Debian based riced up distribution for Developers and DevOps folks

post, Dec 3, 2021 on Mitja Felicijan's blog

Introduction

I have been using Ubuntu for quite a longtime now. I have +used Debian in the past and +Manjaro. Also had Arch for +some time and even ran Gentoo 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. +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.

# 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
+
# 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 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!?.

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.

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.

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.

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.

At this point, I installed GRUB bootloader on the disk where I installed the +system.

That concluded the installation of base Debian and after restarting the computer +I was prompted with the login screen.

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 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 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.

That made me look into a bunch of tiling window managers and then tested them +out. Candidates I was looking at were:

You can also check article 13 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).

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.

Let's take a look at some examples in the installation script.

Docker recipe

# 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, 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. Let's take a look at +the recipe for installing it.

# 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 +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.