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The Joy of Linux Theming in the Age of Bootable Containers

blues.win

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Re: The Joy of Linux Theming in the Age of Bootable Containers

#11

Post by gnomeluvscorpo »

WD-42 wrote: post #6
OsrsNeedsf2P wrote: post #2

Sometimes I wonder why there isn't more enthusiasm around theming. Chicago95[0] is popular, but I also love how Garuda[0] themes KDE. There's some small websites for downloading themes on various DEs, but most of them are a bit jank and it seems built-in support beyond basic things like accents aren't there. [0] https://github.com/grassmunk/Chicago95 [1] https://garudalinux.org/editions (screenshots don't do it justi…

The Gnome/gtk folks have been systematically removing theming capabilities for the last decade+ in the pursuit of an Apple-like philosophy towards ui. This has really killed a lot of theming because so many apps use GTK.

Perhaps with all these changes to GUI since initial Shell release their goal is to enter some niche mobile market and call job done. Because nothing else explains all this interface gutting out they did over 14 years.

Once they finish sucking donations and other forms of financial support they'll probably announce it's time to "sunset" Gnome/gtk because it sadly didn't met unspecified expectations of unspecified group of people.

Gnome team, what they did and what they still want to do, their attitude towards users - especially those who dare to criticize them is THE result of polluting FOSS with corporate style of software development.

Theming and customization of Linux is half-dead because of what happens at Gnome.

Re: The Joy of Linux Theming in the Age of Bootable Containers

#13

Post by kayson »

I really like the idea of immutable Linux and bootable containers. My next project will probably be switching to bazzite. But I took a look at the Containerfile[1], and I have some big concerns about the fragility of their supply chain. It uses 20 different copr repos (granted, half are their own), and I didn't count how many packages. Best I can tell, none of the versions are pinned. They do dump a diff of all package versions in the release notes[2], but I wonder if anyone actually reviews it before release. All it takes is one vulnerability in one repo / package and you can enjoy your new cryptominer.

There's something nice about running Debian and having confidence in all the packages because they're built and maintained by the Debian team. Of course there are exceptions, but in my experience they're rare. The only non-standard repo I regularly use is fish shell, and the updates are so few and far between (and very public) I think the risk is low.

I suppose this isn't strictly a container-specific problem; you could add the repos and install / update all those packages yourself too. But being able to package everything up into a single file that you can then boot into as your OS means you're also packing all the supply chain risk.

Curious if anyone else shares my concern or if I should just put my tinfoil hat back on...

1. https://github.com/ublue-os/bazzite/blob/main/Containerfile 2. https://github.com/ublue-os/bazzite/releases/tag/42.20250417

Re: The Joy of Linux Theming in the Age of Bootable Containers

#14

Post by keyringlight »

amarant wrote: post #4
OsrsNeedsf2P wrote: post #2

Sometimes I wonder why there isn't more enthusiasm around theming. Chicago95[0] is popular, but I also love how Garuda[0] themes KDE. There's some small websites for downloading themes on various DEs, but most of them are a bit jank and it seems built-in support beyond basic things like accents aren't there. [0] https://github.com/grassmunk/Chicago95 [1] https://garudalinux.org/editions (screenshots don't do it justi…

I used to really enjoy theming and Riceing, but then I realised it was pointless: my monitor always looks the same, with a full screen IDE window covering up all my fancy themes

I think that speaks to another aspect, individual apps taking full control over how they're presented instead of inheriting whatever framework the DE is providing or the cohabitation of various KDE/QT/GTK/X/other, or electron framework defaults. Over on windows even when uxtheme skinning was in full swing it was the start of applications doing it themselves (winamp and quicktime come to mind), but I have the impression developers doing so made sure the extra effort had a payoff.

Re: The Joy of Linux Theming in the Age of Bootable Containers

#15

Post by nickjj »

Regular containers also happen to work great for testing dotfiles.

Many years ago I added an install script to https://github.com/nickjj/dotfiles to get set up in basically 1 command because I wanted a quick way to bootstrap my own system. I used the official Debian and Ubuntu images to test things.

Over the last few days I refactored things further to support Arch Linux which has an official Docker image too.

This enables being able to do full end to end tests in about 5 minutes. The container spins up in 1 second, the rest is the script running its course. Since it's just a container you can also use volume mounts and leave the container running in case you want to incrementally test things without wiping the environment.

Additionally it lets folks test it out without modifying their system in 1 command. Docker has enabled so many good things over the last 10+ years.

Re: The Joy of Linux Theming in the Age of Bootable Containers

#16

Post by Mountain_Skies »

gnomeluvscorpo wrote: post #11
WD-42 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Gnome/gtk folks have been systematically removing theming capabilities for the last decade+ in the pursuit of an Apple-like philosophy towards ui. This has really killed a lot of theming because so many apps use GTK.

Perhaps with all these changes to GUI since initial Shell release their goal is to enter some niche mobile market and call job done. Because nothing else explains all this interface gutting out they did over 14 years. Once they finish sucking donations and other forms of financial support they'll probably announce it's time to " sunset " Gnome/gtk because it sadly didn't met unspecified expectations of unspecified gr…

Chasing after The Year of Linux on the Desktop is the community's great white whale. The thinking seems to be that if Linux can be made to look enough like the major mainstream OSes, the masses will flood into Linux and the people who lead them there will get to be the heroes of the day. Problem is the mainstream OSes make UI decisions for many reasons, and the end user often isn't the main concern. Linux could, and in the past did, make itself the OS of user empowerment and choice instead of being a watered down version of whatever is in fashion with the PMs at Microsoft, Apple, and Google.

Re: The Joy of Linux Theming in the Age of Bootable Containers

#17

Post by zzo38computer »

WD-42 wrote: post #6
OsrsNeedsf2P wrote: post #2

Sometimes I wonder why there isn't more enthusiasm around theming. Chicago95[0] is popular, but I also love how Garuda[0] themes KDE. There's some small websites for downloading themes on various DEs, but most of them are a bit jank and it seems built-in support beyond basic things like accents aren't there. [0] https://github.com/grassmunk/Chicago95 [1] https://garudalinux.org/editions (screenshots don't do it justi…

The Gnome/gtk folks have been systematically removing theming capabilities for the last decade+ in the pursuit of an Apple-like philosophy towards ui. This has really killed a lot of theming because so many apps use GTK.

I think there are many problems with GNOME and GTK. Some programs require GTK, but other than that I avoid them when I can. The theming is not the only problem, but it is one of them.

Re: The Joy of Linux Theming in the Age of Bootable Containers

#18

Post by microtonal »

kayson wrote: post #13

I really like the idea of immutable Linux and bootable containers. My next project will probably be switching to bazzite. But I took a look at the Containerfile[1], and I have some big concerns about the fragility of their supply chain. It uses 20 different copr repos (granted, half are their own), and I didn't count how many packages. Best I can tell, none of the versions are pinned. They do dump a diff of all packa…

Nothing holds you from using bootable containers in the same way you use Debian and only use packages from the official Fedora repositories, starting from Fedora's bootc base images.

Re: The Joy of Linux Theming in the Age of Bootable Containers

#19

Post by microtonal »

undeniablemess wrote: post #5

Interesting. Didn’t know about bootable containers. I guess the equivalent in the NixOS world would be its impermanence module, which erases root on every reboot to keep things as stateless as possible.

I think most bootc-based systems keep /etc, /var and others. So, it is more like Nix without impermanence where you can atomically change/update/rollback your system, but keep some system state.

Re: The Joy of Linux Theming in the Age of Bootable Containers

#20

Post by moondev »

kayson wrote: post #13

I really like the idea of immutable Linux and bootable containers. My next project will probably be switching to bazzite. But I took a look at the Containerfile[1], and I have some big concerns about the fragility of their supply chain. It uses 20 different copr repos (granted, half are their own), and I didn't count how many packages. Best I can tell, none of the versions are pinned. They do dump a diff of all packa…

> Best I can tell, none of the versions are pinned.

From your link, everything is pinned? So a theoretical exploit in a future release of package is not going to exist in this immutable release https://github.com/ublue-os/bazzite/releases/tag/42.20250417

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