Regolith - modern desktop environment built on Ubuntu, GNOME, and i3 - Page 4 of 5

Last Updated on August 20, 2020

Many of the user interface components that are used to build Regolith are separate open source projects.

The developers of Regolith have integrated, packaged, and configured these projects for a specific workflow and visual aesthetic.

The specific open source software used is summarized below:

Window manager: i3-gaps, a fork of i3wm, a tiling window manager for X11. This program organizes windows into tiles. Multiple applications or windows when opened together do not float or overlap each other. They only open beside each other, oriented either vertically or horizontally. No more floating windows, no hidden windows behind one another, no need for a mouse to move windows around. This approach means you don’t need to micro manage window layouts, but you’ll have to learn keybindings.
Application Launcher: Rofi, a window switcher, application launcher and dmenu replacement.
Status bar: i3bar, displays a bar at the bottom (or top) of your monitor(s) containing workspace switching buttons and a statusline generated by i3status or similar. It is automatically invoked (and configured through) i3.
Feed generator for text based status bars: i3xrocks, a fork of i3blocks that can read Xresources.
Compositor: Compton, a lightweight compositor.
X display server: Xorg, remains the most popular display server for Linux.

Regolith also uses other software including:

Notification system: Rofication, a minimalistic notification system. It is loosely modeled after notification centers on Android and Windows 10. The aim is to show (in a single clear place) there are notifications but not pop them up. All new notifications received go on to incrementing a counter near the bottom right of the i3bar.
Shortcut window: Remontoire, a small GTK app for presenting keybinding hints in a compact form suitable for tiling window environments.
Desktop session Manager: gdm3, a graphical login program for GNOME that uses the X Window System.
GNOME session manager: gnome-flashback, a shell for GNOME.

Pages in this article:
Page 1 – Introduction / Installation
Page 2 – In Operation
Page 3 – Features, User Experience, Extensibility, Documentation
Page 4 – Software used by Regolith
Page 5 – Summary

Pages: 1 2 3 4 5