Other Desktop Environments

Kicksecure ™

Download

On Computer USB Installation Intel / AMD64 ARM64 Raspberry Pi PPC64 Windows (VM) Mac Linux (VM) VirtualBox (VM) Qubes (VM) KVM (VM) Debian morph to Kicksecure More options Source Code

About

Overview Features Why Open Source? Project Activities Contributors Mission & Vision

Docs

Documentation FAQ Troubleshooting

Community

Forums Forum Best Practices Contribute

Support

Self Support First Policy Search Engines, Docs and AI Support (Limited) Reporting Bugs Contact (Restricted)

Tools Upload file Special pages Recent changes Print Version Page meta What links here Related changes Page information

Page Read Edit History Move Protection Unwatch Watch Delete Purge

User Preferences Watchlist Contributions Logout Create account Login

Donate

Security Roadmap Advanced Documentation apparmor.d Previous page: Security Roadmap Index page: Advanced Documentation Next page: apparmor.d Other Desktop Environments

• Other Operating Systems
• Other Desktop Environments

How to use Other Desktop Environments other than LXQt with Kicksecure. Current situation. Risks. Future. (Gnome, KDE, Xfce, MATE, ...)

Current Situation

As of version 18, the Downloadable Kicksecure versions are available with either:

• A) graphical user interface (GUI): desktop environment (LXQt); OR
• B) command line interface (CLI): text terminal only (no desktop environment).

However, other desktop environments like Gnome, KDE, Xfce, LXDE and so on can be manually installed.

The default login manager in Kicksecure is greetd + wlgreet. wlgreet reads a configuration file to determine what desktop environment to start, it does not permit selecting an alternate desktop environment from the login prompt. Users who want to use a non-default desktop may wish to switch to a different display manager, such as LightDM.

Risks

• Unsupported configuration: When installing your own desktop environment such as GNOME, you're on your own. This is unsupported.
• Recommendation for advanced users: Start with Kicksecure CLI, the text terminal-only version of Kicksecure, which comes without a desktop environment installed by default, and install a desktop environment of your choice there. This is much better than starting with Kicksecure LXQt and then uninstalling LXQt to install another desktop environment.
• Additional background services: Other desktop environments install additional background services. The Kicksecure project hasn't researched the security/privacy implications of having these installed. For example:
  • GNOME automatically installs GeoClue. (systemcheck warns if that very package is installed, but still...)
  • See also Dev/GNOME wiki page, chapter Security.
• Unvetted default applications: Other desktop environments also ship a different selection of default applications that have not necessarily been checked for security/privacy. Installing your own desktop environment may result in software packages being installed that are not well hardened or chosen with security in mind.
• user-sysmaint-split integration issues: This is only applicable to users of user-sysmaint-split. See also user-sysmaint-split, Default Installation Status. It does not apply to users of unrestricted admin mode. Only the default desktop environment (or rather login managers) is tested with user-sysmaint-split by developers. Other desktop environments might have glitches.

Future

Since Kicksecure is an Open Source / Freedom Software project, Kicksecure developers are hoping that other developers join the project and maintain other desktop environments. That someone could be you?

Technical Information

Unfortunately using other desktop environments has become much more difficult due to port to Wayland in version 18 and user-sysmaint-split.

Switching the Wayland compositor used by Kicksecure isn’t supported currently. Supporting a Wayland compositor is much more involved than supporting a window manager under X11, because the compositor is both the window manager *and* the display server. Of all the desktop environments in Kicksecure, LXQt was the only one light enough to be suitable for Kicksecure and that had mature enough Wayland support, and the best-supported compositor for LXQt is labwc, so that’s what we went with. (For similar reasons, switching the desktop environment entirely is also difficult.)Kicksecure developer @arraybolt3

Forum Discussions

• https://forums.kicksecure.com/t/multiple-workspaces-multiple-virtual-desktops-in-kicksecure-18-wayland-labwc/1443
• https://forums.kicksecure.com/t/kde-doesnt-work-correctly-with-kicksecure-18/1470
• https://forums.kicksecure.com/t/switch-lxqt-compositor-labwc-settings/1403

See Also

• Kicksecure Debian Packages, which ones are safe to remove?

Footnotes

Security Roadmap Advanced Documentation apparmor.d Previous page: Security Roadmap Index page: Advanced Documentation Next page: apparmor.d

Kicksecure A secure by default operating system with the latest security research in place.

Dark mode

Follow us on social media

Supported by Power Up Privacy

Kicksecure is proudly supported until 2026 by Power Up Privacy, a privacy advocacy group that seeks to supercharge privacy projects with resources so they can complete their mission of making our world a better place. (Strictly subject to our sponsorship policy.)

At Kicksecure we value freedom and trust, supporting Open Source and Freedom Software

By using this website, you acknowledge you have read, understood, and agree to be bound by these agreements: Terms of Service, Privacy Policy, Cookie Policy, E-Sign Consent, DMCA, Imprint 2012- 2026 ENCRYPTED SUPPORT LLC

Your support makes
all the difference!

We believe security software like Kicksecure needs to remain Open Source and independent. Would you help sustain and grow the project? Learn more about our 13 year success story and maybe DONATE!