First, I consider myself an intermmediate Gentoo user at the time of this writing. Advanced users would probably laugh at my choices and mistakes. So keep that in mind. Gentoo is very much a personal journey, which is one of the reasons I love it so much.

NO:DE (No Desktop Environment, pronounced like “nodee”) is my given name to my personal Gentoo configuration, since I don't use an actual desktop environment. The goal being to create a personal and very complete set of programs to function in harmony as a desktop environment, with out actually being associated with any existing project (such as Gnome, KDE, LXDE, etc).

Eventually, there will be a meta package for Portage available. Eventually…….

Here is what I have documented so far…

Create .Xdefaults as such:

XTerm*Background: black
XTerm*Foreground: white
xterm*faceName: Nimbus Mono L
xterm*faceSize: 12
XTerm*selectToClipboard: true

Note: I choose the font size that roughly gets me to 80 char width in qtile w/ 2 xterm instances side by side. It varies per resolution and takes some trial/error. 12 is for 1366×768. 17 seems nice for 1920×1080.

Source: https://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/linux-desktop-74/xdm-not-generate-console-891743/

To prevent the xconsole from appearing after login, I commented the following lines out of /etc/X11/xdm/xdm-config:

! DisplayManager._0.setup:	/usr/lib/X11/xdm/Xsetup_0
! DisplayManager._0.startup:	/usr/lib/X11/xdm/GiveConsole
! DisplayManager._0.reset:	/usr/lib/X11/xdm/TakeConsole

Base:

• xdm
• qtile (window manager)
• geany (text/code editor)
• xterm
• firefox
• open-rc
• cronie
• ntp
• dhcpcd
• spacefm (file manager)
• gpicview (image viewer)
• mpv (media player)
• mupdf (I think selected if you use a desktop profile)

Optional:

I mainly mention these so I remember for myself (not all of my machines have/need all of these)

• blender
• steam
• wpa_supplicant
• irssi (irc)
• dosbox

I use Kergen and Pappy Seeds.

I obtained the latest Qtile via pip:

pip install qtile

To launch when I log in via XDM, I set my ~/.xsession as such:

exec ~/.local/bin/qtile

Here is a useful video for new users: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DEoS49inzSw

When installing Gentoo, I use the base desktop profile (with no wm).

I do wish I could live without Geany, but as a programmer, there is no substitute for things like autoclosing quotes & brackets, drag to select, and other such modern conveneiences. Perhaps configs or alternatives exist for text mode that would work, but I have not had a chance to investimuhgate. Also, spellchecking….? I know it can be done in text mode programs, but no clue what the options are.

We keep saying we're in the silicon age, but lets not forget polymers and composites!