draphyOS

A minimal i3 rice for Fedora
Curated configs built on official Fedora i3 Spin packages

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What is draphyOS?

draphyOS is an i3 rice (desktop configuration) — not an operating system, spin, or remix. It's a collection of carefully tuned dotfiles and configs that transform a fresh Fedora i3 installation into a polished, productive desktop environment.

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Philosophy

"Choosing a main OS is like marriage to me."

When I commit to a setup, I commit fully. Here's what I look for:

Priority	Why It Matters
Lightweight	Every MB counts. No wasted resources on things I don't use.
Performance	Instant response. No lag. No waiting.
Hardware Support	It should just work — WiFi, Bluetooth, GPU, everything.
Privacy	No telemetry. No tracking. My machine, my data.
Community	When things break, someone's been there before.
Customizable	I decide how my desktop looks and works.
Stability	Updates shouldn't break my workflow.
No Bloat	I hate pre-installed software I'll never use. Clean slate only.

This is why Fedora i3 Spin + draphyOS exists:

• Fedora = stability, security, up-to-date packages, strong community
• i3 Spin = minimal base, no bloat, just what you need
• draphyOS = polished configs that respect these values

I'm a minimalist at heart. No fancy animations. No smooth transitions that waste CPU cycles. No bloated features I'll never use. Just raw performance and function over form. Less is more — every tool earns its place, or it's gone.

If you love that vibe — welcome home.

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Features

• ⌨️ Pre-configured i3 window manager with vim-style keybindings
• 📊 Clean polybar status bar (replaces i3status)
• 🚀 Beautiful rofi app launcher with dark theme
• 💻 urxvt terminal with Mint-Y-Dark colors
• 🐟 Fish shell with auto-suggestions
• 🔧 Automatic hardware detection (battery, network, display)
• 🔒 Lock screen with blur effect
• 🌙 Night light (redshift) for eye comfort
• 📋 Comprehensive keybinding cheatsheet (Super+F1)

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📋 Prerequisites

draphyOS requires Fedora Linux. Install Fedora first, then run the draphyOS installer.

Recommended: Fedora i3 Spin (Best Experience)

The Fedora i3 Spin is the ideal base — minimal, lightweight, and comes with i3 pre-configured.

1. Download → Fedora i3 Spin (ISO ~1.8GB)
2. Create bootable USB → Use Fedora Media Writer or Ventoy
3. Install Fedora → Boot from USB, follow the installer
4. Run draphyOS → After first login, run the install command below

Alternative: Other Fedora Variants

draphyOS also works on other Fedora editions. The installer will set up i3 alongside your existing desktop:

Variant	Download	Notes
Fedora XFCE Spin	Download	⭐ Recommended fallback — lightweight, stable
Fedora Workstation	Download	GNOME desktop, most popular
Fedora KDE Spin	Download	KDE Plasma desktop
Fedora Server	Download	Minimal, headless (add GUI manually)

💡 Tip: If you're new to tiling window managers, Fedora XFCE Spin is a great choice. XFCE provides a familiar traditional desktop as a fallback if i3 feels overwhelming. You can switch between i3 and XFCE at the login screen (click the gear icon).

System Requirements

Requirement	Minimum	Recommended
RAM	1 GB	2 GB+
Storage	10 GB	20 GB+
CPU	Any x86_64	—
GPU	Any (Intel/AMD/NVIDIA)	—

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🚀 Quick Start

⚠️ Make sure you have Fedora installed before proceeding.

One-Command Install

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/draphy/draphyOS/latest/install.sh | bash

Or clone and run:

git clone https://github.com/draphy/draphyOS ~/.draphyOS && ~/.draphyOS/install.sh

Post-Installation

1. Log out of your current session
2. Select i3 from the login screen
3. Press Super + F1 for keybindings cheatsheet

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⌨️ Keybindings

Key	Action
Super + Return	Terminal (urxvt)
Super + d	App Launcher (rofi)
Super + Shift + q	Close Window
Super + F1	Cheatsheet
Super + h/j/k/l	Navigate (vim-style)
Super + Shift + h/j/k/l	Move window
Super + 1-0	Switch Workspace
Super + Shift + 1-0	Move to Workspace
Super + Shift + x	Lock Screen
Super + Shift + f	File Manager
Super + Shift + b	Browser (Firefox)
Super + Shift + v	Text Editor
Print	Screenshot (select area)
Super + r	Resize mode

Press Super + F1 for the complete cheatsheet.

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🛠️ Design Decisions

Every tool in draphyOS was chosen with a purpose. Here's why:

Core Components

Component	Choice	Why?	Alternatives Considered
Window Manager	i3	Stable, mature, excellent docs, official Fedora spin	Sway (Wayland issues), bspwm (less docs)
Status Bar	Polybar	Highly customizable, beautiful, active development	i3status (too basic), i3blocks (harder to configure)
App Launcher	Rofi	Themeable, fast, supports multiple modes	dmenu (too minimal), ulauncher (heavier)
Compositor	Picom	Lightweight, blur/shadows/transparency	Compton (deprecated), none (screen tearing)
Terminal	urxvt	Fedora i3 official, minimal, fast, Xresources config	Alacritty (GPU-heavy), st (needs compilation)
Shell	Fish	Lightweight, best out-of-box experience	Bash (no features), Zsh (needs plugins)
Notifications	Dunst	Lightweight, highly configurable, keyboard-friendly	notify-osd (less features), mako (Wayland-only)

Theme Choices

Element	Choice	Why?
GTK Theme	Adwaita-dark	Official GNOME dark theme, best app compatibility
Icons	Mint-Y-Dark	Clean, modern, good coverage, dark variant
Cursor	Adwaita	System default, works everywhere
Font	Fira Code	Programming ligatures, excellent readability
Colors	Mint-Y-Dark palette	Consistent green accent (#9ab87c), easy on eyes

What's NOT Included

Omitted	Reason
Fancy animations	Waste CPU cycles. Windows appear instantly — done.
Smooth transitions	Eye candy that eats resources. Not here.
Conky	Polybar handles system info; conky is redundant
Oh-my-zsh/Starship	Fish doesn't need plugins to be good

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🆚 Why i3?

Consideration	i3 (X11)	Sway/Hyprland (Wayland)
NVIDIA Support	Excellent	Problematic — requires --unsupported-gpu, screen tearing, crashes
Stability	Battle-tested, mature	Newer, occasional bugs
Compatibility	Works with all apps	Some X11 apps need XWayland
Fedora Official	Fedora i3 Spin exists	No official spin
Screen Sharing	Works everywhere	Needs pipewire setup
Gaming	Proven compatibility	Mixed results

Why not GNOME/KDE?

• draphyOS is for users who want minimal resource usage and keyboard-driven workflow
• Full DEs use 600MB-2GB RAM idle; i3 uses ~10-50MB (full draphyOS setup ~300MB)
• Tiling WMs maximize screen real estate and reduce mouse dependency

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📦 Packages

Fedora i3 Spin — Core

Package	Description
i3	Tiling window manager
i3lock	Screen locker
i3status	Status bar (replaced by polybar)
dmenu	Application launcher (replaced by rofi)
dunst	Notification daemon
lightdm	Display manager (login screen)
rxvt-unicode	Terminal emulator
NetworkManager	Network management
network-manager-applet	Network tray icon
firefox	Web browser
pulseaudio-utils	Audio control
pavucontrol	Volume control GUI
brightnessctl	Brightness control
htop	Process viewer
mousepad	Text editor
Thunar	File manager

Fedora i3 Spin — Extended

Package	Description
rofi	Application launcher
powertop	Power management
arandr	Display configuration
tmux	Terminal multiplexer
lxappearance	GTK theme switcher

draphyOS Additions

Package	Description
polybar	Status bar (replaces i3status)
picom	Compositor (transparency, shadows)
fish	Modern shell with auto-suggestions
feh	Wallpaper setter, image viewer
flameshot	Screenshot tool
playerctl	Media player control
xss-lock	Automatic screen locker
blueman	Bluetooth manager
redshift	Night light / blue light filter
geoclue2	Location services (for redshift)
xfce-polkit	Authentication dialogs
gnome-keyring	Password/secret storage
xfce4-settings	Settings manager
yad	Calendar popup (click date in bar)
qt5ct	Qt5 theme configuration
ImageMagick	Image processing (lock screen blur)
xdotool	X11 automation (cheatsheet execute)
xclip	Clipboard (cheatsheet copy)
fira-code-fonts	Programming font with ligatures
google-noto-sans-mono-vf-fonts	Fallback mono font
fontawesome-6-free-fonts	Icon font (polybar icons)
fontawesome-6-brands-fonts	Icon font (brand logos)
mint-y-icons	Icon theme
adwaita-cursor-theme	Cursor theme

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📁 Configuration Files

Config	Location	Description
i3	~/.config/i3/config	Window manager
Polybar	~/.config/polybar/config.ini	Status bar
Rofi	~/.config/rofi/config.rasi	App launcher
Dunst	~/.config/dunst/dunstrc	Notifications
Picom	~/.config/picom/picom.conf	Compositor
Fish	~/.config/fish/config.fish	Shell
urxvt	~/.Xresources	Terminal
Redshift	~/.config/redshift/redshift.conf	Night light
GTK	~/.config/gtk-3.0/settings.ini	Theme settings

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💡 Productivity Tips

draphyOS includes several tools to boost your productivity. Here's how to use them:

🎵 Media Controls (playerctl)

Control any media player (Spotify, Firefox, VLC) with keyboard:

• Super + > — Next track
• Super + < — Previous track
• Super + . — Play/Pause

Works across all MPRIS-compatible players.

📸 Screenshots (flameshot)

• Print — Select area and capture
• After capture: annotate, blur, add arrows, copy/save

Flameshot opens with editing tools. Draw, highlight, then save or copy to clipboard.

📋 Cheatsheet (Super+F1)

Interactive cheatsheet with rofi:

• i3 keybindings: Press Enter to execute the selected keybinding
• Other cheatsheets (vim, git, etc.): Press Enter to copy command to clipboard

Add your own cheatsheets: create ~/.config/i3/scripts/cheatsheets/myapp.txt

📅 Calendar Popup

Click the date in polybar to open a calendar popup (yad).

🔵 Bluetooth (blueman)

• Click the Bluetooth icon in system tray
• Or run blueman-manager to pair/manage devices

🌙 Night Light (redshift)

Automatically adjusts screen warmth based on time of day:

• Uses your location (via geoclue2) to calculate sunrise/sunset
• Reduces blue light at night for better sleep

Config: ~/.config/redshift/redshift.conf

🖥️ Multi-Monitor Setup (arandr)

• Run arandr to visually arrange displays
• Drag monitors to position, set resolution
• Save layout for later use

🔋 Power Management (powertop)

• Run sudo powertop to analyze power usage
• Use --auto-tune for automatic power optimization
• Great for laptops to extend battery life

🖼️ Wallpaper (feh)

Change wallpaper:

feh --bg-fill /path/to/image.jpg

The wallpaper is set automatically on login via ~/.xprofile.

🔐 Password Storage (gnome-keyring)

Automatically stores:

• Browser passwords (Firefox, Chrome)
• SSH keys (unlocked on login)
• Application secrets

No setup needed — works automatically with PAM.

⌨️ Terminal Multiplexer (tmux)

Split terminal into panes/windows:

• tmux — Start new session
• Ctrl+b % — Split vertically
• Ctrl+b " — Split horizontally
• Ctrl+b arrow — Navigate panes

Great for remote work — sessions persist after disconnect.

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🗑️ Uninstall

~/.draphyOS/uninstall.sh

The uninstaller is smart about your base system:

Fedora i3 Spin:

• Keeps core i3 packages (your system needs them!)
• Only removes draphyOS additions (polybar, picom, fish, etc.)
• Strongly recommends restoring your original configs
• Falls back to /etc/skel defaults if no backup exists

Other Fedora variants (XFCE, Workstation, etc.):

• Option to remove only draphyOS additions
• Option to fully remove all i3 packages
• Restore backup or skip

All uninstalls:

• Remove draphyOS config symlinks
• Optionally revert shell to bash
• Optionally restore your backup configs

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🔧 Troubleshooting

i3 not starting?

• Check ~/.xsession-errors for errors
• Run i3 -C to validate config syntax

Polybar not showing?

• Run ~/.config/polybar/launch.sh manually
• Check cat /tmp/polybar.log for errors

Network module not showing?

draphyOS has separate WiFi and Ethernet modules that auto-hide when disconnected.

• Interfaces are auto-detected on each login via ~/.xprofile
• If not working, check your interface names: ip link show
• Edit ~/.config/polybar/config.ini:
  • WiFi: [module/network-wifi] → interface = wlan0 (or your interface)
  • Ethernet: [module/network-eth] → interface = eth0 (or your interface)

Screen looks wrong?

• Press Super + Shift + r to restart i3
• Check picom: pgrep picom || picom &

Terminal colors wrong?

• Run xrdb -merge ~/.Xresources

Running in a VM? Display not refreshing?

Note: The installer auto-detects VM environments (VirtualBox, VMware, QEMU/KVM, Hyper-V) and applies these fixes automatically.

If not auto-detected or you need to apply manually, picom's glx backend doesn't work well in virtual machines. Fix:

1. Edit ~/.config/picom/picom.conf:

   backend = "xrender";
   corner-radius = 0;
   vsync = false;
   use-damage = false;

2. Restart picom: pkill picom && picom -b

Note: Rounded corners and blur aren't supported with xrender, but opacity and shadows still work.

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🤝 Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Whether it's fixing a typo, improving configs, or adding new features — all help is appreciated.

See CONTRIBUTING.md for guidelines on:

• Branch naming and commit format
• Running ShellCheck locally
• PR requirements and CI checks

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📜 License

MIT License — Feel free to use and modify.

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_{Credits: Theme inspired by Mint-Y-Dark · Icons by Mint-Y · Font: Fira Code · Base: Fedora i3 Spin}

_{draphyOS is an independent project and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Fedora Project, Red Hat, Inc., or Linux Mint.}