Desktop environments and Window managers: Difference between revisions

Latest revision as of 21:31, 6 March 2024

Alpine Linux has no official desktop. Older versions used Xfce, but now all GUI and graphical interfaces are optional. many are available and are attempted to be listed below:

Desktop Environments

Window Managers

Stacking (floating) window managers

X11:
- Openbox

Wayland:
- Weston
- LabWC
- Wayfire

Tiling (dynamic) window managers

X11:
- bspwm
- herbstluftwm
- twm
- dwm
- i3
- Awesome Window Manager
- Ratpoison (Available in Edge branch under the testing repository)
- spectrwm (Available in Edge Branch under the testing repository)
- Qtile (Available in Edge Branch under the testing repository)

Wayland:
- Sway
- River
- Cagebreak
- dwl (Available in Edge Branch under the testing repository)
- Qtile (Available in Edge Branch under the testing repository)

Other Window Managers

Wayland
- Cage - Wayland Compositor for running single app on fullscreen mode (kiosk)

@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
-The desktop environment in Alpine have two focus: '''official desktop for alpine as Xfce4''' and '''community contributed desktops as Mate, LXDE''' or as special case the very bloated Gnome.
+{{TOC right}}
-The popularity of desktop computers and laptops has been increasing BUT that's a only false behavior.. there's two factors that indicates that:
+'''Alpine Linux''' has no official desktop. Older versions used Xfce, but now all GUI and graphical interfaces are optional. many are available and are attempted to be listed below:
-# Because Linux desktop distributions are not usually distributed by retail sale, there are no sales numbers that indicate the number of users. Desktop computers and phones are ruled by M$ and Google so far.
-# The main effors are focused in server and many desktops have programs that never find a end in development like Kppp or Firefox OS, or GTKpod; those are projects that works only with deprecated not used in time devices or machines.
-Taking in consideration that the North American-based web-measurement methods produce high Win-like desktop OS numbers and ignore the widespread use of Linux in other parts of the world, no single official Linux desktop exists and all the integration are focused in too many RedHat proposed practices (that ends in M$-like things like <nowiki>systemd</nowiki>.
+== Desktop Environments ==
-==== Why all of this explanation? ====
+See also: [[:Category:Desktop Environments|Desktop Environments Category]]
-You as user will find some very '''significant differences when integrated some desktops or try to install many desktops programs from source upstream''', a very important thing to take in consideration. But '''"Ah ok, but why that? why not a automatic default etc etc..?"''' well [[Alpine newbie#Feature_Differences|as explained in first section of this page]] the focus of the system are efficiency, performance and maximum control of the system, not an automatic behavior not well knowed.
+* [[Xfce]]
+* [[LXQt]]
+* [[KDE|KDE Plasma]]
+* [[GNOME]]
+* [[MATE]]
-As pointed in first paragraph, Gnome it's a example of this.. it's used the <nowiki>wayland</nowiki> service and widely integrated with <nowiki>systemd</nowiki>, and Alpine does not use <nowiki>systemd</nowiki>. That it's a example why Desktop environment are so difficult to adopt in Linux world and obviously to configured in Alpine systems.
+== Window Managers ==
-'''So you can choose from those options:'''
+See also: [[:Category:Window Managers|Window Managers Category]]
-= Alpine Desktops: Official Desktop =
+===  [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stacking_window_manager Stacking (floating) window managers] ===
-There's two official supported desktops, [[Alpine Newbies XFCE Desktop Environment|XFCE Desktop Environment]] as Main and [[Alpine Newbies LXDE Desktop Environment|LXDE Desktop]] as optional, that obviously make also optional the [[Alpine Newbies Openbox Window Manager|Openbox Window Manager]].
+* X11:
+** [[Openbox]]
-# [[Alpine Newbies Openbox Window Manager|Alpine Newbies: Xorg and Openbox]]
+* Wayland:
-# [[Alpine Newbies XFCE Desktop Environment]]
+** Weston
-# [[Alpine Newbies LXDE Desktop Environment]]
+** [[LabWC]]
+** [[Wayfire]]
-= Alpine Desktops: Community Contributions =
+=== [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiling_window_manager Tiling (dynamic) window managers] ===
-There's some contributions dekstops made available using the Community Repository Packages, those are not officially supported (those that make contribution are the ones that support those desktops):
+* X11:
+** bspwm
+** herbstluftwm
+** [[twm]]
+** [[dwm]]
+** [[I3wm|i3]]
+** [[AwesomeWM|Awesome Window Manager]]
+** Ratpoison (Available in Edge branch under the testing repository)
+** spectrwm (Available in Edge Branch under the testing repository)
+** Qtile (Available in Edge Branch under the testing repository)
-* [[Alpine Newbies MATE Desktop Environment]]
+* Wayland:
+** [[Sway]]
+** [[River]]
+** Cagebreak
+** dwl (Available in Edge Branch under the testing repository)
+** Qtile (Available in Edge Branch under the testing repository)
-= Alpine Desktops: Upstream and external ones =
+=== Other Window Managers ===
-All of the original upstream desktop can be installed by the traditional *nix-like method by downloading the sources from origin and compiling it.
+* Wayland
+** Cage - Wayland Compositor for running single app on fullscreen mode (kiosk)
-* [[Alpine Newbies LXQT Desktop Environment]]
+== See Also ==
+* [[Installation]]
+* [[Installation#Post-Installation|Post Installation]]
+* [[Seat_manager#Input_and_video_groups|Input and video groups]]
+* [[Fonts]]
+* [[Wayland]]
+* [[:Category:Display Managers]]
+* [https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Desktop_environment Desktop environment - Archwiki]
+* [https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Desktop_environment Desktop environment - Gentoo Wiki]
-= Tutorial series =
+[[Category:Desktop]]
+[[Category:Newbie]]
-{| class="wikitable"
-|-
-! Previous required  !! What's next to read
-|-
-| [[Alpine newbie apk packages]] || [[Alpine Newbies Openbox Window Manager|Alpine Newbies: Xorg and Openbox]]
-|}
-= See Also =
-# [[Alpine newbie]]
-# [[Alpine newbie install manual]]
-# [[Alpine newbie apk packages]]
-# [[Alpine newbie desktops]]
-# [[Alpine newbie developer]]
-# [[Alpine newbie lammers]]