#os customization

The details

OpenSUSE 12.1

KDE 4.8

QtQurve and color scheme: Oblong http://fav.me/d3jlxqv

Plasma: Caledonia (with task backgrounds from Glassified) http://fav.me/d3j8r6d

Icons: kAwOken http://fav.me/d41dcaj

Wall: from Caledonia Official walls http://fav.me/d3neh74

The process

Even though I know how to customize the ins and outs of Unity, I wanted something else. I like to use it a lot, but it is somewhat limiting when you look at customization. So, since I don't want to post the same looking screenshots over and over, I've decided to switch again, but not to my beloved OpenBox, because I wanted something with fancy effects and stuff :P Instead, I went with KDE and openSUSE. I wanted to try out openSUSE for some time now, as it was the second distro I have ever tried. That was back in the KDE3 days. :)

But now we have KDE4, and I've set it up as I usually do with all desktop environments. First off, I've upgraded from 4.7 to 4.8.4. There's a real difference, the performance is a lot better, and I haven't encountered any bugs either. I've also upgraded the kernel, so I can get more battery life out of this thing :)

My usual way of setting things up starts with disabling stuff. Here I've disabled Nepomuk, Akonadi, and a few startup applications. I don't need these, and disabling them makes openSUSE eat less resources. Making KDE's graphical effects in System Settings > Application Appearance > Style > Fine Tuning use the "Low display resolution and low CPU" setting also helps (the difference is not noticeable).

After I'm done with the startup applications and the like, I log out and log back in, and start tailoring the system to my preferences. After I'm done with that too, I start customizing.

I went through a few plasma themes until I settled with Caledonia. At first I tried few Air-like themes, like Glassified and Elune, but then I came across Produkt, a dark plasma theme, with great systray icons, but eventually I ditched it because I didn't want any orange this time around. Now, the dark panel of Caledonia sure looks good, but the default task backgrounds don't, at least not when the panel is on the side. So, after some more searching, I found that Glassified's task backgrounds work pretty darn well with Caledonia.

Next came the icons. That panel just begs for white icons, so I chose kAwOken, but this brought another problem with itself: the need of a dark theme for applications. A usable dark theme is hard to find, but luckily, I came across Oblong a while ago, which comes with a dark gray color scheme, and great QtCurve preset.