HowTo: Stage your own version of Regolith configuration files

Regolith uses a number of files in /etc/regolith to determine the behavior and look of various components. While it's possible to simply edit these files directly, users who do so run the risk of having their configurations overwritten upon future updates. The Debian packaging system should ask users if they wish to take updates or keep the existing files, but this may have unintended side effects if users take partial updates of files. As such Regolith, upon login, will look for user-staged version of configuration files and load those instead if they exist. This is recommended over editing the files in /etc/regolith directly as it gives the user more control over their configuration. This page describes how to create these files.

i3 Config

1. Copy the default Regolith i3 config file into your home directory:

$ mkdir -p ~/.config/regolith/i3
$ cp /etc/regolith/i3/config ~/.config/regolith/i3/config

2. Log out and back in. The Regolith session will automatically detect your user-staged file and use that over the default in /etc/regolith/i3.
3. Verify by running i3 --moreversion and noting the config file that is printed as a result.

Regolith Styles

1. Copy the root Regolith Xresource file into your home directory:

$ cp /etc/regolith/styles/root ~/.Xresources-regolith

2. Log out and back in. The Regolith session will automatically detect your user-staged file and use that over the default in /etc/regolith/styles.

Note that this root file is simply a reference to other styles that are broken down by the thing they are designed to style. For example, if you wish to customize the look of i3, you will need to also copy /etc/regolith/styles/i3-wm into your user directory and then update the reference to the new file in your ~/.Xresources-regolith.