Lumina

This material is work-in-progress ...

Do not follow instructions here until this notice is removed.
(Last edited by D1nuc0m on 6 Jan 2026.)

Lumina is a lightweight desktop environment. Mainly used on *BSD systems, does not rely on Linux desktop frameworks/tools such as systemd.

Prerequisites

Consider if upgrade to Edge, as Lumina requires testing repository, unsupported on main/stable branches.
Enable community and testing repositories
Install Xorg

Consider if upgrade to Edge, as Lumina requires testing repository, unsupported on main/stable branches.
Internet connectivity, unless the packages have been pre-fetched into a local cache.
Install appropriate Graphics driver drivers for your hardware. Without graphics drivers, errors are likely to occur when starting your desktop.
A non-root user account with appropriate groups for desktop usage.
The community repository must be enabled.
Set up eudev.
Install and enable D-Bus. Without D-Bus, icons and keyboard shortcuts may be missing.
Enable testing repository
Install Xorg

Install the Lumina desktop environment packages

Install a terminal emulator with fonts to access the terminal from inside the desktop session, for example xterm

At the moment of writing, there are missing dependencies related to icons in the packages

# apk add qt5-qtsvg

ToDo

$ start-lumina-desktop

$ echo 'exec start-lumina-desktop' >> ~/.xinitrc

$ echo 'exec dbus-launch --exit-with-session start-lumina-desktop' >> ~/.xinitrc