ADD "Anti Distraction Distro"

glass · 2009-06-06 09:43:22

Hello. I'm thinking of working on an Arch based distro called ADD, or Anti Distraction Distro. Being a person with ADHD I know the best way to get stuff done is to have as few distractions as possible, so after learning the awesomeness that is the tiling window manager I decided that it would be great to have a distro designed around high productivity, and minimal distraction. But before I get ahead of myself, I need you guys to give your opinion and tell me which TWM you think is the best.

jelly · 2009-06-06 10:02:03

what really distracts you about arch ? You can just install arch then you're favorite WM , also productivity highly depends on yourself , wich programs you like the best. But if you really want to do it , do it

Ashren · 2009-06-06 10:56:45

glass: This is not really an answer to your question, but ...

I've been thinking about creating a distro like this as well - mostly for fun since it is not really needed.

What I'd include in such a distro would be:

Idea:

An on the fly developers distro where one could be instantly productive without tinkering with the system first.

Base system
Arch base
base-devel
Xorg

Tiling WM's:
XMonad (which is the most configurable in my opinion, but real heavy on dependencies i.e ghc)
Dwm (because it sucks less)
Ratpoison (because many seem to prefer it)

Text editors/coding:
Vim
nano
Geany
Latex (Tex Live)

Terminal stuff:
rxvt-unicode (urxvtc set up per default)
Alot of terminal colorschemes to choose from, both light and dark + script where you change the colors on the fly.
screen
mocp
calcurse
mutt
irsii

Other:
dzen2+conky-cli for statusbars.

I don't even know if the above would even fit on a CD, though.

keenerd · 2009-06-06 13:27:18

@Ashren
You want it to be distraction free, but are including irsii and conky? To each his own, but I went as far as to write my own unobtrusive system monitor. Conky is nice, but it is too much fun seeing how your behavior affects the computer.

Regarding the size of your distro:

pacgraph -m arch-repo xorg-server xmonad dwm ratpoison vim nano geany texlive-core rxvt-unicode screen moc calcurse mutt dzen2 conky

Estimates it to be 1.1 gigs, uncompressed. Most live-cds fit around 2 gigs of software, so you'd have no problem getting this all on a disc.

Dusty · 2009-06-06 14:00:15

ratpoison is the least distracting. It doesn't let you do anything.

I don't really understand why specific lists of packages need to be called 'distros'? If you aren't writing any config tools, init scripts, or installers on top of Arch, all you really need to publish is a list of packages or repository that people can install and configure.

There's nothing wrong with calling it a distro, I'm actually just musing that it would be cool to have an AUR-type thing that allows people to share lists of packages designed for specific configurations, along with a few customized config files.

Having said that, I suppose Xyne, Crouse, or Daenyth will have this done by the time I have lunch. :-P

Dusty

Ashren · 2009-06-06 14:07:34

It is not the default conky it is conky-cli, which is a stripped conky with only cli support. Basically I use it for piping to dzen2 for statusbars. Scripts using unix tools to get system info are fine for this as well, but they use more cpu in my experience (could be caused by my bad scripting skills).

You're right ofcourse that irssi might be too much of a distraction.

Thanks for size estimate, keenerd.

Glass: So what do you think? I hope you don't fell like I've hijacked your topic.

glass · 2009-06-06 19:11:17

Ashren wrote:

glass: This is not really an answer to your question, but ...
I've been thinking about creating a distro like this as well - mostly for fun since it is not really needed.
What I'd include in such a distro would be:
Idea:
An on the fly developers distro where one could be instantly productive without tinkering with the system first.
Base system
Arch base
base-devel
Xorg
Tiling WM's:
XMonad (which is the most configurable in my opinion, but real heavy on dependencies i.e ghc)
Dwm (because it sucks less)
Ratpoison (because many seem to prefer it)
Text editors/coding:
Vim
nano
Geany
Latex (Tex Live)
Terminal stuff:
rxvt-unicode (urxvtc set up per default)
Alot of terminal colorschemes to choose from, both light and dark + script where you change the colors on the fly.
screen
mocp
calcurse
mutt
irsii
Other:
dzen2+conky-cli for statusbars.
I don't even know if the above would even fit on a CD, though.

My plan exactly. Minimal room for dicking around during install or after install.

I know this isn't exactly a "distro" per se, but I thought it might be a fun project, and something other people might be able to make use of as well.

Last edited by glass (2009-06-06 19:14:03)

DevoidOfWindows · 2009-06-06 19:21:53

I think it'd be easier and more practical to write a script that installs and configures the packages. And for an off-line version, it could have the script and a snapshot of the needed packages on a CD image and the script could copy those to the Pacman cache and install and configure.

Last edited by DevoidOfWindows (2009-06-06 19:22:13)

fflarex · 2009-06-06 20:08:23

I use xmonad or dwm, but honestly I think that awesome would be the best tiling wm for a default installation. GHC takes up a ton of disk space that will most likely not be used for any other package, so xmonad is out. DWM needs a recompile in order to configure it, so it's not suitable as a default either. I guess I haven't tried wmii; it might work too.

EDIT: I decided to try wmii after writing this post, and I am now hooked. My progression through the various window managers is now: awesome2 -> dwm -> xmonad -> wmii. I really don't see myself leaving wmii any time soon. I have much less to complain about in wmii than any of the others.

Last edited by fflarex (2009-06-15 13:58:24)

dbb · 2009-06-06 21:21:40

Dusty wrote:

There's nothing wrong with calling it a distro, I'm actually just musing that it would be cool to have an AUR-type thing that allows people to share lists of packages designed for specific configurations, along with a few customized config files.

Couldn't something like this already be done with PKGBUILDs?

Have an install script that would call pacman to install the various packages, then put all the custom configuration files in a hierarchy under /usr/share/$pkgname then do a

cp -r /usr/share/$pkgname/* /

in a post-install script to install the custom configuration and avoid pacman complaining about file conflicts.

Last edited by dbb (2009-06-06 21:22:22)

fflarex · 2009-06-06 22:06:01

Ashren wrote:

It is not the default conky it is conky-cli, which is a stripped conky with only cli support. Basically I use it for piping to dzen2 for statusbars.

As of conky 1.7.0, it is no longer necessary to use a stripped version of conky in order to get it to output to only stdout. You can disable X in the config file.

kludge · 2009-06-07 15:23:06

if you really wanna prevent yourself from distracting yourself, your distro/custom install script should uninstall pacman before turning the system over to the user

ArchArael · 2009-06-07 18:08:49

Maybe I'm dumb to understand this properly, but why do you want to create such distro? Just stay with arch linux and install packages you think are not distracting.

No offense dude. I just don't understand.

Last edited by ArchArael (2009-06-07 21:23:25)

RagePie · 2009-06-07 20:54:33

I have to agree. I think that using Arch, all you really need to maintain is a list of packages to install; a receipe if you will.

Ashren · 2009-06-07 22:23:15

The point of this "distro" as I see it is that you will get a working environment where you can do some work immediately, without having to spend a lot of time being distracted tinkering with dotfiles.

glass · 2009-06-08 20:56:15

Ashren wrote:

The point of this "distro" as I see it is that you will get a working environment where you can do some work immediately, without having to spend a lot of time being distracted tinkering with dotfiles.

Yep. That's the idea. With linux when something doesn't work, or does work, for that matter, you end up spending a lot of time trying to fix it, or make it better. The idea of this "distro" is to create a quick clean linux allowing you to get to work as quickly and efficiently as possible.

jelly · 2009-06-08 21:53:34

Ashren wrote:

The point of this "distro" as I see it is that you will get a working environment where you can do some work immediately, without having to spend a lot of time being distracted tinkering with dotfiles.

But you tinker your dotfiles once then you're done ( if you have nice backups )

vogt · 2009-06-09 01:12:11

fflarex wrote:

I use xmonad or dwm, but honestly I think that awesome would be the best tiling wm for a default installation. GHC takes up a ton of disk space that will most likely not be used for any other package, so xmonad is out. DWM needs a recompile in order to configure it, so it's not suitable as a default either. I guess I haven't tried wmii; it might work too.

I imagine that the massive uncompressed ghc size (563M) could be cut down quite a bit by not including profiling libraries, documentation. Note that when compressed (ie. livecd) it is a more reasonable 80M. Perhaps xmonad could be ported to hugs, or xmonad-light extended: http://braincrater.wordpress.com/2008/0 … -released/

FallenWizard · 2009-06-09 02:44:00

If you really want to create that distro, don't use xmonad because of the huge dependencies, use WMII or Awesome instead.

WMII is fairly small

andre.ramaciotti · 2009-06-09 15:51:57

It would be nice to have a custom live-cd/dvd with the apps I use the most. I like the idea, but I don't see why it should be called a distro, only a live-backup based on Arch, or something like that.

It's going to my TODO list.

Heller_Barde · 2009-06-10 10:27:54

jelly wrote:

Ashren wrote:
The point of this "distro" as I see it is that you will get a working environment where you can do some work immediately, without having to spend a lot of time being distracted tinkering with dotfiles.
But you tinker your dotfiles once then you're done ( if you have nice backups )

ADHD people don't. i know this from my own experience. it takes a lot (most of the time too much) of discipline to refrain from tinkering even with a running system because it might be even better (and it is a good distraction)

cheers
Barde

eldalion · 2009-06-11 08:17:15

I can't be anywhere close to productive with irssi installed on my system. Try disabling flash too, no more youtube idling

Arch Linux

#1 2009-06-06 09:43:22

ADD "Anti Distraction Distro"

#2 2009-06-06 10:02:03

Re: ADD "Anti Distraction Distro"

#3 2009-06-06 10:56:45

Re: ADD "Anti Distraction Distro"

#4 2009-06-06 13:27:18

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#5 2009-06-06 14:00:15

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#6 2009-06-06 14:07:34

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#7 2009-06-06 19:11:17

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#8 2009-06-06 19:21:53

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