u/Inevitable-Ask9019

>!​!<So I have an ASUS Zephyrus G16 2024. OLED display, Intel iGPU, NVIDIA dGPU with a MUX switch. I wanted to rice my Linux desktop but every single dotfile, every guide, every YouTube video I found was for Hyprland. Nobody was doing this on KDE Plasma Wayland.

I didn't want to switch to Hyprland. I like KDE. It has better battery life, easy app installs, a real settings GUI, and Plasma widgets that just work. But I also wanted my desktop to actually look good. So I took PewDiePie's Hyprland rice as a starting point and rebuilt everything for KDE from scratch.

Here is what I ended up building and why.

The first big problem was the bar. I wanted Waybar like every other rice uses, but all the scripts inside those dotfiles call hyprctl - a command that flat out does not exist on KDE. The workspace switcher, the window tracking, all of it. So I had to rewrite every single workspace script to talk to KWin through DBus using qdbus6 instead. It took a while to figure out how KWin exposes its virtual desktop state, but it works perfectly now. Click a workspace number, it switches. The active one shows a dot, the others show numbers.

The second problem was OLED burn-in. A bar sitting in the exact same position for hours is a burn-in risk on an OLED panel. I searched everywhere and found absolutely nothing about preventing Waybar burn-in on KDE Wayland. So I wrote my own solution - a watcher script that monitors which desktop you are on and restarts Waybar every time you switch. This naturally cycles the pixels under the bar so no single pixel stays lit in the same spot for too long. As a bonus, I added a slide-down animation so the bar drops from the top every time it restarts, which makes workspace switching feel very smooth.

Beyond the bar I built out a full suite of modules. The Bluetooth module shows your connected device type with an icon, the device name, and the battery percentage color coded green to red. The brightness module cycles between your laptop screen, external monitor via DDC, and keyboard backlight all from one button with scroll to adjust. The ProtonVPN module has a right click country picker with 60 plus countries. The WiFi module shows a rofi picker with signal strength on right click. The GPU mode switcher lets you toggle between Integrated, Hybrid, and dGPU MUX directly from the bar.

For the window decoration I am using Klassy which gives you very fine control over the title bar. For tiling I am using Krohnkite which brings dynamic tiling to KDE without switching compositors. The color scheme is one I put together myself.

I also built a separate widget project linked below that handles some extra functionality on the desktop side.

Everything is open source and documented with a proper install script that auto-detects your hardware, handles battery paths, backlight devices, and sets up the systemd services automatically. Non-ASUS users can use everything except the GPU and keyboard aura modules. Non-OLED users can disable the watcher and the bar just stays put permanently.

Links:

Full dotfiles and setup: https://github.com/prudhvibungatavula/socrates-KDE

Desktop widget: https://github.com/prudhvibungatavula/reactor-hud

Happy to answer questions about any of it. This took a long time to figure out and I documented everything so nobody else has to go through the same search.

I wanted the best of both worlds — the customization of a Hyprland rice but with the convenience and stability of KDE Plasma. Inspired by PewDiePie’s Arch setup, I built a fully custom Waybar on KDE Wayland. Almost no one documents this combination so I figured it all out myself.

ASUS Zephyrus G16 2024 (OLED, Intel iGPU + NVIDIA dGPU, ASUS MUX)
• CachyOS (Arch-based, optimized for gaming)
• KDE Plasma on Wayland with KWin

What I built:

Waybar - replaced KDE’s default panel with a fully custom bar running on KWin Wayland via wlr-layer-shell.

Workspace switcher - rewrote Hyprland workspace scripts for KWin using qdbus6. Shows Telugu numerals ౧ ౨ ౩ ౪ for inactive and ⬤ for active.

SuperGFX — GPU mode switcher (Integrated/Hybrid/dGPU MUX) with a rofi picker directly in Waybar.

ProtonVPN — left click toggles, right click opens a rofi country picker with 60+ countries. Shows current city when connected.

Bluetooth — shows connected device type icon, name and battery level with color coding. Right click opens a rofi device picker.

WiFi - rofi network picker with signal strength icons and password prompt for new networks.

Brightness - one module cycling between laptop screen, external monitor (DDC/CI) and keyboard backlight. Right click opens keyboard aura mode/color picker.

Volume - ASCII bar with mute toggle and right click audio output switcher.

Battery -ASCII bar with charging icons, color thresholds and discharge rate in tooltip.

Kröhnkite - used it as a tiling window manager on top of KWin, so windows automatically tile and fill the screen without manually resizing, with keyboard-driven focus and movement between windows.

I built a custom desktop widget for KDE Plasma, inspired by PewDiePie’s Linux setup. The widget displays live system stats fan speeds, temperatures, CPU/RAM/GPU usage, running processes and network activity all styled like a sci-fi terminal with blinking text and a scanline effect.

Since my monitor is OLED, static pixels sitting in the same spot for too long can permanently burn into the screen. So I built in a subtle glitchy refresh line that sweeps down the widget every few seconds, keeping all the pixels moving and preventing any burn-in.

The whole thing runs from a single config file and a set of small scripts that read directly from the hardware.

And anyone looking for wallpaper

https://github.com/pewdiepie-archdaemon/dionysus/blob/dionysus/dotfiles/rofi/image.png

wallpaper

And the ones looking for widget

https://github.com/prudhvibungatavula/reactor-hud/tree/main

widget