u/latency-tech

best wm ig

one rule: everything looks like the bar.

no polybar. no rofi. no eww. launcher / clipboard / fonts / cheatsheet / power menu all share the same strip, font, and pywal colors. floating bar, infinite canvas, wallpaper drives the whole theme.

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WM: [vxwm](https://codeberg.org/wh1tepearl/vxwm) (modular dwm fork)

OS: Arch Linux · display: X11 · shell: bash/zsh

stack

- terminal: kitty

- launcher / menus: dmenu + custom dmenu-above (bar-width, grows upward)

- clipboard: clipmenu (same look as launcher)

- files: thunar (GTK3 themed from pywal)

- compositor: picom (shadows + rounded corners; bar/tray/menus clean)

- notify: dunst (rebuilt colors on every wallpaper change)

- theme: pywal → bar XRDB, dunst, picom shadows, gtk.css

- tray: stalonetray + nm-applet + blueman + control-tray (volume/brightness sliders)

- audio / light: PipeWire · vol / bright → dunst progress bars

- lock / power: slock via horizontal power menu

- screenshots: region + swappy · delay capture for open menus

- fonts: setfont pick (one family for bar/menus/kitty/dunst; bar needs rebuild)

cool bits

- infinite canvas — screen is a viewport; pan, home to (0,0), pin windows (tray stays put while the desk moves); coords in the bar

- bar-centric UI — Super+p / v / Escape / / / Shift+t all feel like the same product

- setwal / wpick — one wallpaper change recolors *everything* that matters

- status: vxwm | HH:MM

- DPI locked to 96 (laptop NVIDIA panels otherwise go huge)

- install script for Arch (+ experimental Fedora), shell choice bash/zsh/both

essentials

| bind | action |

|------|--------|

| Super+Shift+Return | kitty |

| Super+p | launcher |

| Super+v | clipboard |

| Super+Shift+e | thunar |

| Super+Shift+w | wallpapers |

| Super+Shift+t | fonts |

| Super+/ | searchable cheatsheet |

| Super+Escape | Lock · Exit · Suspend · Reboot · Poweroff |

| Super+r | canvas home |

| Super+Ctrl+z | pin window |

| Print | region shot → swappy |

| Super+Shift+Print | delayed shot (for menus) |

full bind list: Super+/ in-session

INSTALLATION

Full Arch installer: ./install.sh (deps, configs, vxwm build, shell choice).

Fedora: present in the script but highly experimental and not recommended — don’t expect it to just work; Arch is the supported path.

dotfiles: https://github.com/latency-tech/vxwm-dotfiles

feedback / questions welcome. screenshots in album 👆

I was trying to find a cool WM and saw vxwm...Its PERFECT!

So this post is based on NyxOkkotsu/vxwmdotfiles with my own modifications.

My changes are listed below:

• Fixed broken screenshot workflow
• Added clipboard manager (clipmenu + rofi)
• Added searchable keybind cheatsheet (using rofi)
• Added minimal tray with low-opacity background
• Switched Thunar to Yazi
• Added clock to the status bar
• Made btop transparent with blur
• Added a startx alias

My very first experience using COSMIC, and honestly, it is really cool!

It doesn't have massive customization options yet, but the design is beautifully simple. It is a fully usable desktop environment with native window tiling. I really love it.

I also themed my main apps (Android Studio, Telegram, and Firefox) in grey and black to match the overall look.

System Info:

• Distro: CachyOS
• Shell: Fish
• DE: Cosmic
• Terminal: cosmic-term
• Color Theme: Shadcn Dark

Hyprland | Material You | Auto-theming from wallpaper

After a couple days of tweaking, I finally settled on a setup that I'm happy with. The main idea: colors are generated automatically from whichever wallpaper you pick, so everything stays cohesive without manual reconfiguring.

What it does:

- Pick any wallpaper via matuwall (or just run matugen image wall.jpg)

- Colors are generated using Google's Material You engine and applied across all apps — borders, bar, notifications, launcher, terminal, clipboard, powermenu

- Every component uses the same color variables, so nothing looks out of place

Stack:

Component Choice

WM Hyprland

Bar Waybar

Notifs Swaync

Launcher Rofi

Powermenu Wlogout

Terminal Foot

Shell Fish (pure prompt)

Files Yazi

System info Fastfetch

Clipboard Clipman + Cliphist

Color gen Matugen

OS CachyOS (Arch-based)

Other details:

- Translucent windows with blur (Hyprland's built-in blur)

- Rounded corners everywhere

- Minimal bar with workspaces, audio, network, bluetooth, CPU, RAM, clock, tray

- Screenshots via grim + slurp -> wl-copy (straight to clipboard)

- Volume/brightness OSD via swayosd

- Wallpaper transitions via awww-daemon

- JetBrainsMono Nerd Font throughout

- Material 3 Expressive-like Rofi design

Links:

- Dotfiles (https://github.com/latency-tech/hyprland-dotfiles)

MORE VIDEOS AND IMAGES OF MY DOTS ARE IN MY GITHUB

https://reddit.com/link/1u4wpvy/video/5s7hcgyp337h1/player