theme: ricetheme
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~/ricetheme themes, palettes and dotfiles for Linux desktops

Cook your
desktop.

Guides, palettes and dotfiles for Linux desktops, terminals and editors. Find a look you love and make it yours, or generate one from any wallpaper.

try:
Read the guidesGenerate from a wallpaper

works with kitty · alacritty · ghostty · tmux · hyprland · sway · i3 · waybar · polybar · rofi · fuzzel · neovim · vs code

~/guides ls -t

Guides.

Each guide shows the whole config, names the version it was written against and says what breaks it, so you can tell when an update has moved on.

~/guides/desktopsfeatured

How to rice Linux: a first-rice checklist

The order to rice a Linux desktop without breaking it: a way back first, then each piece from window manager to lock screen, with its config file and a check.

tl;dr Rice in order: make sure you can get back to a working session, then pick a window manager and add a bar, launcher and notifications before the terminal, font, palette, wallpaper and lock screen. Change one piece at a time, check it before the next, and keep every config in a dotfiles repository from day one.

by 9 min

~/guides ls -l | tail -n 5all 10 guides
~/guides tree -L 1

Sections.

Start with the layer you’re changing: compositor, terminal, editor, palette. A new color scheme usually ends up touching all of them.

~/guides/desktops
3 guides

Desktops

Window managers, compositors and desktop environments, set up and themed, for anyone writing a first tiling config or ricing Plasma or GNOME.

inside: hyprland, sway and niri · i3, bspwm and X11 tiling · KDE Plasma theming · GNOME extensions · Status bars and widgets · Launchers and notifications · Keybindings and workspaces · Gaps, borders, blur and animations
~/guides/terminal

Terminal

Terminal emulators, shells, prompts, multiplexers and command-line tools, for anyone who spends the day at a prompt and wants it to feel like theirs.

1 guide · inside: Terminal emulators · bash, zsh and fish
~/guides/editors

Editors

Neovim, VS Code and its forks, Helix, Zed and Emacs, set up and themed to match the desktop, for developers who want the editor to fit the rice.

1 guide · inside: nvim configs and distributions · Plugins
~/guides/color-type

Color & Type

Color schemes, palettes, contrast, wallpapers, programming fonts and icon themes, for anyone picking a scheme for their rice or building their own.

3 guides · inside: Popular schemes and their ports · Building a palette
~/guides/dotfiles

Dotfiles

Keeping a setup in files you can version, share and rebuild, for anyone who has lost a config once and would rather not do it twice.

1 guide · inside: Starting a repo · stow, chezmoi and yadm
~/guides/linux

Linux

The system under the rice: distributions, installs, packages, drivers and hardware, for first-time Linux users and anyone fixing what an update broke.

1 guide · inside: Choosing a distro · Arch installs
~/guides/setups

Setups

Keyboards, monitors, laptops, mice, lighting and audio: the desk around the desktop, for anyone building a workspace to match the rice on screen.

first guide on the way · inside: Mechanical keyboards · Layouts, keymaps and firmware
~/generator wallpaper in, configs out

Turn your wallpaper into a palette and the configs to match.

Drop in an image and the Generator builds a palette from it (background, text, an accent and all sixteen terminal colors), lets you tune it while a mock desktop recolors, and writes the theme files for your apps.

Generate from a wallpaperfree · runs in your browser · nothing uploaded
wallpaper.png1 · drop

Your browser reads the image on your computer. It is never uploaded.

palette2 · tune

text on background 14.1:1 · muted 6.6:1 · accent 9.2:1
this page wears ricetheme; tap a slot to copy it

~/toolkit cat picks

Toolkit.

A tool earns a place here by being free or fairly priced, actively maintained and themeable from a config file you can keep in your dotfiles.

open the toolkit

  • Window managers and compositorsHyprland, Sway, niri, i3, AeroSpacehyprlandour pick
  • Bars, launchers and widgetsWaybar, Quickshell, eww, rofi, fuzzel, dunstwaybarour pick
  • Terminals and shellskitty, Ghostty, Alacritty, foot, fish, Starshipkittyour pick
  • EditorsNeovim, LazyVim, Helix, Zed, VSCodium, GNU Emacsneovimour pick
  • PalettesCatppuccin, Rosé Pine, tokyonight.nvim, Dracula, Tinted Themingcatppuccinour pick
  • FontsJetBrains Mono, Nerd Fonts, Iosevka, Monaspace, MonoLisajetbrains monoour pick
  • Dotfile managerschezmoi, GNU Stow, yadm, Home Manager, Dotbotchezmoiour pick
~/authors whoami

Authors.

A developer with years of public dotfiles and a designer who builds color systems at work and keyboards at home. Each signs what they know first-hand.

Jonah Pelletier

Editor and lead writer

Backend developer on a Linux desktop for fourteen years, with his dotfiles in a public repository for most of them.

signs desktops · terminal · editors · dotfiles · linux

Ines Halvorsen

Design and gear writer

Builds color systems and type scales for software by day, and mechanical keyboards from kits and hand-wired boards at home.

signs color & type · setups