Sway/Wayland Polish War: Why Kitty vs. Foot and Eww vs. Minimize Define the New Linux Desktop Battleground
The discourse centers on building highly polished, minimal desktop environments using Sway/Wayland, relying heavily on tools like Eww and Yazi for deep customization.
Opinions sharply divide on core components. '1984' champions kitty for its perceived speed and reliability over other terminals. Conversely, 'rozodru' advocates for foot due to its minimalism when paired with tmux, though 'Szorfein' noted its lack of 'Color reloading'. The 'scratchpad' feature drew mixed reactions, with some calling it useful and others preferring a simple minimize function, citing 'wltr'. Configurative depth was showcased by 'charged' sharing a NixOS Dotfiles repository, while 'Szorfein' detailed cohesive setups spanning WM, Eww, and Neovim.
The clear consensus favors sophisticated tooling and aesthetic cohesion, with the viability of the entire stack depending on manual effort, as exemplified by 'Szorfein' needing 'oomox' to sync GTK themes. The main fault lines are established terminal preferences (kitty vs. foot) and the debate over advanced UI features like the 'scratchpad' utility.
Key Points
Sway/Wayland combos combined with custom tools like Yazi define the current aesthetic ceiling.
General consensus points to strong appreciation for this entire specialized tooling stack.
Kitty's speed and reliability make it the superior terminal choice.
'1984' strongly recommends kitty despite image support drawbacks.
Foot offers unmatched minimalism for terminal use.
'rozodru' recommends it for tmux, but 'Szorfein' pointed out color reloading issues.
The 'scratchpad' feature is functionally divisive.
Some find it necessary, while others prefer the baseline minimize action ('wltr').
Config management requires serious infrastructure commitment.
'charged' demonstrated this by sharing a full NixOS Dotfiles repository.
Achieving perfect theme parity is not automatic.
The integration of Neovim/Thunar requires manual fixes using tools like 'oomox' ('Szorfein').
Source Discussions (7)
This report was synthesized from the following Lemmy discussions, ranked by community score.