This morning, I stuffed the ISO onto my Linux stick, but somehow the kernel was missing, even after trying writing the ISO again along with trying it on the Dell. I ended up just booting into Windows and using Unetbootin to write it to another flash drive, which tested well on the Dell (GRUB was just a bit strange with "Default" as the first option which didn't seem to do anything).
Installation went just fine, but that obviously wasn't the issue, and while I let it update, I kept system configurations to a minimum, so that if it did break, I wouldn't have lost too much time.
As the screen went from the Manjaro splash screen (which is similar to Ubuntu's, but with green dots instead of orange ones) to XFCE desktop, I held my breath a bit as I hoped that it would be fine, but expecting it to break at the same time. Fortunately, nothing happened and I was greeted by the desktop and panel.
I began installing other programs and getting the settings configured, and tried the XFCE theme I usually use for Pi2, Taiga, and Sae-chan, which made me very slightly cringe as it was a light theme. When I was able to, I began looking for the authors of the theme to see if they had anything dark, and I was able to come across it somehow (I was between DeviantArt, Google, and xfce-look.org).
I first grabbed Ambiance Blackout Flat since it was what I was looking for and RAVEfinity was definitely reliable, since they made the pink Radiance theme that I use for Pi2, Taiga, and Sae-chan. I then grabbed Vivacious Colors and Vibrancy Colors GTK icon themes, seeing that I wanted something else besides the "M(something)-circle" icon theme that was default upon installation - it's an interesting set, but I wanted something that was a bit easier to see against a dark theme (though the default theme was dark anyway).
I really liked the application icons of Vivacious, but liked the folder colours of Vibrancy, so I decided to hack the two together and it worked out okay.... Until I cleaned up the lot of extra themes, which ended up breaking the icon theme without my knowledge. After "finishing" with that, I decided to look at Ambiance & Radiance Flat, since it was essentially an "updated" version of the Radiance theme (I like flat themes, and I don't know why). I took a quick look with Melty and didn't really notice much different, but got everything packed away and uploaded to the Pi2 and the NAS before downloading it to Sae-chan to install it.
It was when I watched the scrollbar flatten that I noticed the difference, and when I looked at the icon theme change, the folders worked, but not the application icons. I then looked on Melty and noticed that the application icons weren't like I remember them. While trying to figure out what went wrong, I found that Vivacious actually did have extra folder colours, but as an add-on pack, so I downloaded it and gave it a test, which didn't make any difference to the icon theme I hacked together (this is technically a good thing), but the application icons were still not there.
It took quite some time, but I found a note in small print on the Vivacious Colors page:
(!) Folder Color Add-on Requires Main Theme to work!Oh. That explains why the application icons disappeared. I downloaded the main theme again and extracted the "Vibrancy-Colors" folder to where I needed them (in the light/dark XFCE themes I was building and on Melty, so that the theme wasn't broken any longer), double checked the theme, and repackaged the themes yet again.
Unfortunately, it didn't make any difference on Sae-chan, so I just let it be and shut her down, but at the least, I was finally done with the theme.
I finished the rest of the setup, which was just my usual bout with commonly-used applications and their settings.
As to why I haven't a problem with GNOME 3.16.x on Triela but on Melty, I haven't a clue, but I don't mind XFCE at all, since I've already been using it for quite some time. I'm thinking that Lie-chan won't have any problems either, but it's too early to say as I haven't taken the time to update her yet.
Will I be switching from GNOME 3 to XFCE entirely? I can't say, but I think the window managers I used will more than likely be splintered if I don't go with one or the other... Now that I think about it though, I might go with XFCE because the theming is a lot simpler than GNOME (the theme I use for GNOME is a tad bit broken and the XFCE theme is solid, not to mention the "Smallscreen" window border is much thinner than the one I hacked together).
Things I've learned:
- A good testing involves updating all the packages before drawing conclusions on usability
- Keep configurations to a bare minimum during a full testing phase
- Look for and read the fine print on themes
- I like RAVEfinity a lot more than I thought I did? (XD)
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