Hi everyone! I'm sorry to be asking so many questions as I set this up, but I've finally decided to stick with Debian. However, I'm not sure how to change the cursor in this new OS, and I've tried installing new cursor packs or going through the command line without installing. Any advice?
One can install a number of cursor themes from the debian repos and then select them for use. For example, this machine has installed two cursor theme packages:
xcursor-themes
bibata-cursor-theme
There are other cursor theme packages available.
To select a cursor, one can use the update-alternatives software as root in a terminal:
Code:
[root@min ~]# update-alternatives --config x-cursor-theme
There are 11 choices for the alternative x-cursor-theme (providing /usr/share/icons/default/index.theme).
Selection Path Priority Status
------------------------------------------------------------
0 /usr/share/icons/Adwaita/cursor.theme 90 auto mode
1 /etc/X11/cursors/core.theme 30 manual mode
2 /etc/X11/cursors/handhelds.theme 20 manual mode
* 3 /etc/X11/cursors/redglass.theme 20 manual mode
4 /etc/X11/cursors/whiteglass.theme 20 manual mode
5 /usr/share/icons/Adwaita/cursor.theme 90 manual mode
6 /usr/share/icons/Bibata-Modern-Amber/cursor.theme 50 manual mode
7 /usr/share/icons/Bibata-Modern-Classic/cursor.theme 50 manual mode
8 /usr/share/icons/Bibata-Modern-Ice/cursor.theme 50 manual mode
9 /usr/share/icons/Bibata-Original-Amber/cursor.theme 50 manual mode
10 /usr/share/icons/Bibata-Original-Classic/cursor.theme 50 manual mode
11 /usr/share/icons/Bibata-Original-Ice/cursor.theme 50 manual mode
Press <enter> to keep the current choice[*], or type selection number:
Just follow the instructions on screen. The newly selected cursor may appear immediately after selection, but if it doesn't, one needs to either log in anew, or reboot.
To check out what's available in terms of cursors in the repos you could run the following which should expose some theme packages:
Code:
[~]$ apt list '?name(cursor)'
bibata-cursor-theme/testing,now 2.0.6-1 all [installed]
big-cursor/testing 3.16 all
breeze-cursor-theme/testing 4:6.5.4-1 all
chameleon-cursor-theme/testing 0.5-8 all
comixcursors-lefthanded-opaque/testing 0.10.0-1 all
comixcursors-lefthanded/testing 0.10.0-1 all
comixcursors-righthanded-opaque/testing 0.10.0-1 all
comixcursors-righthanded/testing 0.10.0-1 all
crystalcursors/testing 1.1.1-14.1 all
dmz-cursor-theme/testing 0.4.5.3 all
elpa-bar-cursor/testing 2.0-2 all
golang-github-atomicgo-cursor-dev/testing 0.2.0-2 all
hyprcursor-util/testing 0.1.13-0.1 amd64
libdbix-class-cursor-cached-perl/testing 1.001004-3 all
libhyprcursor-dev/testing 0.1.13-0.1 amd64
libhyprcursor0/testing 0.1.13-0.1 amd64
librust-cursor-icon-dev/testing 1.1.0-2 amd64
librust-hickory-recursor-dev/testing 0.24.1-1+b2 amd64
librust-regex-cursor-dev/testing 0.1.5-1 amd64
librust-wayland-cursor-0.29-dev/testing 0.29.5-6 amd64
librust-wayland-cursor-dev/testing 0.31.11-2 amd64
librust-xcursor-dev/testing 0.3.10-1 amd64
libwayland-cursor++1/testing 1.0.1-1+b1 amd64
libwayland-cursor0/testing,now 1.24.0-2+b2 amd64 [installed,automatic]
libxcb-cursor-dev/testing 0.1.6-1 amd64
libxcb-cursor0/testing,now 0.1.6-1 amd64 [installed,automatic]
libxcursor-dev/testing,now 1:1.2.3-1+b1 amd64 [installed,automatic]
libxcursor1/testing,now 1:1.2.3-1+b1 amd64 [installed,automatic]
node-cli-cursor/testing 4.0.0-4 all
node-restore-cursor/testing 4.0.0-4 all
oxygencursors/testing 0.0.2012-06-kde4.8-7 all
pdns-recursor/testing 5.3.5-1 amd64
python3-mplcursors/testing 0.6-2 all
ruby-tty-cursor/testing 0.7.1-2 all
xcursor-themes/testing,now 1.0.5-1 all [installed]
Installing a particular theme package will install the dependent libraries, so one doesn't usually install packages blindly, rather, one is best to read the package details for each possible cursor package and then decide on one's preferences. For example, looking at one particular theme package from the above output:
Code:
[~$ apt-cache show dmz-cursor-theme
Package: dmz-cursor-theme
Version: 0.4.5.3
Installed-Size: 3567
Maintainer: Debian GNOME Maintainers <[email protected]>
Architecture: all
Description-en: Style neutral, scalable cursor theme
This package contains the DMZ cursor themes, which are derived from
the Industrial theme developed for the Ximian GNOME desktop. Black and
white cursors are provided, in scalable formats.
Description-md5: 486c37c0e4890a318fb8856ce996d5b9
Tag: made-of::icons, role::data, x11::theme
Section: gnome
Priority: optional
Filename: pool/main/d/dmz-cursor-theme/dmz-cursor-theme_0.4.5.3_all.deb
Size: 191196
<snip>
For installing cursors from sources outside of the debian repos, such as from github, then one usually follows the instructions from the developer's github repo which usually involves installing in the directories under /usr/local. Not having done that here, I can't say more.
There is the xcursorgen facility which can create cursors from image files. It's a command from the x11-apps package. Though it's a command from an X package, it may still actually be able to create cursors for wayland. For example, as shown in the
update-alternatives output above, the current cursor on that machine is the redglass theme which is actually derived from the installation of the package: xcursor-themes, which is an X package, and the machine is running pure wayland, without xwayland. Thus, in general, the cursor availability is quite extensive, if not actually limitless, which is as usual in linux.
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