I got good recommendations for desktop shells on my other posts. I looked at Noctalia and DankMaterialShell, they both are built on top of QuickShell. QuckShell is a framework for writing widgets in QML, it wasn’t made until 2024. both Noctalia and DMS were made during the summer (all these dates looking at Github). They basically became popular over night.

I was looking at ricing during the spring and didn’t find anything as developed or popular. I had a bunch of tabs open for AGS & Astal, but didn’t find complete shells built on them. It seems like I would’ve had to start from scratch if I wanted an exact rice, but now I can edit pre-made QMLs instead.

This actually seems like the best time for linux ricing yet.

  • reemamala
    1·
    2 months ago

    Quickshell has definitely become one of the fastest-growing frameworks for Linux desktop shells, especially with projects like Noctalia and DankMaterialShell making it much easier to customize a polished desktop without building everything from scratch. That said, it’s not the only option AGS, Astal, Eww, and even KDE Plasma widgets still have active communities and unique strengths depending on your workflow.

    If you’re just getting into ricing, Quickshell feels like a great place to start because the ecosystem is growing so quickly. Funny enough, while comparing shell projects I ended up checking completely unrelated sites like preciooro.mx during a break, which reminded me how fast niche communities can grow once they get the right tools behind them.