Finally landed on a theme for my 2026 distro: retrofuturism

Added a few more final changes:

• Changed icons of firefox, file explorer, spotify
• Increased saturation of background image
• Added custom neofetch ASCII

Finally added the custom background. I have all my keybinds for ChatGPT, Notion, Cursor, etc. I might add more window styling at some point, but for now I feel done with the project.

What I Got Out of This Project

• Documenting every step. Writing down each step really helped me stay on track and finish the project.
• Prototyping in a VM first. I initially installed Fedora, then I realized it wasn’t customizable enough. I then switched to Mint. Doing a full test in a VM upfront would’ve saved time and effort.
• Finally got back my control over my pc. Moving away from Windows and Google felt really good. No more product push from Microsoft, no more ads forced through browser updates. I now use Firefox and Linux — everything is customizable, and I own my setup. Only downside is I will never be touched by a woman again, but it's a small price to pay for my freedom.
• Created something truly mine. The custom 3D-rendered background made the desktop feel personal and meaningful. This, and custom keybinds, makes it feel like my own workspace.
• New notifications. Notifications have over the years become more and more negative, but now I realize they are quite useful if they only give useful information. What has happened is that every app fighting for your attention has made me hate notifications, but if done right they can be positive. I now plan to configure only the notifications I care about: Slack, calendar, and main mails.

Said fk it and installed linux mint instead, and I am very happy with it. Downloaded the XP theme, and it already looks 10x better. Now I just need to set up programs, keybinds, and then finally build my custom background and this project is done. Here's a screenshot of how it looks so far:

I just found out that fedora doesn't allow full visual customization in the newer versions. And the gnome themes suck anyways, I can't seem to find one I like. All of them have the flattest, blandest design. I want very blue, vibrant aqua colors, that go well with my custom background.

The new plan is to just download another distro as a VM on my desktop, work on the theme for a couple of weeks until I like it, publish it to my github, then download the new distro with the theme on my laptop when I am ready.

Started working on a custom 3D rendered wallpaper. I’ve never found a Frutiger Aero-style background I really like, either there's too much going on, or too little. So I decided to make my own. Using Spline to model it since it’s simple and clean, and then I’ll render it in Blender to get proper lighting and reflections.

Once it's done, it’ll be the background on my custom Linux setup. I will probably add it to my art section on my website. Clean, personal, and something I want to look at every day.

Created a VM with fedora linux, tried customizing with keybinds, colors, themes. I think I will keep tinkering with this a while longer until it's how I want it, then I will just switch to linux. Probably after exams though, wiseflow doesn't work on linux.

VM Screenshot:

I hate windows. Every time I open it, I feel like it’s screaming at me. Background updates, popups, system tray chaos, apps I didn’t ask for, telemetry I didn’t approve.

I’m tired of:

• The overall flat design trend. I am so sick of it, I want colors and 3d textures
• Giant app grids where 90% of the apps I have never opened once
• Search fatigue.
• The whole theme is just overall so fucking cluttered and messy

So I’m starting this project to create the my own linux desktop that I love using.

What I want:

• A custom desktop I can tinker with and optimize over time
• Minimalistic, just the 5 apps I actually use
• Firefox instead of Chrome, Notion (just web for now) for school, VSCode or cursor for code
• Search for apps only when I need them, special keybinds for frequently used apps like notion or firefox

Inspiration: