An elective on ricing the Linux desktop: the compositors, window managers, dotfiles, palettes, type and status bars behind the screenshot. You build one complete, reproducible, original setup, then account honestly for the hours it cost you.
What you will do
You will build one desktop. Over the semester you will choose a compositor and a window manager, write and version the dotfiles that describe them, settle a palette and a typeface, compose a status bar, and photograph the result. Then you will do the harder thing: make it reproducible, so that a stranger with a bare machine can arrive at the same desktop you did, and write an honest account of the hours it cost against the benefit it returned.
Who it is for
Students who already live in a terminal and want to think about why, and students who have admired a screenshot and wondered what it would take to earn one. You should be comfortable on the Linux command line and with git. You do not need a design background; you do need a willingness to defend your choices out loud and in writing.