Ricing

2026-08-28

When I started using *nix systems a while ago, I was quite fond of the concept of "ricing". It made desktops look unique to each specific person's setup, as no two people would have the same opinions over their graphical interface. Some were "ugly", some were "minima", some were "simple" - but all special in their own right, as they were reflections of the author's preference.

This was the case, until people started copying the same setup byte-for-byte. People would fork good original dotfiles and add nothing of actual interest onto the interface or change anything to their liking. An example of this case is with the Calestia Shell. For context, the calestia shell is a morphing desktop shell for Hyprland and whatnot.

The shell itself isn't anything harmful in any way, shape, or form, but my disappointment is derived from how people would use this shell. They don't add anything interesting or worth noting to it, change a few settings, and claim that its an entirely new rice even when it doesn't do anything extra.