Hello there!
No idea if my requests would fit this sub, too many sub but as I am running CachyOS I'll give a shot here, if wrong spot, my apologies, also this will be a long post with a lot of questions.
Long story short, I moved after I don't know how many attempts from windows to Linux, and now it has been 4 months and I haven't pay attention nor thinking to move back to Windows unlike in the past I faced too many issues (Thanks proton I guess).
So, I was always a big fan of customizing my system, I don't know how many windows I borked due to my heavy edits (Probably started since... XP? Vista?)
I am currently running on KDE, thing is, while I enjoy using blurred effect everywhere, I am not satisfied with the widget & taskbar systems. I have stuff in my mind I'd like to do, maybe fancy, maybe too much, but I want to reach something to make me happy.
So, I saw a lot of rice with Hyprland, it sounds fun, and also hell, no UI, only code, which I probably will manage but different way to handle things, however this is where I am unsure (along other things).
Before starting, I will share my specs just in case as it may be relevant:
- CPU: Ryzen 7 9800X3D
- Motherboard: Asus TUF GAMING B650-PLUS WIFI
- RAM: CMH32GX5M2B6000Z30
- GPU: GeForce RTX 4090 PNY AD102. Current driver: 595.71.05 VBIOS: 95.02.3C.40.3A
- 2 screens, one ultra Wide 3440 x 1440 144 Hz (Main), other one 2560 x 1440 ...143.86hz for some reasons.
- Note: I always limit the FPS to 144
I am using my main PC mostly for games, and lost myself on the internet. While being able to do the UI I have in mind, I had trouble to filter out information. Let me do a bullet list:
- I am swapping audio output quite often as I am using the same headset for work, otherwise a sound system. It often lost it's configuration when I replug, but by just clicking a couple menus, I can adjust easily. But that is already too much clicks, but I don't want to open my terminal neither to fix some hiccups every time I replug.
- Seems that I will be able to customize login screen (SDDM) quite deeply using quickshell unlike KDE where it's just a wallpaper. However, I have 0 knowledge, so if you have maybe "the guide" to follow, I'll gladly accept it.
- I am using "Mozc" to write in Japanese, which I can swap with just a shortcut. I read that it should be only a couple of arguments to make the same kind of switch, but not sure how I'll be able to incorporate a visual indicator (Told ya, complete noob here) and also only for specific applications only.
- Something that annoys me the most, is that I am not able to have the same interface everywhere, there are always some weird things what ever I am doing, specially with GTK apps.
- An issue I have with KDE, is that I often have games opening on the wrong screen (using proton). Some games would allow me to move to window mode, move it using my cursor, then ALT+ENTER to get back to full screen (Because window mode for some reasons tends to crash my game after some time), other times, I have to change the setting to window, restart the game and I can move the window because for some reasons, it would be stuck on Window borderless. Not sure in both case how I can fix that, but if there is a special thing to always open on the right one enforcing the right parameters (Fullscreen)
- I was not able to fully get the differences of performance between KDE & Hyprland for gaming. I read that KDE adds some tweaks regarding that, but that's about it, no real technical comparison beside random benchmarks.
- I am very bad with shortcuts. I am using too many different environments with my work that I always endup kill a window. But I guess I will either print a paper with the shortcuts or have an overlay to remind me lol
- I have a big issue sometimes, not sure if KDE related, hardware, arch.. but in games, I can have my system completely freezing. Also, no logs at all in the journal logs. Specially when streaming on discord (Still waiting for a selfhost fluxer docker). Streaming a specific window has more chance to freeze my system or crash my game. But apparently it is a wayland issue. I changed the XMP profile multiple times but it's too random to confirm if that's the issue, as I already perform multiple times OCCD stress tests for hours (among other things, MemTest86 too) and it was just ok, no errors which the "right" profile (now back to automatic, monitoring how it goes...), I can be fine on multiple games full settings (Wow, D4, Genshin) then open helldivers or RV there Yet and just crash after 10 min (doesn't matter if vulkan or Dx12). Note: I used to have lots of issues on windows, where my graphic card's fans would go 100% and I would get a black screen. I fixed that by changing my PSU and added a UPS being. But I discovered that apparently KDE would enforce VSYNC that could mess up things, thus why I am always running on fullscreen, however WOW which doesn't allow it, just.. runs fine?
- I use a KDE plugin for Wallpaper engine, it works, sometimes.
Putting my head in config files is not an issue (DOT files as apparently, the right word to use), coding something neither (Maybe?, I don't know maybe I'll be full of surprise) but I don't have the time I used to. But I know I can just swap between KDE & hyprland in the meantime.
Now for extra information, the apps I am mostly using (May be relevant, or not, for customization):
- Discord (I hope not for too long)
- Telegram: I am able to customize it, mostly... (Enforcing blurred effects can be tricky)
- Zen browser
- Steam and Faugus (For BNET basically)
- Dolphin
- Zed
- Konsole (I know Kitty, would probably migrate to it when I understand how to customize how I want)
- I think that's about it, I don't use anything else or barely but as such you have the big picture. But as you can see, I am not running 10000 things.
Sorry in advance as I am asking "maybe" completely unrelated stuff, but I didn't feel to open multiple posts, in any case if you reach this point, thanks for reading me :D And even more if you help me figure it out! Cheers