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+---
+title: Debian based riced up distribution for Developers and DevOps folks
+url: /debian-based-riced-up-distribution-for-developers-and-devops-folks.html
+date: 2021-12-03T12:00:00+02:00
+type: post
+draft: false
+---
+
+## Introduction
+
+I have been using [Ubuntu](https://ubuntu.com/) for quite a longtime now. I have
+used [Debian](https://www.debian.org/) in the past and
+[Manjaro](https://manjaro.org/).  Also had [Arch](https://archlinux.org/) for
+some time and even ran [Gentoo](https://www.gentoo.org/) way back.
+
+What I learned from all this is that I prefer running a bit older versions and
+having them be stable than run bleeding edge rolling release. For that reason, I
+stuck with Ubuntu for a couple of years now. I am also at a point in my life
+where I just don't care what is cool or hip anymore. I just want a stable system
+that doesn't get in my way.
+
+During all this, I noticed that these distributions were getting very bloated
+and a lot of software got included that I usually uninstall on fresh
+installation. Maybe this is my OCD speaking, but why do I have to give fresh
+installation min 1 GB of ram out of the box just to have a blank screen in front
+of me? I get it, there are many things included in the distro to make my life
+easier. I understand. But at this point I have a feeling that modern Linux
+distributions are becoming similar to [Node.js project with
+node_modules](https://devhumor.com/content/uploads/images/August2017/node-modules.jpg).
+Just a crazy number of packages serving very little or no purpose, just
+supporting other software.
+
+I felt I needed a fresh start. To start over with something minimal and clean.
+Something that would put a little more joy into using a computer again.
+
+For the first version, I wanted to target the following machines I have at home
+that I want this thing to work on.
+
+```yaml
+# My main stationary work machine
+Resolution: 3840x1080 (Super Ultrawide Monitor 32:9)
+CPU: Intel i7-8700 (12) @ 4.600GHz
+GPU: AMD ATI Radeon RX 470/480/570/570X/580/580X/590
+Memory: 32020MiB
+```
+
+```yaml
+# Thinkpad x220 for testing things and goofing around
+Resolution: 1366x768
+CPU: Intel i5-2520M (4) @ 3.200GHz
+GPU: Intel 2nd Generation Core Processor Family
+Memory: 15891MiB
+```
+
+## How should I approach this?
+
+I knew I wanted to use [minimal Debian netinst
+](https://www.debian.org/CD/netinst/) for the base to give myself a head
+start. No reason to go through changing the installer and also testing all that
+behemoth of a thing. So, some sort of ricing was the only logical option to get
+this thing of the grounds somewhat quickly.
+
+> **What is ricing anyway?**
+> The term “RICE” stands for Race Inspired Cosmetic Enhancement. A group of 
+> people (could be one, idk) decided to see if they could tweak their own 
+> distros like they/others did their cars. This gave rise to a community of
+> Linux/Unix enthusiasts trying to make their distros look cooler and better 
+> than others... For more information, read this article 
+> [What in the world is ricing!?](https://pesos.github.io/2020/07/14/what-is-ricing.html).
+
+I didn't want this to just be a set of config files for theming purpose. I
+wanted this to include a set of pre-installed tools and services that are being
+used all the time by a modern developer. Theming is just a tiny part of it.
+Fonts being applied across the distro and things like that.
+
+First, I choose terminal installer and left it to load additional components.
+Avoid using graphical installer in this case.
+
+![](/assets/posts/dfd-rice/install-00.png)
+
+After that I selected hostname and created a normal user and set password for
+that user and root user and choose guided mode for disk partitioning.
+
+![](/assets/posts/dfd-rice/install-01.png)
+
+I left it run to install all the things required for the base system and opted
+out of scanning additional media for use by the package manager. Those will be
+downloaded from the internet during installation.
+
+![](/assets/posts/dfd-rice/install-02.png)
+
+I opted out of the popularity contest, and **now comes the important part**.
+Uncheck all the boxes in Software selection and only leave 'standard system
+utilities'. I also left an SSH server, so I was able to log in to the machine
+from my main PC.
+
+![](/assets/posts/dfd-rice/install-03.png)
+
+At this point, I installed GRUB bootloader on the disk where I installed the
+system.
+
+![](/assets/posts/dfd-rice/install-04.png)
+
+That concluded the installation of base Debian and after restarting the computer
+I was prompted with the login screen.
+
+![](/assets/posts/dfd-rice/install-05.png)
+
+Now that I had the base installation, it was time to choose what software do I
+want to include in this so-called distribution. I wanted out of the box
+developer experience, so I had plenty to choose.
+
+Let's not waste time and go through the list.
+
+## Desktop environments
+
+I have been using [Gnome](https://www.gnome.org/) for my whole Linux life.  From
+version 2 forward. It's been quite a ride. I hated version 3 when it came out
+and replaced version 2. But I got used to it. And now with version 40+ they also
+made couple of changes which I found both frustrating and presently surprised.
+
+The amount of vertical space you loose because of the beefy title bars on
+windows is ridiculous. And then in case of
+[Tilix](https://gnunn1.github.io/tilix-web/) you also have tabs, and you are
+100px deep. Vertical space is one of the most important things for a
+developer. The more real estate you have, the more code you can have in a
+viewport.
+
+But on the other hand, I still love how Gnome feels and looks. I gotta give them
+that. They really are trying to make Gnome feel unified and modern.
+
+Regardless of all the nice things Gnome has, I was looking at the tiling window
+managers for some time, but never had the nerve to actually go with it. But now
+was the ideal time to give it a go. No guts, no glory kind of a thing.
+
+One of the requirements for me was easy custom layouts because I use a really
+strange monitor with aspect ratio of 32:9. So relying on included layouts most
+of them have is a non-starter.
+
+What I was doing in Gnome was having windows in a layout like the diagram
+below. This is my common practice. And if you look at it you can clearly see I
+was replicating tiling window manager setup in Gnome.
+
+![](/assets/posts/dfd-rice/layout.png)
+
+That made me look into a bunch of tiling window managers and then tested them
+out. Candidates I was looking at were:
+
+- [i3](https://i3wm.org/)
+- [bspwm](https://github.com/baskerville/bspwm)
+- [awesome](https://awesomewm.org/index.html)
+- [XMonad](https://xmonad.org/)
+- [sway](https://swaywm.org/)
+- [Qtile](http://www.qtile.org/)
+- [dwm](https://dwm.suckless.org/)
+
+You can also check article [13 Best Tiling Window Managers for
+Linux](https://www.tecmint.com/best-tiling-window-managers-for-linux/) I was
+referencing while testing them out.
+
+While all of them provided what I needed, I liked i3 the most. What particular
+caught my eye was the ease to use and tree based layouts which allows flexible
+layouts. I know others can be set up also to have custom layouts other than  
+spiral, dwindle etc. I think i3 is a good entry-level window manager for 
+somebody like me.
+
+## Batteries included
+
+The source for the whole thing is located on Github
+https://github.com/mitjafelicijan/dfd-rice.
+
+Currenly included:
+
+- `non-free` (enables non-free packages in apt)
+- `sudo` (adds sudo and adds user to sudo group)
+- `essentials` (gcc, htop, zip, curl, etc...)
+- `wifi` (network manager nmtui)
+- `desktop` (i3, dmenu, fonts, configurations)
+- `pulseaudio` (pulseaudio with pavucontrol)
+- `code-editors` (vim, micro, vscode)
+- `ohmybash` (make bash pretty)
+- `file-managers` (mc)
+- `git-ui` (terminal git gui)
+- `meld` (diff tool)
+- `profiling` (kcachegrind, valgrind, strace, ltrace)
+- `browsers` (brave, firefox, chromium)
+- programming languages:
+  - `python`
+  - `golang`
+  - `nodejs`
+  - `rust`
+  - `nim`
+  - `php`
+  - `ruby`
+- `docker` (with docker-compose)
+- `ansible`
+
+Install script also allows you to install only specific packages (example for:
+essentials ohmybash docker rust).
+
+```sh
+su - root \
+    bash -c "$(wget -q https://raw.github.com/mitjafelicijan/dfd-rice/master/tools/install.sh -O -)" -- \
+    essentials ohmybash docker rust
+```
+
+Currently, most of these recipes use what Debian and this is totally fine with
+me since I never use bleeding edge features of a package. But if something major
+would come to light, I will replace it with a possible compilation script or
+something similar.
+
+This is some of the output from the installation script.
+
+![](/assets/posts/dfd-rice/script.png)
+
+Let's take a look at some examples in the installation script.
+
+### Docker recipe
+
+```sh
+# docker
+print_header "Installing Docker"
+curl -fsSL https://download.docker.com/linux/debian/gpg | gpg --yes --dearmor -o /usr/share/keyrings/docker-archive-keyring.gpg
+echo "deb [arch=$(dpkg --print-architecture) signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/docker-archive-keyring.gpg] https://download.docker.com/linux/debian $(lsb_release -cs) stable" | tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/docker.list > /dev/null
+apt update
+apt -y install docker-ce docker-ce-cli containerd.io docker-compose
+
+systemctl start docker
+systemctl enable docker
+systemctl status docker --no-pager
+
+/sbin/usermod -aG docker $USERNAME
+```
+
+### Making bash pretty
+
+I really like [Oh My Zsh](https://ohmyz.sh/), but I don't like zsh shell.  When
+I used it, I constantly needed to be aware of it and running bash scripts was a
+pain. So, I was really delighted when I found out that a version for bash
+existed called [Oh My Bash](https://ohmybash.nntoan.com/). Let's take a look at
+the recipe for installing it.
+
+```sh
+# ohmybash
+print_header "Enabling OhMyBash"
+sudo -u $USERNAME sh -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.github.com/ohmybash/oh-my-bash/master/tools/install.sh)" &
+T1=${!}
+wait ${T1}
+```
+
+Because OhMyBash does `exec bash` at the end, this traps our script inside
+another shell and our script cannot continue.  For that reason, I executed this
+in background. But that presents a new problem. Because this is executed in
+background, we lose track of progress naturally. And that strange trick with
+`T1=${!}` and `wait ${T1}` waits for the background process to finish before
+continuing to another task in bash script.
+
+Check [Multi-Threaded Processing in Bash Scripts](https://www.cloudsavvyit.com/12277/how-to-use-multi-threaded-processing-in-bash-scripts/)
+for more details.
+
+## Conclusion
+
+Take a look at
+https://github.com/mitjafelicijan/dfd-rice/blob/develop/tools/install.sh script
+to get familiar with it. This is just a first iteration and I will continue to
+update it because I need this in my life.
+
+The current version boots in 4s to the login prompt, and after you log in, the
+desktop environment loads in 2s. So, its fast, very fast. And on clean boot, I
+measured ~230 MB of RAM usage.
+
+And this is how it looks with two terminals side by side. I really like the
+simplicity and clean interface. I will polish the colors and stuff like that,
+but I really do like the results.
+
+![](/assets/posts/dfd-rice/desktop.png)