Portal:MicroOS/Desktop
openSUSE MicroOS Desktop
openSUSE MicroOS is designed to do one thing, why not let that one thing be the desktop?
!! openSUSE MicroOS for Desktop usage is still in a Beta (GNOME) or Alpha (KDE Plasma) stage, please keep that in mind.
How to use it
- Download the openSUSE Tumbleweed base ISO image from https://en.opensuse.org/Portal:MicroOS/Downloads
- Write the ISO on a USB drive and start the installation process.
- Select GNOME or KDE Plasma as desktop environment.
Ways to install applications
You can install applications in several ways (in order of suggested preference):
- flatpaks from flathub -- the preferred solution
- RPM's in a user toolbox toolbox -u
- RPM's in a root toolbox toolbox
- RPM's via a package manager
Package manager options
openSUSE MicroOS does _not_ use zypper like openSUSE Tumbleweed or openSUSE Leap to install RPM packages and use them directly. openSUSE MicroOS has the following package managers available:
- transactional-update with zypper the default
- Packagekit + tukit the desired default, using pkcon and tukit, but is currently not feature complete
- microdnf an experimental package manager based on dnf
The reason for changing package managers _for the Desktop_ is because pkcon gives the opportunity to use Gnome Software or Discover for KDE as an installer of RPM's. And currently we are working on the ability to let Gnome Software and Discover perform system upgrades.
Transactional-update -- default
commands for transactional-update are (reboot after the command is finished, to see the changes):
- sudo transactional-update pkg install package_name install a rpm package
- sudo transactional-update dup perform a system upgrade to the next release
- sudo transactional-update shell open a shell of the next snapshot (you can use zypper commands there)
Packagekit + tukit -- aspirational default - currently not reliable enough
commands for Packagekit and tukit (reboot after the command is finished, to see the changes):
- pkcon install package_name install a rpm package
- pkcon upgrade-system perform a system upgrade to the next release
- sudo tukit execute bash open a shell of the next snapshot (you can use zypper commands there)
Microdnf
commands for microdnf (reboot after the command is finished, to see the changes):
- microdnf install package_name install a rpm package
- microdnf upgrade perform a system upgrade to the next release
Installation: GNOME
Gnome is currently in a beta stage.
At first boot flatpaks are enabled and some flatpaks are installed by default (Mozilla Firefox, Text Editor, Gnome Calculator and Extension Manager).
After the first boot script finishes you can open Gnome Software to install more software.
Installation: KDE
KDE is currently in an alpha stage.
- In Discover, enable the flatpak repository and install a browser of your choosing or type the following command in a terminal to enable flatpak for the user: flatpak remote-add --user --if-not-exists flathub https://flathub.org/repo/flathub.flatpakrepo
- For theming, normal theme installations don’t work in KDE Plasma.
Toolbox - GUI applications setup
Toolbox doesn't always work out of the box for all applications, for example for GUI applications you might need to take additional steps.
First try to install your package in the toolbox with the --recommends flag for zypper via sudo zypper install --recommends <package_name>, if that does not work, use the the following commands:
- toolbox enter
- sudo zypper ref && sudo zypper dup
- sudo zypper install adwaita-icon-theme xorg-x11-fonts libX11-xcb1 gsettings-desktop-schemas gdk-pixbuf-query-loaders
- sudo gdk-pixbuf-query-loaders-64 --update-cache
- sudo zypper install <package_name>
Desktop entries
To launch an application installed in a toolbox you can use toolbox run followed by the name of the application. To take this a step further, and have better, more integrated way of launching applications you can also create .desktop files. This way you can start applications installed in a toolbox container with ease from the Gnome Application launcher. To create a .desktop file for example to start Microsoft Edge you would need the following content in your .desktop file and save it under $HOME/.local/share/applications/toolbox-edge.desktop (it has to have the .desktop extension):
[Desktop Entry] Type=Application Name=Edge ##This value will be used by Gnome to show the icon by Exec=toolbox run microsoft-edge-dev ## Define the application you want to run Icon=$HOME/.local/share/icons/Papirus-Black-Dark/48x48/apps/microsoft-edge-dev.svg ##Define the icon to be used Terminal=false ##For testing purposes you can set this to true to see what is happening during the launch
This example uses the microsoft-edge-dev.svg from the Papirus icon theme, but you could set any icon here you want. To find icons you can use the following command:
$ find $HOME/.local -regex ".*\.\(svg\|png\|xpm\|gif\|ico\)$"
Place for questions
As openSUSE MicroOS desktop is a seperate part of the openSUSE MicroOS distro it also has seperate places to discuss the desktop.
- Telegram: https://t.me/openSUSE_MicroOS_Desktop
- Matrix: https://matrix.to/#/#microos-desktop:opensuse.org
- Discord: https://discord.gg/opensuse #MicroOS-Desktop channel
All these channels are bridged together via Matrix, so sending your comments in one, will be seen in the other two.