Hyprland is one of the window managers that's proving most popular with the community. It's modern and capable of displaying interfaces that are unimaginable with other options, and that's why Some claim that Linux customization is light years ahead of any other desktop systemThe problem is that Hyprland is inherently ugly, and making it even remotely appealing can be a nightmare. That's why it was created. Rice Cooker.
First, let's explain the name: "Rice" is the word used to define extreme customization, which is also "arroz" in Spanish. If we mistranslate "Cooker," we would get "cocinador," a word that doesn't exist, but "olla" does. "Rice Cooker" is like a play on words: the direct translation would give us "olla arrocera," but the meaning is more of a A tool that facilitates extreme customization, in this case of Hyprland..
Rice Cooker lets you browse, view, and install options.
Personally, after learning about the problems plaguing Manjaro, the distro I use on my main computer, I'm trying out CachyOS in a virtual machine. I chose KDE as my main desktop environment, but also Hyprland to understand how it works. That's where I saw how ugly it is by default and how complicated it is to get it looking perfect. There are videos on YouTube, like this which I have in my favorites. You don't need to watch the whole thing; just see how long it is (about an hour and a half) and what it looks like.
Because there are three ways to "Rice" like that, a Hyprland:
- You do it all yourself because you know how.
- You do what you see in videos about something you like.
- You use what are known as community Dotfiles.
Doing it yourself and following video recommendations will take the same amount of time, and it won't be a short time. Use Community Dotfiles Yes, it can be faster, but following all the instructions isn't always easy, and we might end up with something that doesn't work as well as we expected.
And this is where Rice Cooker comes in: a visual tool (and toy) for customizing Hyprland.
Key features
En your GitHub page We can see all the necessary information, including a video. What Rice Cooker does is allow us to browse through a selection of "rice" (Full customizations), view a presentation, try them live on our desktop, and install them with a single click. If we don't like what we see, there's an option to revert the changes, returning us to the previous state. This point seems important to me, since when we make manual changes ourselves, going back isn't so simple, and it might be worth starting from scratch (with the ugly Hyprland to begin with).
It is worth noting that currently It only works on Arch.or rather, in distributions with that base. Installation is done via an AUR package, specifically rice cookerIt can be installed with yay -S rice-cooker, but also with published and other tools, such as Manjaro's Pamac, Octopi, and more.
Rice Cooker obtains the dotfiles catalog and configurations shared by the communityIn other words, it searches for what others have shared and facilitates both installation and removal, as well as reverting to the previous state, while also showing a preview of the changes that will be made.
Is it really the best option?
I've tried several options in Hyprland, and I'd say it's the best unless you want to spend more time on a configuration you prefer that you found elsewhere. When you look at the community suggestions, there's plenty to choose from, and it's all within the same program that acts as a portal.
Now then: the best thing is, I think there are very comprehensive videos that explain how to change more areas of the environment and achieve better integration; and there's also the Hyprland payment option which offers official support from the developer.
For everything else, Rice Cooker is a great way to have a beautiful Hyprland without wasting time or getting frustrated.