My first thoughts about improving ArchBang was to use a different window manager. AB has had various versions over the years, from lxde to sway. Most have not been that well received so I need some middle ground to make AB more modern and more appealing to old and new users. Most of the ‘box windows manager are no longer actively developed [including Openbox]. Tint2 is getting quite old now too. Need something that is both modern, active! and easy to use.
Never thought I would say this but am starting to think Xfce4 is the answer.
It has everything you need out of the box [no pun intended]. With all the toys it is not much heavier than Openbox version. Already use Thunar so adding xfce4-terminal in place of Alacritty seems the way to go. Bring a panel to the party and you have an ideal window manager that is easy to use and configure.
In the near future I would imagine Xfce4 will run under Wayland but until then I may do a Sway version. Would give users a way to try a tiling window manager and add in foot terminal, Waybar [thought I find it complicated] and rofi-wayland as a dmenu replacement application launcher.
Am thinking of using Archinstall as a replacement for abinstall. It can do things that abinstall cannot, it is actively maintained and can be modified to suit AB needs. This would be the most complicated part of the puzzle. Testing will need to be done and the big challenge is a way to install without a network connection. Something archinstall requires…
Any thoughts or suggestions would be grateful, need to look at the future of ArchBang.
Stay safe…
