DMS is a pretty good gateway drug out of major DEs and into WMs like Niri. I had already started using Niri but the base DMS configuration has a lot more batteries included so I switched and so far haven't had any major complaints.
If you consider the extras built into noctalia: notifications, screen lock (i think), wallpaper daemon .... daemons you have to install/configure piecemeal, noctalia is already in the ballpark of a waybar-based setup.
Haha, dude, the stuff we used to do when we were young. Transparent conky on the desktop showing a bunch of graphs that drive their own selves up. Spinning cubes to get workspaces. Loved it. And ran it on absolutely garbage hardware too.
It will always be uncool to do this stuff, and I will always be there for it.
I've been really enjoying using DMS as a daily driver. I had been partial to Cosmic DE, but the overall visual appearance, pace of development, and ecosystem around DMS made me switch.
That sounds like a pretty big minus. Not hard to learn with LLMs doing everything. Pretty easy to replicate dotfiles with flakes that's why most of them use it. Since you claim it's a benefit, but I've already learned it, no point to using this. Seems like a worse docker.
In Linux you generally have two types of desktops: DEs, which are full featured (KDE, GNOME, Cosmic, Cinnamon, etc.), and window managers. Window managers do only what they say on the tin, if you used one with genuinely no config (they usually have minor defaults to prevent this) you would be completely soft-locked: an empty desktop just a cursor to play with, no way to launch apps, nothing.
They have a special layer into which apps can spawn windows that typically do things like adding a launcher, or an app switcher, notifications, or whatever else you want. It's the unix philosophy brought to the UI domain. Usually you have a separate app for each, but DMS brings in a full suite: allowing you to use the window manager without having to spend hours ricing your system.
a vibe-coded "shell", which is a term that has evolved to describe a suite of software that does all the desktop-environment stuff that you don't get when you use an X11 window manager or Wayland compositor that isn't part of a bigger desktop ecosystem.
DMS is a pretty good gateway drug out of major DEs and into WMs like Niri. I had already started using Niri but the base DMS configuration has a lot more batteries included so I switched and so far haven't had any major complaints.
despite how cringe everything about this is, i'll support anything that gets young people using linux
I agree, I switched to noctalia so I get all the performance benefits without the baggage of telling people I use Dank
Noctalia will soon release v5, which is a complete rewrite in C++, which makes it even more appealing if you care about the performance.
DMS | super heavyweight | sluggish | lots of eye candy, GUI configurable
Noctalia | welterweight | fast | professional look, GUI configurable
Waybar | lightweight | fast | minimal, DIY theming, hand configured
swaybar | flyweight | blazingly fast | ultra minimalist, hand configured
Noctalia uses about 70MB more RAM, and a little more CPU than Waybar. No brainer.
With v5 I wouldn't be surprised if they can even slim it down more than waybar. No dependency to worry about unlike waybar with gtk core.
If you consider the extras built into noctalia: notifications, screen lock (i think), wallpaper daemon .... daemons you have to install/configure piecemeal, noctalia is already in the ballpark of a waybar-based setup.
Yes, I'm on the beta of v5 and it works flawlessly
Haha, dude, the stuff we used to do when we were young. Transparent conky on the desktop showing a bunch of graphs that drive their own selves up. Spinning cubes to get workspaces. Loved it. And ran it on absolutely garbage hardware too.
It will always be uncool to do this stuff, and I will always be there for it.
The cube window space switcher was awesome. My friend Alex had that. The conky graphs dude. Why would you not want to see up-to-the-second disk I/O?
I've been really enjoying using DMS as a daily driver. I had been partial to Cosmic DE, but the overall visual appearance, pace of development, and ecosystem around DMS made me switch.
The margins/padding on stuff and the sizing is very haphazard.
I've been trying Zirconium[1] (a fedora atomic-based bootable container image with niri+dms) since a few weeks ago, works really well. Can recommend.
[1]: github.com/zirconium-dev/zirconium
What's the benefit to using this over Nix flakes
not having to learn what Nix flakes are is a pretty big plus
That sounds like a pretty big minus. Not hard to learn with LLMs doing everything. Pretty easy to replicate dotfiles with flakes that's why most of them use it. Since you claim it's a benefit, but I've already learned it, no point to using this. Seems like a worse docker.
What is a DMS?
In Linux you generally have two types of desktops: DEs, which are full featured (KDE, GNOME, Cosmic, Cinnamon, etc.), and window managers. Window managers do only what they say on the tin, if you used one with genuinely no config (they usually have minor defaults to prevent this) you would be completely soft-locked: an empty desktop just a cursor to play with, no way to launch apps, nothing.
They have a special layer into which apps can spawn windows that typically do things like adding a launcher, or an app switcher, notifications, or whatever else you want. It's the unix philosophy brought to the UI domain. Usually you have a separate app for each, but DMS brings in a full suite: allowing you to use the window manager without having to spend hours ricing your system.
From the link:
> DankMaterialShell (DMS) 1.5
From the home page:
> Dank Linux: Modern Desktop
Seems like an overall UI (user interface) framework for Linux Desktop.
Visit https://danklinux.com/ to learn more.
a vibe-coded "shell", which is a term that has evolved to describe a suite of software that does all the desktop-environment stuff that you don't get when you use an X11 window manager or Wayland compositor that isn't part of a bigger desktop ecosystem.