Software Recommendations

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Documentation Previous page: OpenPGP Index page: Documentation Next page: Orca Software Recommendations

This wiki page outlines software recommendations by Kicksecure for various tasks, such as encryption, email, IRC, media player, image viewer, screenshot creator, calculator, office suite, and more. It includes a list of pre-installed applications on Kicksecure, recommended software for different user activities, installation instructions, and security advice.

Warning

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It is estimated that within 10 to 15 years, Quantum Computers will break today's common asymmetric public-key cryptography algorithms used for web encryption (https), e-mail encryption (GnuPG...), SSH and other purposes. See Post-Quantum Cryptography (PQCrypto).

Accessibility

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On-Screen Keyboard (wvkbd)

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Kicksecure 18 and above. (Wayland based.) Pre-installed by default.

wvkbd Debian packagearchive.org iconarchive.today icon

Figure: wvkbd software in Kicksecure

Audio, Image and Video

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Audio Recorder and Editor

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Audacity homepagearchive.org iconarchive.today icon (Debian packagearchive.org iconarchive.today icon).

To install it: Start menuSystem ToolsQTerminal

Install package(s) audacity following these instructions:

1 Platform specific notice.

2 Update the package lists and upgrade the system.

sudo apt update && sudo apt full-upgrade

3 Install the audacity package(s).

Using apt command line --no-install-recommends option is in most cases optional.

sudo apt install --no-install-recommends audacity

4 Platform specific notice.

  • Kicksecure: No special notice.
  • Kicksecure-Qubes: Shut down Template and restart App Qubes based on it as per Qubes Template Modification.

5 Done.

The procedure of installing package(s) audacity is complete.

Figure: Audacity Software in Kicksecure

Image and PDF Viewer

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Loupe

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Loupearchive.org iconarchive.today icon (Debian packagearchive.org iconarchive.today icon)

Installed in Kicksecure 18 by default. Image rendering is handled by Glycinarchive.org iconarchive.today icon, which is largely implemented in Rust and does image rendering in a sandbox.

Start menuGraphicsImage Viewer

Figure: Loupe Software in Kicksecure

Web browser PDF rendering

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Standard desktop PDF viewers, such as xpdf, qpdfview, Okular, etc. are not recommended. PDF rendering is complex and prone to security vulnerabilities similar to web page rendering. Desktop PDF viewers generally do this rendering without sandboxing. Web browsers are recommended for viewing PDFs, as the PDF rendering is sandboxed similar to web page rendering.

No particular recommendations. Any major web browser with an embedded PDF renderer (such as Mozilla's PDF.jsarchive.org iconarchive.today icon or Google's PDFium) should work. Several suitable browsers can be installed using Browser-choice.

Figure: PDF rendering in Firefox ESR in Kicksecure

Screenshot Creator and Image Editor

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Qubes info box Kicksecure only! [1]
In Qubes, screenshots only work in dom0 (System ToolsScreenshot) and this applies to the entire platform, including Kicksecure for Qubes.

Flameshot homepagearchive.org iconarchive.today icon (Debian packagearchive.org iconarchive.today icon).

To install it: Start menuSystem ToolsQTerminal

Install package(s) flameshot following these instructions:

1 Platform specific notice.

2 Update the package lists and upgrade the system.

sudo apt update && sudo apt full-upgrade

3 Install the flameshot package(s).

Using apt command line --no-install-recommends option is in most cases optional.

sudo apt install --no-install-recommends flameshot

4 Platform specific notice.

  • Kicksecure: No special notice.
  • Kicksecure-Qubes: Shut down Template and restart App Qubes based on it as per Qubes Template Modification.

5 Done.

The procedure of installing package(s) flameshot is complete.

Figure: Flameshot Software in Kicksecure

Video Editor

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Flowblade homepagearchive.org iconarchive.today icon (Debian packagearchive.org iconarchive.today icon).

To install it: Start menuSystem ToolsQTerminal

Install package(s) flowblade following these instructions:

1 Platform specific notice.

2 Update the package lists and upgrade the system.

sudo apt update && sudo apt full-upgrade

3 Install the flowblade package(s).

Using apt command line --no-install-recommends option is in most cases optional.

sudo apt install --no-install-recommends flowblade

4 Platform specific notice.

  • Kicksecure: No special notice.
  • Kicksecure-Qubes: Shut down Template and restart App Qubes based on it as per Qubes Template Modification.

5 Done.

The procedure of installing package(s) flowblade is complete.

Figure: Flowblade Software in Kicksecure

Video Recorder

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wf-recorder homepagearchive.org iconarchive.today icon (Debian packagearchive.org iconarchive.today icon).

To install it:

Start menuSystem ToolsQTerminal

Install package(s) wf-recorder following these instructions:

1 Platform specific notice.

2 Update the package lists and upgrade the system.

sudo apt update && sudo apt full-upgrade

3 Install the wf-recorder package(s).

Using apt command line --no-install-recommends option is in most cases optional.

sudo apt install --no-install-recommends wf-recorder

4 Platform specific notice.

  • Kicksecure: No special notice.
  • Kicksecure-Qubes: Shut down Template and restart App Qubes based on it as per Qubes Template Modification.

5 Done.

The procedure of installing package(s) wf-recorder is complete.

wf-recorder is a command-line application. To use it:

1 Open a terminal. Start menuSystem ToolsQTerminal

2 Run:

wf-recorder

3 Complete whatever actions you wish to record.

4 Click on the QTerminal window where wf-recorder is running.

5 Press Ctrl + C to terminate it.

6 Done.

The recording will be saved in a file named recording.mkv in the current working directory.

Figure: wf-recorder Software in Kicksecure

Communications

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E-Mail

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See E-Mail.

Instant Messengers

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Documentation for this is incomplete. Contributions are happily considered! See this for potential alternatives.

Maybe contents from ChatOnion network Logo could be ported here.

Other resources:

IRC Client

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Undocumented

XMPP/Jabber Client

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Documentation for this is incomplete. Contributions are happily considered! See this for potential alternatives.

Maybe contents from ChatOnion network Logo could be ported here.

Encryption

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GnuPG (OpenPGP)

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GNU Privacy Guard (GnuPG) can be used to encrypt, decrypt, sign, and verify text. It is an implementation of the OpenPGP standard.

GnuPGarchive.org iconarchive.today icon comes pre-installed in Kicksecure (Debian packagesarchive.org iconarchive.today icon).

Starting.

gpg

Documentation:

Figure: GnuPG Software in Kicksecure

KGpg

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KGpg homepagearchive.org iconarchive.today icon Debian package for KGpgarchive.org iconarchive.today icon

KGpg is a graphical user interface (GUI) frontend for GnuPG. It can be used to create and manage encryption keys, and sign, encrypt, and decrypt files.

1 To install KGpg:

Install package(s) kgpg following these instructions:

1 Platform specific notice.

2 Update the package lists and upgrade the system.

sudo apt update && sudo apt full-upgrade

3 Install the kgpg package(s).

Using apt command line --no-install-recommends option is in most cases optional.

sudo apt install --no-install-recommends kgpg

4 Platform specific notice.

  • Kicksecure: No special notice.
  • Kicksecure-Qubes: Shut down Template and restart App Qubes based on it as per Qubes Template Modification.

5 Done.

The procedure of installing package(s) kgpg is complete.

2 Starting.

kgpg

See footnote for why a GPG frontend is not installed by default on Kicksecure 18.[4]

3 Done.

Figure: KGpg Software in Kicksecure

Entertainment

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Media Player

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VLC Media Player Icon

The VLC Media Player Icon VLC Media Playerarchive.org iconarchive.today icon (Debian packagearchive.org iconarchive.today icon) is pre-installed in Kicksecure. There are no increased fingerprinting risks because VLC does not run Javascriptarchive.org iconarchive.today icon. [5]

Start menuMultimediaVLC Media Player

Figure: VLC Software in Kicksecure

Miscellaneous

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Calculator

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galculator homepagearchive.org iconarchive.today icon (Debian packagearchive.org iconarchive.today icon).

To install it: Start menuSystem ToolsQTerminal

Install package(s) galculator following these instructions:

1 Platform specific notice.

2 Update the package lists and upgrade the system.

sudo apt update && sudo apt full-upgrade

3 Install the galculator package(s).

Using apt command line --no-install-recommends option is in most cases optional.

sudo apt install --no-install-recommends galculator

4 Platform specific notice.

  • Kicksecure: No special notice.
  • Kicksecure-Qubes: Shut down Template and restart App Qubes based on it as per Qubes Template Modification.

5 Done.

The procedure of installing package(s) galculator is complete.

Figure: galculator Software in Kicksecure

Disk Space Analyzer

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df

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df -h

baobab

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Install package(s) baobab following these instructions:

1 Platform specific notice.

2 Update the package lists and upgrade the system.

sudo apt update && sudo apt full-upgrade

3 Install the baobab package(s).

Using apt command line --no-install-recommends option is in most cases optional.

sudo apt install --no-install-recommends baobab

4 Platform specific notice.

  • Kicksecure: No special notice.
  • Kicksecure-Qubes: Shut down Template and restart App Qubes based on it as per Qubes Template Modification.

5 Done.

The procedure of installing package(s) baobab is complete.

  • As user:
    • baobab
  • With administrative ("root") rights:
    • lxsudo baobab

File Comparison Tools

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A file comparison tool is also often called a diff viewer.

meld

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Install package(s) meld following these instructions:

1 Platform specific notice.

2 Update the package lists and upgrade the system.

sudo apt update && sudo apt full-upgrade

3 Install the meld package(s).

Using apt command line --no-install-recommends option is in most cases optional.

sudo apt install --no-install-recommends meld

4 Platform specific notice.

  • Kicksecure: No special notice.
  • Kicksecure-Qubes: Shut down Template and restart App Qubes based on it as per Qubes Template Modification.

5 Done.

The procedure of installing package(s) meld is complete.

Usage example:

meld file1 file2

kdiff3

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Install package(s) kdiff3 following these instructions:

1 Platform specific notice.

2 Update the package lists and upgrade the system.

sudo apt update && sudo apt full-upgrade

3 Install the kdiff3 package(s).

Using apt command line --no-install-recommends option is in most cases optional.

sudo apt install --no-install-recommends kdiff3

4 Platform specific notice.

  • Kicksecure: No special notice.
  • Kicksecure-Qubes: Shut down Template and restart App Qubes based on it as per Qubes Template Modification.

5 Done.

The procedure of installing package(s) kdiff3 is complete.

Usage example:

kdiff3 file1 file2

diff

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diff is a pre-installed command line interface (CLI) diff viewer.

Usage example:

diff file1 file2

File Manager

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File browser icon from Papirus icon theme (shown by PCManFM-Qt)

PCManFM-Qt is pre-installed. To launch it:

PCManFM-Qt as User

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  • A From start menu: Start menuAccessoriesPCManFM-Qt File Manager
  • B From command line: pcmanfm-qt

Figure: PCManFM-Qt Software in Kicksecure

PCManFM-Qt with Administrator Rights

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Info This procedure will not allow you to directly edit or view the contents of files that are inaccessible to the current user account. It only allows file management operations (move, copy, create folder, etc.) in areas of the system your user usually would not have access to.

As a workaround, you may copy a file to a location your user account does have access to, change the copy's permissions to allow you to edit it, then copy it back into place once you are finished making edits.

1 Ensure gvfs-backends is installed.

Install package(s) gvfs-backends following these instructions:

1 Platform specific notice.

2 Update the package lists and upgrade the system.

sudo apt update && sudo apt full-upgrade

3 Install the gvfs-backends package(s).

Using apt command line --no-install-recommends option is in most cases optional.

sudo apt install --no-install-recommends gvfs-backends

4 Platform specific notice.

  • Kicksecure: No special notice.
  • Kicksecure-Qubes: Shut down Template and restart App Qubes based on it as per Qubes Template Modification.

5 Done.

The procedure of installing package(s) gvfs-backends is complete.

2 Launch PCManFM-Qt normally as described in #PCManFM-Qt as User.

3 Click ToolsOpen Tab in Admin Mode.

4 Provide your password if prompted.

5 Done.

PCManFM-Qt can now be used to perform file management tasks on files owned by root.

Task Manager

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There many choices. Task managers are unspecific to Kicksecure. These should be researched as per Self Support First Policy.

qps

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qpsarchive.org iconarchive.today icon is the default task manager for the LXQt desktop. qps is pre-installed in Kicksecure.

Run.

qps

taskmanager command line utilities

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Popular taskmanager command line utilities include:

  • top
  • htop
  • ps
  • pstree
  • pgrep

task killing command line utilities

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Task killing can also be done on the command line.

  • kill
  • killall

plasma-systemmonitor

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1 Installation.

Install package(s) plasma-systemmonitor following these instructions:

1 Platform specific notice.

2 Update the package lists and upgrade the system.

sudo apt update && sudo apt full-upgrade

3 Install the plasma-systemmonitor package(s).

Using apt command line --no-install-recommends option is in most cases optional.

sudo apt install --no-install-recommends plasma-systemmonitor

4 Platform specific notice.

  • Kicksecure: No special notice.
  • Kicksecure-Qubes: Shut down Template and restart App Qubes based on it as per Qubes Template Modification.

5 Done.

The procedure of installing package(s) plasma-systemmonitor is complete.

2 Run.

plasma-systemmonitor

iotop - simple top-like I/O monitor

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iotop does for I/O usage what top(1) does for CPU usage. It watches I/O usage information output by the Linux kernel and displays a table of current I/O usage by processes on the system. It is handy for answering the question "Why is the disk churning so much?".Debian iotop packagearchive.org iconarchive.today icon

Install package(s) iotop following these instructions:

1 Platform specific notice.

2 Update the package lists and upgrade the system.

sudo apt update && sudo apt full-upgrade

3 Install the iotop package(s).

Using apt command line --no-install-recommends option is in most cases optional.

sudo apt install --no-install-recommends iotop

4 Platform specific notice.

  • Kicksecure: No special notice.
  • Kicksecure-Qubes: Shut down Template and restart App Qubes based on it as per Qubes Template Modification.

5 Done.

The procedure of installing package(s) iotop is complete.

Run.

sudo iotop -a

Terminal

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qterminal icon

QTerminal homepagearchive.org iconarchive.today icon (Debian packagearchive.org iconarchive.today icon). QTerminal is pre-installed in Kicksecure.

To start it: Start menuSystem ToolsQTerminal

Figure: QTerminal in Kicksecure

Unsafe Paste Warning Popup

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Note: Not enabled in QTerminal by default yet. Was enabled in Xfce-Terminal by default. Will be enabled in QTerminal soon.

This is a demonstration of the Paste multiline text warning feature of the QTerminal Emulator. Other graphical terminal emulators might have similar features.

Figure: Paste multiline text warning feature

First a text editor is opened, then several arbitrary lines of text written, copied to clipboard and pasted into the terminal emulator.

1 Open a text editor.

Open file some-file-name in a text editor of your choice as a regular, non-root user.

If you are using a graphical environment, run. featherpad some-file-name

If you are using a terminal, run. nano some-file-name

2 Write several lines of text.

Should be long lines. Should be multiple lines. The text is not important. Can be anything.

For example:

111111111111111111111111 222222222222222222222222

3 Copy to clipboard.

Select all of the lines of text and right click, copy to clipboard.

4 Open a terminal.

Open a terminal.

Select your platform.

Kicksecure USER Session

If you are using a graphical Kicksecure with LXQt, complete the following steps.

Start menuSystem ToolsQTerminal

Kicksecure SYSMAINT Session

In the System Maintenance Panel, under the Misc section, click Open Terminal.

Kicksecure-Qubes

If you are using Kicksecure-Qubes, complete the following steps.

Qubes App Launcher (blue/grey "Q")Kicksecure App Qube (commonly named kicksecure)QTerminal

5 Paste the text into the terminal.

6 The warning popup will appear.

Paste multiline text warning:

7 Done.

The demonstration of the Paste multiline text warning feature has been completed.

If the user does not understand the contents of the pasted text, the user should abort. Otherwise, the user might be compromised by running commands not understood by the user.

Related security risk: Invisible Malicious Unicode

Text Editor

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Open File as Regular User

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featherpad is installed by default.

Replace /path/to/file with the actual file name.

featherpad /path/to/file

Open File with Root Rights

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To edit files which can only be edited with administrative ("root") rights. Use the following syntax.

Prefer sudoedit for better security. [6]

When using sudoedit:

  • Missing file: If the file does not exist, it will be created.
  • Existing file: If the file does exist, it will be edited.
  • Editor requirement: Featherpad (or the chosen text editor) must be closed before running the sudoedit command.

1 Open /path/to/file with root rights.

Note: Replace /path/to/file with the actual file name.

sudoedit /path/to/file

To use a different editor, replace featherpad with the name of the editor you wish to use.

SUDO_EDITOR=featherpad sudoedit /path/to/file

2 Edit the file.

3 Save.

Notes:

  • Save action: Simply close the editor and press save.
  • Avoid "save as": Do not use "save as" - this is unnecessary and will not work.

4 Done.

Work on Sensitive Documents

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Office Suite

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LibreOffice homepagearchive.org iconarchive.today icon (Debian packagearchive.org iconarchive.today icon) [7] is recommended. It is a fully-featured office productivity suite that provides a near drop-in replacement for Microsoft (R) Office. A word processor is included, along with spreadsheet and presentation applications.

1 To install it:

Start menuSystem ToolsQTerminal

Install package(s) libreoffice following these instructions:

1 Platform specific notice.

2 Update the package lists and upgrade the system.

sudo apt update && sudo apt full-upgrade

3 Install the libreoffice package(s).

Using apt command line --no-install-recommends option is in most cases optional.

sudo apt install --no-install-recommends libreoffice

4 Platform specific notice.

  • Kicksecure: No special notice.
  • Kicksecure-Qubes: Shut down Template and restart App Qubes based on it as per Qubes Template Modification.

5 Done.

The procedure of installing package(s) libreoffice is complete.

2 To launch these applications:

Start menuOffice

Figure: LibreOffice Software in Kicksecure

Printing and Scanning

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See Printing and Scanning.

Publishing

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Scribus homepagearchive.org iconarchive.today icon (Debian packagearchive.org iconarchive.today icon) is an open source desktop page layout application accessible from the desktop menu (ApplicationsGraphics). It can be used for many tasks; from booklets design to newspapers, magazines, newsletters and posters to technical documentation.

Scribus has sophisticated page layout features like precision placing and rotating of text and/or images on a page, manual kerning of type, bezier curves polygons, precision placement of objects, layering with RGB and CMYK custom colors. The Scribus document file format is XML-based. Unlike proprietary binary file formats, even damaged documents can be recovered with a simple text editor.

To install it: Start menuSystem ToolsQTerminal

Install package(s) scribus following these instructions:

1 Platform specific notice.

2 Update the package lists and upgrade the system.

sudo apt update && sudo apt full-upgrade

3 Install the scribus package(s).

Using apt command line --no-install-recommends option is in most cases optional.

sudo apt install --no-install-recommends scribus

4 Platform specific notice.

  • Kicksecure: No special notice.
  • Kicksecure-Qubes: Shut down Template and restart App Qubes based on it as per Qubes Template Modification.

5 Done.

The procedure of installing package(s) scribus is complete.

Figure: Scribus Software in Kicksecure

scurl-download: SSL Command Line Downloader

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To securely download files or webpages from the Internet on the command line, scurl is pre-installed in Kicksecure. scurl-download should be preferred over wget, since the former enforces strong encryption and is less buggy. See also Secure Downloads.

To invoke scurl-download to download a file, use the following syntax and replace the example URL with the file's location.

scurl-download https://dist.torproject.org/torbrowser/15.0.3/tor-browser-linux-x86_64-15.0.3.tar.xz

This will download tor-browser-linux-x86_64-15.0.3.tar.xz to the current working directory.

Refer to the scurl entry for further examples and a complete description of this tool.

Figure: scurl-download Command in Kicksecure

Java

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Install package(s) default-jre following these instructions:

1 Platform specific notice.

2 Update the package lists and upgrade the system.

sudo apt update && sudo apt full-upgrade

3 Install the default-jre package(s).

Using apt command line --no-install-recommends option is in most cases optional.

sudo apt install --no-install-recommends default-jre

4 Platform specific notice.

  • Kicksecure: No special notice.
  • Kicksecure-Qubes: Shut down Template and restart App Qubes based on it as per Qubes Template Modification.

5 Done.

The procedure of installing package(s) default-jre is complete.

Additional Software

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If the recommendations in this section are unsatisfactory, additional applications can be easily installed in a few steps; see Install Software.

Footnotes

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  1. Kicksecure means all Kicksecure platforms except Kicksecure inside Qubes. This includes Kicksecure on hardware, Kicksecure in virtual machines (VM) such as VirtualBox, and Kicksecure KVM.
  2. Original and web archived behind paywall:
  3. https://tracker.debian.org/news/1607399/parcimonie-removed-from-testing/archive.org iconarchive.today icon, https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=1091033archive.org iconarchive.today icon
  4. Previously, GNU Privacy Assistant (GPA) was installed in Kicksecure by default. However, GPA was removed from Debian Trixiearchive.org iconarchive.today icon before release, and is therefore not available in Kicksecure 18.

    KGpg depends on a very large number of KDE libraries, which take up over 120 MB of disk space when installed. For this reason, KGpg is not installed by default.
  5. However, unrestricted access to the large number of codecs, along with the gstreamer and ffmpeg frameworks can expose the system to remote attacks. The risk is greater than with Tor Browser because the latter attempts to restrict codecs to a particular subset. No cookies are stored by VLC and no information is collected and sent to third partiesarchive.org iconarchive.today icon; see the Original Whonix forum threadarchive.org iconarchive.today icon.
  6. https://forums.whonix.org/t/use-sudoedit-in-whonix-documentation-and-whonix-software/7599archive.org iconarchive.today icon
  7. See also: LibreOffice in Wikipediaarchive.org iconarchive.today icon.

License

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Kicksecure Software wiki page Copyright (C) Amnesia <amnesia at boum dot org>
Kicksecure Software wiki page Copyright (C) 2012 - 2025 ENCRYPTED SUPPORT LLC <

This program comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY; for details see the wiki source code.
This is free software, and you are welcome to redistribute it under certain conditions; see the wiki source code for details.

Documentation Previous page: OpenPGP Index page: Documentation Next page: Orca

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