Kanso

Kanso shapes your Ubuntu into a focused and productive development environment — inspired by the Japanese principle of simplicity and craftsmanship, and by DHH’s Omakub.

It’s a single-run script that builds a clean and minimal setup for both Desktop and WSL. Kanso customizes your system with hand-picked tools, a simple tiling window manager, and a keyboard-focused workflow. It also guides you through key setup decisions and automatically applies your personal preferences, dotfiles, and projects using only basic configuration files.

🚀 Quick Install

Run this command in your terminal:

eval "$(wget -qO- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/johnvilela/kanso/master/install.sh)"

Or, for a lighter setup (ideal for WSL or terminal-only environments):

eval "$(wget -qO- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/johnvilela/kanso/master/install.sh)" --simple

• Default (Full Install): Sets up the complete Kanso desktop experience with GNOME customization, Pop Shell, themes, and applications.

• --simple Mode: Installs only essential terminal tools, shell configuration, and development utilities — skipping all desktop and GNOME customization steps.

Features

• Tiling management with Pop Shell and simplified GNOME visuals
• Keyboard-centric navigation and control
• Pre-installed development essentials: Fish, Git, Zed, Mise, Node.js, and Docker
• Productivity apps: Alacritty, Firefox, VSCode, Obsidian, and Zen Browser
• Terminal-focused tools: Lazygit, Bat, Fzf, Ripgrep, and Starship
• Automated setup for dotfiles, SSH keys, and Git projects

Prerequisites

• Ubuntu 24.04 or later (Desktop or WSL)

Configuration Options

Kanso can automatically configure your environment based on your personal preferences using dotfiles and a user-setup folder.

Create a folder named user-setup in your $HOME directory.
Inside it, you can define subfolders for specific configurations:

Folder	Description
config.fish	Your personal Fish shell configuration file. It will be copied to ~/.config/fish/config.fish.
dotfiles	Place your dotfiles here. The script will symlink them to their respective locations in your home directory.
ssh	Place your SSH keys here. They will be copied to ~/.ssh with correct permissions.
projects	Create text files listing Git repository URLs (one per line). Each file’s name will define a folder under ~/projects, and all listed repositories will be cloned into it.

Example:

github.com/username/repo1.git
github.com/username/repo2.git

This will create:

~/projects/personal/repo1
~/projects/personal/repo2

Roadmap

Kanso is a living project that will continue to evolve while maintaining its simplicity and purpose.
The following items are planned for future releases:

• Container Engine Selection — Allow users to choose between Podman, Docker, or none
• Shell Options — Let users pick their preferred shell: Fish, Zsh, or Bash
• Editor Choice — Select between VSCode, Zed, or Neovim as the main code editor
• Miscellaneous Apps — Offer optional installs for Spotify, Discord, WhatsApp, Signal, and Telegram
• ASCII Art Branding — Add a simple and elegant Kanso ASCII logo displayed during installation
• Language Runtimes — Let users choose to install Node.js, Ruby, Python, Rust, or Go
• Theme Selection — Provide multiple GNOME and system themes beyond the default Ubuntu look

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Have suggestions or ideas to improve Kanso? Feel free to open an issue or discussion on GitHub — simplicity grows through collaboration.

Contribution Guidelines

Contributions are welcome! Please fork the repository and submit a pull request with your changes. Make sure to follow the existing code style, include test descriptions to be reproducible, and update the documentation as needed.

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License. See the LICENSE file for details.