not influence the...
Jul 7, 2017 | ArchLabs, ArchLabs i3, i3, i3wm, Linux, Settings ArchLabs i3
We invested a lot of time so that you have almost all shortcuts at your disposal you are already using in Openbox. ArchLabs i3 has 4 menu’s and can show all applications in the menu. Super + Shift + D = dmenu (this is the standard i3 menu) Super + F11/F12= rofi menu...
Jul 7, 2017 | ArchLabs, ArchLabs i3, i3, i3wm, Linux, Settings ArchLabs i3
The easiest answer and it is a correct one is Read the config file The heart and brains of i3wm is all written down in ~/.config/i3/config. Follow the video to cover the basics. Super + F = full screen or focus and many other shortcuts Where to find help i3wm :...
Jul 7, 2017 | ArchLabs, ArchLabs i3, i3, i3wm, Linux, Settings ArchLabs i3
In ArchLabs we decided to take a fork from the official i3wm i.e. i3 next gaps hosted on github. It allows us to have gaps and borders if we want. In this fashion we can see our wallpaper that is behind the windows. But we can decide to put the variables of borders...
Jul 7, 2017 | ArchLabs, ArchLabs i3, i3, i3wm, Linux, Settings ArchLabs i3
This was one of the first things I had to figure out. Or i3wm is going to mirror everything, meaning same screen on both monitors or workspaces end up in the wrong monitor. Naturally I went to look for my solution here :...
Jul 7, 2017 | ArchLabs, ArchLabs i3, i3, i3wm, Linux, Settings ArchLabs i3
This is a part of the config file that you change the most. Next release it will be changed as well. It is the part where you can make your personal touch. Your personal theming. I have made a personal theming project called Combustion you can follow as well. Near the...
Jul 7, 2017 | ArchLabs, ArchLabs i3, i3, i3wm, Linux, Settings ArchLabs i3
We have geany and sublime-text installed and for the most work they are super tools. But I have learned that you should use the proper tool for the job. If there is a better tool you can use to see for example the color codes we have in our config file that we should...
Jul 7, 2017 | ArchLabs, ArchLabs i3, i3, i3wm, Linux, Settings ArchLabs i3
We have the possibility to change the i3 bar. There are three major possibilities. i3status i3blocks conky They are situated near the bottom of the config. And even these three have separate lines to try out. All in all you have 7 possibilities to try out. All it...
Jul 7, 2017 | ArchLabs, ArchLabs i3, i3, i3wm, Linux, Settings ArchLabs i3
In ArchLabs we decided to take a fork from the official i3wm i.e. i3 next gaps hosted on github. It allows us to have gaps and borders if we want. In this fashion we can see our wallpaper that is behind the windows. But we can decide to put the variables of borders...
Jul 7, 2017 | ArchLabs, ArchLabs i3, i3, i3wm, Linux, Need to know, Settings ArchLabs i3
Since R2-D2 has now an extra desktop environment we can switch between openbox and i3 in the login manager. i3wm is actually a tiling window manager and more information about i3 can be found at https://i3wm.org. SUPER + X will help you get out of both Openbox and i3...
Jul 7, 2017 | ArchLabs, Linux, Theming
Lxappearance is used to set all elements concerning OPENBOX. You can set the theme (called Widget here), the icon theme and the mouse cursor (will add folder ‘default’ in ~/.icons). Separately from the theme you can set also the window decorations (bar at...
Jul 7, 2017 | ArchLabs, Linux, Theming
The only thing I actually set in this Openbox Configuration Manager is the size of the menu header and the Menu items. More elements can be changed here as well. But most of them can be also set via lxappearance. All settings have been set to our liking on the iso....
Jul 7, 2017 | ArchLabs, Conky, Linux, Theming
In ArchLabs we can use the menu to change the conky as you can see in the image below. What is more we can select as many conky’s as we want. Providing they do not overlap in position on the screen. Then you will have to go in the code to tell the conky to move...
Jul 7, 2017 | ArchLabs, Linux, Theming
Rofi is one of the many menu’s that are available on ArchLabs. In this article we go over all the menu’s. Selecting a new theme can be done via the rofi-theme-selector or Super + R. By means of the arrow keys you navigate over the choices. When you press...
Jul 7, 2017 | ArchLabs, Linux, Theming
The lock screen (when you are away from your computer activated with Super +k) is provided by the application xfce-slimlock and slim. We have provided already 5 ArchLabs screenlock choices. They can be found in /usr/share/slim/themes. archlabs archlabs_black_spots...
Jul 7, 2017 | ArchLabs, Linux, Theming
When you press Super + x you will logout of Openbox and you will be presented with icons. Those icons are coming from a theme that is being installed by a package called archlabs-oblogout-themes-git. If we update this package, you will get more icon themes in. This is...
Jul 7, 2017 | ArchLabs, Linux, Settings
We can easily change the settings of our dual monitor in the xfce4 settings via the menu or via CTRL + ALT +M. Go look for display and tell it NOT to mirror displays. A more complex and i3 to work is arandr or xrandr, which you can google if you want to do it that...
Jul 7, 2017 | ArchLabs, Linux, Theming
Termite is our default terminal. All information can be found on the archwiki or the github of termite. Let me give you the most important information here: Copy = CTRL + SHIFT + C Paste = CTRL + SHIFT + V CTRL + SHIFT + T = open termite Super + Enter = open termite...
Jul 7, 2017 | ArchLabs, Linux, Theming, Variety
Variety is an application that I have discussed in so many articles and it is the first thing I install on any distro. Variety is standard installed on ArchLabs. It is just the Rolls-Royce of wallpaper fetchers and wallpaper changers. But that is just my personal...
Jul 7, 2017 | ArchLabs, Linux, Theming
Tint2 is the panel we use in ArchLabs. It can contain the application icons, workspaces, active applications and system icons. Tint2 is super customisable and easy to use with the tint2 Gui. It is here that you select a theme and apply it with the button in the menu....
Jul 7, 2017 | ArchLabs, Linux, Theming
We can change the login appearance via the menu Preferences – LightDM Appearance. This will give us a pop up of the following screens. Most of these elements are straight forward. Changing the icons to a personal picture or avatar is a bit more complex and is...
Jul 7, 2017 | ArchLabs, Linux, Theming
ArchLabs uses elements from XFCE4 to arrive at a fully functional desktop. Openbox is more a window manager. We use thunar – the filemanager from XFCE4 – so we need to set the appearance via XFCE4 Appearance in our menu. You can set here : Style or theme...
Jul 7, 2017 | ArchLabs, Linux, Menu
The menu of ArchLabs R2-D2 is an editable menu. Meaning you can edit it with geany or sublime-text. Delete the lines or add lines. That is how we change the menu’s. We normally do this manually but there is a gui present in your menu. Preferences / Openbox / GUI...
Jul 5, 2017 | ArchLabs, Conky, Linux, Maintenance
Conky is a free software system monitor. It is available for Linux. Conky is highly configurable and is able to monitor many system variables including the status of the CPU, memory, swap space, disk storage, temperatures, processes, network interfaces, battery power,...
Jul 7, 2017 | ArchLabs, Linux, Need to know
In this article we will check out the autostart file and change some of the lines to autostart the applications I like to have. CTRL + H will show you the ~/.config/openbox folder. This folder is where all the core files are for openbox. Autostart is the file that...
Jul 7, 2017 | ArchLabs, Installation, Linux, Nemesis, Special, Theming
Why Nemesis? Even the developer of ArchLabs needs to install software that is not included on the iso and/or add personal settings that are just his own regarding the workflow he likes. Remember that between February 2017 and July 2017 I must have installed ArchLabs...
Jul 7, 2017 | ArchLabs, Installation, Linux, Need to know
In your hidden folder ~/.config/openbox/scripts folder you will find all the scripts we created mostly out of necessity. Nobody like a repetitive task. Every installation we wanted to apply the same procedures. It seemed time to make a script to do all of this...
Jul 7, 2017 | ArchLabs, Installation, Linux
We are installing ArchLabs 5.0 or R2-D2. You can try it out first in virtualbox. As a matter of fact it is fine-tuned to work smoothly on virtualbox. Check out these articles for Windows or Mac. Installing ArchLabs on Windows in virtualbox. Installing ArchLabs on Mac...
Jul 9, 2017 | ArchLabs, Installation, Linux
We recommend you use an usb to install ArchLabs. Simply because you can reuse it and it is a faster medium than a dvd. ArchLabs If you are on ArchLabs you have already Mintstick installed. Use the menu or go via the terminal: 1 mintstick -m iso Other linux...
Jul 7, 2017 | ArchLabs, Installation, Introduction, Linux
Start with this one Download What is new The biggest news is that we will include i3wm with R2-D2 R2-D2 will include an tiling desktop environment, i3wm next gaps. ArchLabs will continue to use openbox as main desktop environment but now you have a fallback or...
Jun 29, 2017 | ArchLabs, Linux, Special
In previous article we made 6 youtube tutorials to completely change our desktop. Then you are very proud that you have a desktop and you share a screenshot on Facebook, Google+ and the likes. Eventually the question will come : “How did you do that? What is...
