dotfiles — synthwave rice

Arch Linux · niri (scrollable-tiling Wayland) or driftwm (infinite 2D canvas) · waybar · kitty · rofi · mako · swaylock The old i3 / polybar / picom session is kept as a fallback (pick it at the LightDM login screen).

driftwm on the big screen: the showcase layout (Mod+F8) — fastfetch, now playing, Claude usage, the key cheat sheet, btop and yazi over the night-city wallpaper.

Install

git clone --recursive git@github.com:Cackbone/dotfiles.git
cd dotfiles
./install.sh --packages   # pacman -S packages.txt, then stow everything

Every directory at the top level is a GNU Stow package that mirrors $HOME (niri/.config/niri/config.kdl → ~/.config/niri/config.kdl). Files in ~/.config are symlinks into this repo, so editing the live config is editing the repo; git status shows what changed.

Package	What
niri	compositor, keybinds (AZERTY, same jklm as i3), outputs, window rules
driftwm	2D canvas session (AUR driftwm): same keys, colors, bar and wallpaper as niri; driftwm --check-config. Each screen is its own canvas (its own far-apart area). Helpers in .config/driftwm/: arrange-cameras.sh (screen areas, at login), desktop.sh (desktops 1–5 per screen), nav.py (Mod+arrows, on to the next screen at the edge), refocus.py (after a close, centre the closest window on that screen), guard.py (a screen pulled into another's area by Alt-Tab, the taskbar or a focus request goes back, and the mouse moves to the window's own screen instead: no mirrored screens), bar-events.py (refreshes the bar's desktop and window pills, which show only this screen's existing desktops and the windows of its current one), showcase.py (a showcase of windows on the big screen — fastfetch, btop, yazi, clock, keys, player, Claude usage: arrange them, Mod+Shift+F8 saves the layout to showcase.json (positions, sizes, the screen's view and zoom), Mod+F8 puts it back, and it opens by itself at login when that screen is connected)
waybar	floating pill bar: per-screen desktop and window pills, a music pill (cover, live equalizer — or the icon of the device Spotify plays on — title / artist; click: play/pause, right-click: nowplaying, scroll: next/previous), DSEG7 clock; the Arch button is an overview of that screen
kitty	terminal + synthwave.conf palette
fastfetch	system info with the dithered portrait (kitty image protocol)
fish	prompt and colors; fastfetch sized to the window (redrawn on resize; fastfetch -w watch mode keeps the portrait in place and drops lines in short windows); ne / nee open Emacs (quick window / IDE layout, see dot-emacs)
rofi	launchers/applets (adi1090x); launchers/type-6/synthwave.rasi is the one bound to Mod+D
mako, swaylock	notifications, lock screen
wireplumber	PipeWire session manager limited to video (audio stays on PulseAudio): needed for screen recording / sharing on Wayland (Kooha, OBS, browsers) through xdg-desktop-portal-wlr
portal	xdg-desktop-portal-wlr config: pick the screen to record / share by clicking it (themed slurp)
nowplaying	~/.local/bin/nowplaying: just the current track (cover, title, progress, keys) for spotify_player / Spotify via MPRIS — Mod+F7, or right-click the music pill. Also music-ctl (playerctl for the bar, nowplaying and media keys: wakes Spotify up when it has dropped an idle session — "no playback found" — and makes sure play/pause really happen, re-sending them when Spotify's rate limiting drops them) and spotify-state (one shared, rate-friendly playback query for the bar and nowplaying)
btop, cava	synthwave themes
gtk	GTK3/GTK4 synthwave colors on Adwaita-dark (Thunar, pavucontrol, file dialogs); icons: Papirus-Synthwave
yazi	terminal file manager theme (Mod+E)
fonts	~/.local/share/fonts: DSEG7 Classic (seven-segment clock in waybar, SIL OFL, license included)
fontconfig	JetBrains Mono Nerd Font + Noto Color Emoji fallback
firefox	userChrome.css/userContent.css + user.js, linked into the default profile by install.sh; video decoded by the Intel GPU, AV1 off (see chromium)
chromium	chromium-flags.conf: video decoded by the Intel GPU (VA-API), AV1 off so YouTube sends VP9 (the GPU can't decode AV1)
lightdm	login screen theme (GTK greeter): not stowed, install with sudo lightdm/install.sh
boot	rEFInd boots Arch directly (hold a key for the menu) + Plymouth splash with the portrait: not stowed, sudo boot/install.sh
claude	Claude Code theme (/theme → Synthwave) and status line (wrapping pills: model, folder, branch, context, 5-hour session; in Emacs only the model, the bars go to the Claude window's mode line). It also saves each session's quotas for clawd
clawd	Mod+F9: Claude plan usage (session, weekly, per-model, credits) with an animated Clawd, awake while a Claude Code session works (hooks in claude/.claude/hooks/)
wallpapers	~/.local/share/wallpapers: background, 2× upscale, lock image, portrait
scripts/papirus-synthwave.sh	builds ~/.local/share/icons/Papirus-Synthwave (Papirus-Dark + magenta folders), run by install.sh
dot-emacs	submodule: the Emacs config (camron theme, treemacs on F8, Claude Code on F9, nee = IDE layout), linked by install.sh (init.el, README.org → ~/.emacs.d/config.org, camron-theme.el)
autostart	hides nm-applet and picom's XDG autostart entries in the Wayland sessions
i3, polybar, picom, background, xfce4	X11 fallback session

Keys (niri)

Keys	Action
Mod+Tab / Mod+O	overview (zoom out over the canvas)
Mod+J/M, Mod+←/→	focus column left / right
Mod+K/L, Mod+↓/↑	focus window down / up in column
Mod+Shift+…	move instead of focus
Mod+& é " ' ( - è _ ç	workspace 1–9 (+Shift to send the column)
Mod+R / Mod+F / Mod+Shift+F	cycle width / maximize column / fullscreen
Mod+, / Mod+;	pull window into / push out of the neighbouring column
Mod+Z	tabbed column
Mod+Return / Mod+D / Mod+V	kitty / launcher / clipboard history
Mod+E / Mod+F3	yazi / Thunar
Print, Mod+F4	screenshot (region)
Mod+Alt+L	lock
Mod+Shift+,	cheat sheet of all binds

Keys (driftwm)

Keys	Action
Mod+←↓↑→ / Mod+J K L M	nearest window in that direction on this screen; at the edge, on to the next screen (nav.py)
Mod+Shift+…	nudge the window
Mod+Ctrl+arrows, Mod+drag, drag empty canvas	pan the canvas
Mod+scroll, Mod+= / Mod+-, pinch	zoom
Mod+Tab / Mod+O / Mod+W	overview of the current desktop (again to come back); Mod+Z / Mod+à 100%
Mod+A	jump home (canvas origin) and back
Mod+& é " ' (	desktop 1–5 of this screen, each screen has its own (same key / Mod+² = previous; +Shift sends the window) — driftwm/.config/driftwm/desktop.sh
Mod+Shift+Ctrl+←→	send the window to the next screen
Mod+R	resize mode like i3: arrows / j k l m (40px, Shift = 10px), Esc to leave (resize-mode.sh)
Mod+F / Mod+Shift+F / Mod+G	fullscreen / fit to screen / fill free space
Alt+Tab	recent windows
Mod+Return / Mod+D / Mod+E / Mod+V	kitty / launcher / yazi / clipboard
Print, Mod+F4	region screenshot (saved to ~/Pictures/Screenshots and copied)
Mod+F7 / Mod+F9	now playing / Claude usage
Mod+F8 / Mod+Shift+F8	showcase layout on the big screen: restore / save
media keys	play/pause, next, previous (music-ctl), volume (pactl)
Mod+Q, Mod+Shift+A	close window · Mod+Ctrl+Shift+Q quit

Not in this repo

• ~/.config/spotify-player/app.toml (it holds the Spotify app's client ID). Keep playback_refresh_duration_in_ms = 0: polling Spotify's Web API every few seconds exhausts a developer app's quota, and play/pause then gets rejected (HTTP 429) for hours.

Palette

deep #090d17	navy #131244	panel #1a1a6e
magenta #e040fb	purple #7b2cbf	border-dim #3b2a78
cyan #00bcd4	ice #76e6f2	lime #69ff47
red #ff4f79	yellow #ffd166	text #e8e6ff / dim #8b8bc7