{"id":33995,"date":"2023-02-25T20:25:26","date_gmt":"2023-02-26T01:25:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/?p=33995"},"modified":"2025-01-30T17:44:41","modified_gmt":"2025-01-30T22:44:41","slug":"fun-with-desktop-wallpaper","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/?p=33995","title":{"rendered":"Changing up the Desktop"},"content":{"rendered":"

Discovering NASA’s Flickr photo archive<\/a> this week was nice, as it game me an opportunity to update a desktop wallpaper. Notice the use of a<\/i>.<\/p>\n

Manjaro<\/h3>\n

My Manjaro installation probably could have used a refresh. Now it looks like this.<\/p>\n

\"Manjaro<\/p>\n

It’s KDE with the Sweet Ambar Blue theme, the Candy icon set, and the Plank dock. The configuration file for Plank required some editing to get a darker background; those icons do not show up well against the wallpaper.<\/p>\n

The NASA image<\/a> required a little bit of work. I rotated it so the shuttle Endeavour was (to within two or three pixels) of being vertical in the image, then I cropped it so it’s (again, to about two or three pixels) of being centered.<\/p>\n

One of the fonts in the clock is Montalban, the Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan<\/b> opening credits font. The other font is Space Mono<\/a>, “a monospace from another planet, a typeface from a distant galaxy, an everyday visitor from outer space.” (Source<\/a>)<\/p>\n

It’s a nice environment to work in. Plus, I like looking at that wallpaper.<\/p>\n

\"Nanjaro,<\/p>\n

And, sometimes, when I want a really wild<\/i> environment, I also have the LCARS<\/a> desktop environment installed.<\/p>\n

\"Manjaro<\/p>\n

One of these days, I’ll write about LCARS DE and my experience with it. In short, it’s a little tetchy. Fun, cool, and also tetchy. For the moment, I’ll recommend Bryan Lunduke’s article<\/a> on LCARS DE.<\/p>\n

Linux Mint<\/h3>\n

My Linux Mint install is pretty much the same as it’s been. It’s not something I mess around with, because it’s the one I turn to when I log into the office but don’t feel like using Windows on my local machine that morning.<\/p>\n

\"Mint,<\/p>\n

It’s an Ubuntu set-up, but it’s the Cinnamon environment through and through. Right now I’m using the Orchis Dark<\/a> theme, which looks really sharp, with some edits to make the side and top panels transparent, and the Tela<\/a> icons. The clock does break from time to time.<\/p>\n

The desktop wallpaper also comes from Flickr — CGP Grey’s “The King Defended<\/a>.” Sometimes, I like minimizing everything just so I can look at it. It’s really quite a striking picture. Mint’s a pretty distro, and that’s a Mint-worthy wallpaper.<\/p>\n

\"Mint,<\/p>\n

I discovered a few months ago, after using Mint for years, that it has a cool alt-tab behavior — Coverflow. Want to switch between open applications? Hit alt-tab, same as windows, but instead of getting little thumbnails in a strip, Mint can do this cool 3D effect thing.<\/p>\n

Debian<\/h3>\n

For a couple of reasons, I installed Debian on an external hard drive. This drive is where I save my Mint and Manjaro Timeshifts, and I have a craptop of space left with nothing to use it for. So, sometimes I’ll throw something on it to see how it plays.<\/p>\n

For no particular reason:<\/p>\n

\"Debian<\/p>\n

Yes, Windows XP! Or, something close to it. I always liked the look of Windows XP. Best looking Windows!<\/p>\n

I also installed WindowMaker, which I discussed in an earlier post<\/a>. Trying to upgrade Wine caused things to go screwy with Mint, so I wiped Mint and reinstalled a few weeks ago, and not wanting to go through that again but still wanting to goof around with WindowMaker, I installed that in Debian.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

I liked the Calvin & Hobbes<\/i> wallpaper, and I tinkered around with fonts and the configuration files to give the menus the appropriate feel<\/p>\n

It’s a little tricky to get online with. The Network Manager applet doesn’t run in WindowMaker — or I haven’t figured out yet how to get it to run — so I have to use the command line to make it happen. But when I do get online, I can still connect with it to work.<\/p>\n

\"Debian<\/p>\n

I don’t know if I’m actually going to hold on to this Debian — I may not; I certainly didn’t with Fedora — but I also don’t have any need for the space it’s taking up, so it’ll probably stay on the external drive for a while.<\/p>\n

Compared to these, my Windows is downright boring. I’ve done nothing to it, and I’m still using a decade-plus old Lord of the Rings: War in the North<\/i> wallpaper. The only major change has been the adoption of digital minimalism, inspired by my Linux excursions; I have some icons on my desktop, but they’re things I’m working with, and I haven’t filed them away yet. I don’t have any apps or links to major folders on my desktop; those have all migrated to the tiles in the Windows start menu.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Discovering NASA’s Flickr photo archive this week was nice, as it game me an opportunity to update a desktop wallpaper. Notice the use of a. Manjaro My Manjaro installation probably could have used a refresh. Now it looks like this. It’s KDE with the Sweet Ambar Blue theme, the Candy icon set, and the PlankContinue reading “Changing up the Desktop”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[763],"tags":[5120,5119,5140,4860,5118,4138,129],"class_list":["post-33995","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-linux","tag-debian","tag-lewis-chessmen","tag-linux","tag-linux-mint","tag-manjaro","tag-nasa","tag-space-shuttle","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33995","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=33995"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33995\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=33995"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=33995"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=33995"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}