A few days ago I posted a Garuda Linux article. For tastes, colors, and those of this Arch-based distro has many. I've only heard good things about its user interface from anyone I've talked to about it, but it's certainly not unique to Garuda. The secret to getting something so attractive is to know what it uses, and part of its image is achieved by installing a couple of themes at a time. KDE-distro.
In this article we are going to tell that secret, which is nothing more than a few steps in the form of installations and tweaks so that the image is more similar to what the version uses. Dr460nized by Garuda. There is part that is achieved directly from the settings, such as activating the jelly effect of the windows. But let's not get ahead of ourselves. What you have to do is what is explained below.
Steps to make a KDE distro look like Garuda
Nothing that we are going to explain below is dangerous, but those technological hypochondriacs who like to have everything perfectly be careful, because to leave things as they were, you have to go back without missing a step. The changes that must be made are these, and the order should not influence:
Global theme: Sweet KDE with buttons on the left
Go to System Preferences/Appearance/Global Theme. On the bottom right button, we click Get Global Themes. we seek Sweet KDE and install eliverlara's. If he asks us for the password, we put it. Only with this we will begin to feel a little "garuderos".
Garuda has the buttons left, so our KDE distro, whatever it is, should also have them there. If you are not interested in this change, you can move on to the next one. If you want the closest thing to the objective, you have to go to Window decorations, in the same section, and then to the Buttons tab in the title bar. Here you just have to drag and drop. The Plasma, pin, and question mark icons are dragged off the bar, and the close, restore/maximize, and minimize icons are moved to the left. Changes are accepted by clicking Apply:
Icons: BeautyLine
In the same way that we have installed the Sweet KDE theme, we get into the Icons section, download the BeautyLine by sajjad606, we install it and use it.
Source: Fira Sans
The font that Garuda uses is Fira Sans. How to install fonts depends a bit on the Linux distribution, but the most general way is to download a .ttf or .otf file and install it. It can be obtained, for example, in this link. The variants, the regular, the semibold and the book.
You can double click on the fonts to open the default installer, and also create a folder called .fonts in your home directory and put them there. On Arch-based systems you can with the command sudo pacman -S ttf-fira-sans.
In System Preferences, in the same section we were in, now we go to Fonts and choose:
- General: Fira Sans Book 12pt.
- Fixed width: Fira Sans 11pt.
- Small: Fine Sans 9pt.
- Toolbar: Fair Sans 11pt.
- Menu: Fira Sans 11pt.
- Window title: Fira Sans SemiBold 11pt.
The rest we leave as is and click Apply.
Desktop effects on your KDE distro
We go to desktop effects and activate Magic Lamp and Shaking Windows, which will make the windows jiggle and minimize like a genie would.
Change icon view preferences
In another change that may not be necessary, but will make any KDE distro look more like Garuda, in System Preferences we click on the hamburger and choose the option Switch to icon view.
Kvantum Manager and another Sweet theme
To finish completing the theme it is necessary to install Kvantum Manager. Ubuntu-based systems have it in their official repositories, and Arch-based systems can get it from the AUR by searching for “kvantum”. The version will depend; you can use a -qtX or the package name only.
Let this link, click on “Files” and download Sweet.tar.xz by clicking on the download button and then on “Download”. We unzip the archive and remember where the folder is. Now we open Kvantum Manager, click on “Select a Kvantum theme folder” and navigate to the folder "Sweet" we just got. We installed the theme by clicking on, you guessed it, “Install this theme”.
To finish installing this Kvantum theme as we want it, we will click on Change/Delete a theme, drop down the menu, choose “Sweet” and then “Use this theme”.
Now we restart so that the changes are applied correctly. Then we go to System Preferences / Appearance / Style of applications, we choose the kvantum-dark theme and click Apply.
as there is also GTK applications, in the same section you have to click on "Configure the style of GNOME/GTK applications", then on "Get new styles of GNOME/GTK applications", we look for sweet and install the sweet.tar.xz version of eliverlara . We close the “store” of themes, in the previous window we choose “Sweet” and click on “Apply”.
Garuda style wallpaper for your KDE distro
El wallpaper is a matter of taste, but the project has a GitLab page in which we can download all your funds. The one for the most current Dr460nized version is Malefor, but until not long ago they used Ghosts.
Changing the background is done from the menu that appears when you right-click on the desktop.
Top panel
We right click on the lower panel / Enter editing mode and drag it to the top. We hover over the show desktop widget and, in the drop-down menu, click “Delete”, and the same with virtual desktops and the pager. In order for the system tray to stay on the right, you need to add a separator in the middle. And if we want the clock to be like Garuda's, we have to make it so that the date is not displayed from Set digital clock.
Now we go back to editing mode/Add graphic elements, we click on Get new graphic elements, we search application title and we install it (it's kinta's). We close the window, we add graphical elements to the panel again and this time we choose the “Application Title” that we just installed. You may need to reboot or log out for it to appear. We put it to the right of the application launcher. We repeat to add just to the right of the Appliaction Title the “Global Menu”. We will not see anything else that there is a 1 above the icon to add widgets. That means we are already using 1 widget of this type. That menu is the one that will show the options of the applications if they are compatible.
We right click on "By default", which is the text of the Application Title, in "No active window label" we choose "Custom text" and in "No active window custom text" we put Dr460nized KDE. And to change the app launcher icon, enter editing mode, click on the icon, Choose and put this. From the dragon of the theme, what I have found has been the avatar of Dr460nf1r3, which may be worth it. This in your GitLab.
Bottom panel
They used to use Latte-Dock before, but it has been abandoned. In the latest versions they are using a Plasma panel with only the element Task manager icons only. What you have to do is, from the edit mode, make it taller, center it, give it a minimum and a maximum, and automatically hide it.
And this is the way to have any dr460nized KDE distro.