A restore script for Debian delivering bespoke desktop kung-fu

Showcase
, , ,
1

Hi, new-guy here, Debian user since 1998/9 absent from the community for some years…

DORiS restores my kind of desktop kung-fu and is the result of many years of running a lightweight Debian desktop. It’s a 2-part script (system and user) that installs a base workstation to a fresh Debian net-install with user configs and opinions. Can run on subsequent users as well.

It builds-up a safe and reliable desktop with a butt-load of handy functionality, most of which comes from scripts and keybinds, some aliases. Silly stuff, too, like a random movie picker becuase I can never decide (c’tarl+alt+p)

Like I wrote, it’s opinionated: alacritty is the terminal emulator, openbox the window manager, firefox and helium the browsers, claws-mail, thunar, keepassxc. Custom openbox menu that I never use, a sane and reliable encryption wrapper built on age. I vendored in gruvbox and nord and there’s a handy theme-flip routine for on-the-fly change, applies to 9 surfaces so gnome apps, gtk 2-4, geany, sublime, mc, btop - everything gets the swift change, everything looks good and the same.

I am a long-time ‘power-user’ (I used to write the debiantutorials website) that got tired of distro-hopping years ago and I don’t like overhead or redundancy. Also, I use what exists.

DORiS is not a dotfile repo or a distribution, it’s just Debian; a customized, set-up, and complete desktop. Over the years my desktop has come to include bits from others; my .bashrc has some bits in it I found (stole), loginfetch from marcov’s repo, and doubtless a ton of other stuff, too, pipe-menus…share the bits.

I welcome you to try DORiS - have at it. Install Debian in qemu or on a fresh drive and run DORiS to it. Put it through your paces, poke around and see what’s there, what it’s all about, maybe even what’s missing (pfft, nuthin’ :wink:

Find DORiS here:

The script tells you what will and is happening, will show you the hard-stop error if there is one, touches only what it needs to, backs up existing, blah blah blah, is idempotent…DORiS is my own restore scheme, but, is released to work on any amd64 box

4 Likes
2

Welcome to the community @machiner, thanks for sharing! :handshake:

1 Like
3

Hey! Thanks for having me. 'S gone be great.

–machiner

1 Like
4

Welcome to the community and thank you for writing this detailed description.

I’ll think about it; perhaps I’ll give DORIS a visit at some point in time!

1 Like
5

Hi, thanks for your response. I bet you a pay-it-forward coffee to the next person you move to avoid at a coffee shop that you will enjoy the whole of it. Maybe not the details of it because it’s just this one person’s digs; opinionated. It’s really just a spartan desktop paradigm using openbox on Debian, tons of keybinds, scripts, every day sort of handy and quick function I like using over the years, commands saved as scripts, etc., probably a lot like any other long time Linux user that finds a groove and builds on it. I haven’t changed much at all about it in years. I use alacritty now. Heh, there’s a change. That one time I moved a bunch of autostart stuff out of openbox and into xinitrc so it could be agnostic and launch regardless.

Debian Openbox Restoration i Script (DORiS) is exactly my debian setup, my desktop. On this laptop I remove avahi and network-manager, bluetooth. Some people like to use their mouse, I prefer the keyboard. I add helium and firefox repos and use each browser and it ships with dark themes as defaults. Also, auto login from tty, no login manager. No fluff at all aside from themes play nice (quick switcher, too - like I said, function) and fastcompmgr.

1499 packages installed after removing network-manager and avahi, bluetooth. It’s a light setup, runs real nice.

Please report back after trying DORiS and if you hate it, or, the kung-fu of it, there are maybe 6 coffee shops a stone’s throw away from me that I could pay-forward a coffee at. Net-install Debian (I use a root user, system tools only), get sudo, clone the repo, run the script(s), reboot and read the message, and then, maybe the what-it-is readme the routine leaves in your ~/.

win+z (or, win+space) for the menu, win+t for the terminal, win+f for thunar.

1 Like
6

That sounds like something I could handle without any problem. Regarding “coffee” or coffee shops that’s not my thing, but as far as the spirit and intent of your DORIS approach, I like it.

I’ll download it; if it’s something I can run live it’ll get some use. I’m less inclined to install it, not because I have anything against it; I do not, it’s simply because I have the systems I intend to use most often already installed.

I’ll let you know when I can give it a spin!

1 Like
7

GitHub - rabmach/debolaD: Debian and Openbox (debola) live iso, handy · GitHub is a live ‘disc’

You can build it or grab the relase. I put more into DORiS, but, debola is the first round from July. If you build it, it uses assets from /debola, so you’d need that repo, as well.

1 Like