I have setup i3wm instead of XFCE because XFCE is a pain in the ass. For example, a notification will steal the focus of the active window. This means if you had the qubes os app menu opened (the one at the upper left corner of the desktop) and a notification pops up, you will have to reopen everything again.
I’ve setup a custom notification daemon for i3wm called dunst so i can see the volume level in a progress bar with a beep sound any time i change it using the keys, to improve my UX.
Also, I’ve setup this notifications to show a thumbnail of each screenshot I take, so I know what aspect has the screenshot i made. This notification is also clickable and, on click, opens up a rofi menu that lets you select to which qube are you sending this screenshot. This will send the screenshot to that qube and also copy it to the clipboard of that qube, so, if you need to share screenshots with your colleagues at work, this will speed you up instead of having you to open a terminal in dom0 to qvm-copy-to-vm your photo to that qube, etc…
I’ve also set up a rofi menu, with the panel customized, to emulate the behaviour of the original XFCE app menu panel located at the upper left corner of the screen. This shows me app vms, disposable vms, service vms, template vms, dom0 applications, a power menu to reboot/turn off/lock the computer, etc… active machines appear in bold text with also a coloured icon of the qube so everything feels intuitive.
I’ve set an autostart config for my VPN app vm, and that way it starts proton as soon as the computer is powered on.
etc…
The setup mainly consists in:
- Get mad at something that:
- Requires a lot of steps: screenshot transfer
- Feels like a burden to suffer: xfce notifications stealing focus
- Repetitive task: opening ProtonVPN each time I power on the PC
- Could be nicer to use: XFCE with no dynamic tiling window manager vs i3 which is more comfortable once you get used to the keybinds
- Once you identify what makes you mad, start scripting the solution using available tools (so you do not waste much time coding).
This obviously requires effort because you are now customizing your system (aka: ricing your linux), but at long term, if you invest 2 weeks or so fixing every issue, your machine will crazy good in a future.
I even made my desktop look like what would be a stereotypical hacker of an action movie be using hahahah. Take a look: