Switching to GNOME?!

Summary

Joshua Blais takes a brave dive into switching from a hyperland tiling window manager to the GNOME desktop environment. Detailing his seamless transition, he highlights Emacs as the star of his setup, centralizing all his workflows. Joshua refashions the desktop environment by incorporating essential GNOME extensions and custom keybinds to optimize his productivity while sidestepping the typical concern with window management. Join him as he explores the perks of GNOME, its coalescence with Emacs, and why he's fallen in love with this new, streamlined setup, inviting everyone to weigh in with their thoughts or critiques.

Highlights

• Switched from hyperland tiling to GNOME, emphasizing Emacs for unified workflows. 🚀
• Emacs, the editor of a lifetime, simplifies Joshua's tasks with no keybind conflicts. 💼
• Zen browser replaced Firefox, integrating smoothly into Joshua's workspaces. 🖥️
• Extensions like Dash to Dock, Blur My Shell, and others jazz up his GNOME experience. 🎉
• Joshua's workspace setup maximizes efficiency with definitive areas for browsers, mail, and communications. 🧠
• Key-bindings tailored for Emacs and GNOME facilitate a seamless user experience. 🎹
• Joshua is open to community feedback, demonstrating the dynamic landscape of tech choices. 📢

Key Takeaways

• Joshua switched from a hyperland tiling manager to GNOME and found solace in replacing everything with Emacs. 😎
• Emacs became a one-stop-shop for Joshua, managing multiple workflows seamlessly with no keybind conflicts. 👨‍💻
• Heartfelt about GNOME's functionality, Joshua shares his specific extension list to help anyone navigate this desktop delightfully. 📜
• The GNOME and Emacs integration simplified Joshua's computing environment, focusing more on doing work rather than managing windows. 🎯
• Like any tech enthusiast, Joshua encourages feedback on his switch, showing the evolving nature of tech preferences. 💬

Overview

Joshua Blais has made a definitive switch from his hyperland tiling window manager days to embrace the GNOME desktop environment. He discusses candidly why GNOME, coupled with Emacs, is now his chosen virtual habitat. The meticulous coverage of his workspace setup reflects an earnest attempt to heighten productivity and simplify workflows as he rallies Emacs as a powerhouse tool.

His new setup integrates Emacs as a universal tool, efficiently amalgamating various workflows under one interface which disposes of key binding conflicts. The video details his workspace layout, highlighting the seamless operations of Zen browser replacing Firefox, and Thunderbird serving as his mail client until he fully switches to MU4E inside Emacs.

Joshua recommends several GNOME extensions that keep his digital space immaculate and his mind focused on tasks. Extensions like Dash to Dock and Blur My Shell augment the desktop appearance and functionality, rendering a user-friendly experience. Through his lively narrative, viewers are invited to reflect upon their tech setups and explore the potential that GNOME and Emacs hold together!

Chapters

• 00:00 - 01:00: Introduction and Switching to GNOME The author discusses their recent switch from a hyperland tiling window manager to the GNOME desktop environment. The primary motivation for this transition is a change in their workflow, moving away from a command-line interface (CLI) and text user interface (TUI) workflow that relied heavily on Neoim and T-max. The author anticipates some backlash or comments regarding this change but expresses satisfaction with GNOME, hinting at further explanations in the text for the reasons behind this decision.
• 01:00 - 03:00: Workspace Overview and Zen Browser This chapter introduces the workspace setup and the utility of the Zen Browser, focusing on the integration and efficiency provided by using Emacs. Emacs serves as a unifying tool by consolidating various functionalities into a single platform, reducing keybind conflicts and enhancing workflow efficiency. The narrative emphasizes Emacs' capability as a self-documenting system with universal key binds, making it a preferred choice for long-term use and reducing complexity in technical environments.
• 03:00 - 05:00: Communication and Media Workspaces This chapter discusses the speaker's preference for using Emacs and how it has been integrated into a Gnome workflow. The speaker provides details about the use of keybinds and extensions in Emacs. Additionally, the chapter covers the speaker’s workspace setup, including the use of a 4K monitor and a laptop screen for communication and media tasks.
• 05:00 - 08:30: GNOME Extensions and Customizations In this chapter titled 'GNOME Extensions and Customizations,' the focus is on how the author organizes their workspace using GNOME. They describe their particular setup where Workspace number one is dedicated to Emacs, a popular text editor, while Workspace number two is used for the Zen browser. The author explains their preference for Zen over Firefox, citing its minimalistic browser interface that keeps distractions at bay and enhances productivity by allowing the user to concentrate solely on the active window or site. As such, this marks a notable customization in their GNOME setup.
• 08:30 - 13:00: Hotkeys and Emacs Integration This chapter discusses the use of hotkeys and the integration of Emacs with other tools, emphasizing the benefits of combining functionalities. The speaker likes tools that don't get in the way and prefers software based on Firefox due to its extensive plugin ecosystem. They mention using vim keybindings with plugins like Vimeium and address the apparent contradiction of using both vim and Emacs by invoking 'evil mode' to combine the best aspects of both systems. Also briefly mentions the use of Zen browser.
• 13:00 - 15:00: Final Thoughts and Outro The chapter discusses the use of different tools and software applications, focusing on their organization across various workspaces. Workspace number two is mentioned without specifics, while workspace number three is designated for using an alternate browser, Brave, primarily for social media and other casual browsing needs. There is a mention of keeping this browser closed unless needed.

Switching to GNOME?! Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 I have fully switched over to the Gnome desktop environment away from my hyperland tiling window manager days and towards uh normie dump. I know people are going to be commenting on this one already. I can already see that in the comments. But Gnome has uh it's been good and I'm going to talk about why I have made the switch over. And really the main main reason is that I have moved away from my Neoim T-max uh CLI TUI workflow and have strictly replaced
• 00:30 - 01:00 everything with Emacs. Emacs has allowed me to amalgamate all of those different tools into one little little into one place that is self-documenting. It has unified key binds. I don't have to worry about conflicts of keybinds across different programs as oh my goodness. And uh it's it just works. It just it seems to be the editor of a lifetime, at least for
• 01:00 - 01:30 me. So, post your hate in the comments, but Emacs is the way forward for me. I'm going to talk about how I've kind of integrated Emacs into this Gnome workflow, the keybinds and all that different stuff. I'm going to talk about some extensions that I use as well. I'll just do a a whole overview of why I'm using Gnome. Let's let's just do that. So, in the top left, I've got five workspaces. That's all I really need. I have a this is a 4K monitor that just sitting right in front of me that I use. I have my laptop below it. I don't really use that screen for anything except for
• 01:30 - 02:00 documentation. Workspace number one, Emacs always. Workspace number two is my Zen browser. So, Zen has replaced Firefox for me, not because of the politics behind Firefox. I kind of made the switch before that, but because I wanted to try something new and I really like the way that Zen handles tabs and all of that. It's a really minimal browser. It gets out of your way and it can actually like minimize to the p like to the point where you're only using the the window that you're actually in the site that you're on, which is nice. I
• 02:00 - 02:30 like that. I like it getting out of your way. It is based on Firefox, so it still has all of the plugins and all of that. Go through the plugins. I quickly have uh centralized don't f with paste vimeium c so I can you know use vim keybinds everywhere and before people are like you use vim but you use emacs what are you evil mode evil mode yeah come on best of both worlds best of both worlds yeah so number two is zen browser that's pretty much strictly what's on
• 02:30 - 03:00 number two always um number three is my alternate browser I just have it empty right now I use Brave as my alternate browser browser chromium based for uh social media stuff and all of that. I don't usually have it open, but on workspace number three, that's kind of where I have it dictated for that. I also throw in like stuff like and stuff like uh Shotcut when I'm doing uh video editing and uh yeah, Audacity even for that sort of uh audio workflow. That
• 03:00 - 03:30 usually lives on workspace number three. Workspace number four, I'm not going to go to it just because it is my uh mail client Thunderbird. Uh, I have not fully switched over to MU4E for Emacs, just as of yet. There's a couple kinks I want to work out before fully switching over. I do really like it, though. I think that editing text inside of a text editor makes sense for email. Uh, and the ability to like you can just GPG encrypt stuff, PGP encrypt stuff. You can just like attach files and images and all this like super easily. I love it. It's
• 03:30 - 04:00 just a couple kinks that I want to work out before fully switching over. So Thunderbird kind of just pulls up that Slack right now just so I don't miss any emails or anything like that. Clients blah blah blah blah. Workspace number five is my communication. So that's usually my Signal, Telegram, uh WhatsApp because I have one client that wants to use WhatsApp for some reason. Uh and then also Spotify and all of that stuff. So let's talk about the extensions that I use in Gnome to make it comfy. You can see down here I have my dash to dock just to make it Mac-like because it
• 04:00 - 04:30 looks pretty. I don't even really when you see I switched over to other workspaces. because it doesn't even really doesn't doesn't come with me. It I don't even really click on it. It's just so that somebody that is using my computer could use it normally and not use hotkeys and all that to launch stuff cuz I would take like a week to explain all the hotkeys that I have in my computer. Up here we just have my calendar uh and all that. Up here we have weather or not, which is just a nice little weather widget. Shows you the weather, I guess. Uh and then we have my dashboard up here. So everything
• 04:30 - 05:00 that is uh working for me, I will talk about a couple of these things. I'm just going to actually go into my extensions manager here and we'll go just really quick through auto move windows is actually dictative of where my windows will show up when they're open via hotkey. So workspace number one is Emacs, two is Zen browser, blah blah blah blah. You'll actually just see some of the binds here uh to the spaces. Makes my life easier. I know whenever I go to two, I'm going to a browser. I know whenever I'm going to three, I'm
• 05:00 - 05:30 kind of going to media related stuff or database stuff or whatever because you saw debaver in there. Uh battery health charging is kind of nice because it just um whenever I'm connected to my external monitor via USBC, I don't want to be charging my computer forever to 100%. It actually just keeps it on balance mode here. And it's a very simple Gnome plugin. Keeps my thresholds at 80. Once it hits 80, it just goes down to 75 and back up to 80 and just cycles through there. So instead of going all the way up to 100 or all the way down, it keeps
• 05:30 - 06:00 my battery within a certain threshold, which I hear is good for a battery. I don't know. Post in the comments if I'm wrong, but uh yeah, that's generally how I have my battery set up. Blur my shell just makes uh makes the shell look nice. When I go into here, it just like you can see there's a little bit of blur at the bottom. I don't know. It's probably a useless plugin. Looks nice though. Color picker allows me to pick up all of the colors that are on the page. Like I have this little I don't call this little uh microscope.
• 06:00 - 06:30 No, that's the word. I don't know what the word I'm looking for is, but it pops up here. Allows me to pick colors and then it just keep keeps that color in my clipboard. So, if I'm doing webdev or whatever, I can just paste that color in and uh keep everything unified. Dash to doc, we already talked about just this thing down here. date menu formatter just makes this look the way it does because it I I like it. It's a carryover from my uh way bar uh or yeah way bar uh
• 06:30 - 07:00 from Hyperland. Grand Theft Focus is a pretty simple one. Whenever there's notifications, I believe in a Gnome system, it takes away your focus from the window that you're already on, which I think is not the behavior I would like. So, I just cut it out with that plugin. Impatience is kind of the same vein. You'll see that when I'm like switching through different uh windows, it just like happens almost instantaneously. That takes away the animation uh between. So like I have it
• 07:00 - 07:30 very very low. It just makes it so that switching between things is just essentially instantaneous. Media controls, there's just a little thing that comes up in the top left for like Spotify or YouTube. You can pause videos or play music. It just looks nice. I don't actually ever use Did I use hotkeys to switch media? Notification banner reloaded just makes it so you saw that notification for the color uh pop up on the right. You can just dictate where notifications pop up on your screen. Uh open bar is a
• 07:30 - 08:00 very nice plugin. I actually just recently added it. It allows me to have this bar and also the theming for colors and everything in my shell quite nice. So I actually just have it set up here where everything is laid out the way that I like it. you can actually like do some pretty cool stuff with it. Um, I use a pretty lame I I like the transparent look, but some people may like like islands and all that different kind of stuff. So, there's that sort of thing. You can even uh I don't know where the is it right here? Yes, you can
• 08:00 - 08:30 have like islands. It won't show up because it's because it's transparent background, but uh I just have it set to one sort of main. Oh, and there you go. I changed all my colors. Oh, no. Oh, no. Anyway, I'll just keep it like that for the rest of the video. Uh, and then a quick web search is just in here. Whenever I search something, I can just search like joshblaze.com. It'll actually do a quick web search with duck.go and it'll uh go to wherever I
• 08:30 - 09:00 direct it to, which is nice. Uh, which is kind of a nice little plugin that you can use from wherever on your system and like you might not be in a browser and you want to go somewhere really quick, that's a good way of doing it. It does a duck.go Go search. You can change the search provider to Google start page quant. I think there's like a dozen of different providers it allows. Where? Here. Here you go. There's all the providers you can use for the search engine. Uh removable drive menu just
• 09:00 - 09:30 throws something up here. Whenever I throw a drive into the computer, it actually just pops up a little eject button and it allows you to just interact with the drive whenever it's plugged in. It's nice. Uh what else we got here? Uh SSH search provider. I'm not going to talk I'm not going to show you the servers that I have, but you set up a SSH config and then you point it to the various servers that you always SSH into and then it actually just gives you a little thing here whenever you're searching the name.
• 09:30 - 10:00 It'll pop up the uh different servers and allow you to SSH directly into them. It's it's nice. It's a nice little uh addition. I know that there's like plugins and um like on Mac for example, they have like raycast and that stuff. I think it has that sort of plugin. So, it's a nice little way to do the same thing. Status area, horizontal spacing. I just use this to make sure things are spaced out nicely. And whether or not we already talked about that is all the extensions I use. I'm just going to go into the uh settings really quick and I'm just going to show you some of the hotkeys that I use to integrate with
• 10:00 - 10:30 Emacs because this is um kind of the way that I have done this to make life very nice in a Gnome desktop environment and integrating with Emacs. So, people with regard to tiling window managers will always be like, well, you can't like move windows around and stuff in a gnome. Yes, you can. You can just like snap them whichever direction you want to. It's very nice. Uh, so like here you just snap windows. You can make them full screen. You can make them full screen. You can bring it back down. It's
• 10:30 - 11:00 nice. It's all keyboard driven if you want it to be. You can just set these different parameters. So I'll just go through my custom shortcuts that I have that I integrate with Emacs here. So dervish is the first one. You'll see that I have Emacs client on all of these and it'll like pop up a buffer. Uh, you'll see. So, as I hit alt f, it actually allows me to focus to a dervish window right here, which is essentially the emacs file manager. It allows you to just pop around and do all that different stuff. I also have alt controlf bound to my file system. So,
• 11:00 - 11:30 whenever I'm in a place in dervish, it'll allow me to pop up a uh graphical file file manager rather. That'll allow me to just grab and drag stuff into modern UI elements. You know how it is. Alt Z is L feed. So that's just a replacement and a carryover from my tiling window manager day. That'll just pop up uh L feed and allow me to just go through all the different feeds that I have, which is pretty fun. Uh Emacs is alt obviously
• 11:30 - 12:00 just starts Emacs. Emacs calendar is control alt C. It just pops up a calendar within Emacs. shows me all the different uh org mode events and to-dos and deadlines and everything. It just organizes my life cuz I'm I'm not very organized. Emacs capture. This is a fun one. I really really like this one. Shift control C allows me to make a capture from anywhere in my system and just pops up a Emacs or mode buffer and
• 12:00 - 12:30 I can hit let's say T for example to-do and it should there we go allow me to just input a to-do and then I hit control CRL C and it is saved in my to-do file forever. It's very nice. I love it. I'm just going to close that window for now. All right. Uh, we got Emacs password. I'm not going to open this one just because it's got my uh password store stuff, but you hit shift controlp, it opens up the pass window
• 12:30 - 13:00 within Emacs and allows you to just jump to whatever password you need and yank it and into the clipboard and throw it into the browser wherever you might need a password. Uh, Emacs scratch buffer is another one that I'm pretty proud of. You can actually just hit shift controlln and it brings up a buffer that allows you to just write in your emacs buffer and control crl c just takes that text and brings it into your clipboard allows you to paste it into whatever web page you're in. So this is
• 13:00 - 13:30 text right and then control ctrl c and then you can just like paste it wherever you want. It's it's a nice little addition. I like it. Uh m's browser is for music. So, Ctrl AltM will bring up my music buffer in Emacs. Allows me to go through all of my music files and just quickly pick whichever. I've actually bound uh alt enter to my verm terminal now. So, whenever I hit alt enter, it brings up vterm instead of kitty. Uh I just keep kitty as a fallback terminal emulator. Really like
• 13:30 - 14:00 it. You'll see some of this other stuff is not super related to Emacs, but just some nice quality of life adjustments. And uh yeah, that's pretty much my plugins and my or sorry, extensions and hotkeys that I use to integrate Gnome and Emacs. Yeah, that's that's kind of why I've been doing this this shift over. Um it's allowed me to really focus on using Emacs for essentially everything that I possibly can. and it's shifted my focus to less
• 14:00 - 14:30 about window management and more about doing work. So Emacs really becomes your window manager. You can still split windows, you can still adjust them, you can still do all that fun stuff. And it just makes it so that you don't actually have to worry about window management as much or really at all because on my different workspaces, I pretty much have just full screen
• 14:30 - 15:00 windows. My focus is better. It allows me to just I'm here. This is what I'm doing. I'm here. This is what I'm doing. as opposed to having like four or five different windows open on one screen, which can get crazy. And some stuff is just better to have like floating. I I like opening up like Nautilus, my file manager, and have it floating or even these little scratch buffer windows. It's nice to have to be able to just have them floating and then just kill them as quickly as possible and just move on with your day. I like that
• 15:00 - 15:30 workflow. So anyway, yeah, this is my no Emacs integration. Post in the comments why you think I should switch back to a tiling window manager or why I'm silly. And uh yeah, if you like this video, don't forget to like and subscribe. And uh if you want to support the channel, go check out my book on my website. Uh yeah, that's about it. We'll catch you guys in the next video. God bless and until next time, take care.