Moving to Qubes as a Daily Driver - Need Help with Desktop Environment

User Support General
1

Hi all,

I’ve been experimenting with Qubes OS on and off for a little while now whenever I have spare time. I’d really like to try using Qubes as my daily driver, but I’ve run into a few workflow challenges that I need help resolving.

For context, I’m coming from a stock Fedora setup, which uses the GNOME desktop environment. There are two key features I rely on in GNOME, and I’m trying to find the best way to replicate them in Qubes with XFCE:

  1. Sending Windows to Another Screen
    In GNOME, I can use (SUPER + SHIFT + ARROW KEY) to send an app window to a different monitor. XFCE allows me to resize windows with (SUPER + ARROW KEY), but I haven’t found a native shortcut for moving windows to other screens.
  2. Application Search
    In GNOME, pressing the SUPER key allows me to start typing to search for applications quickly.

Potential Solutions:

I have a few ideas and would appreciate feedback:

  • XFCE:
    I’ve found a potential solution for multi-monitor window management using scripts: XFCE send window to other monitor on keystroke.
    Also, would installing Rofi in XFCE be a good approach to replicate the application search functionality, or would it cause issues in XFCE?
  • KDE:
    KDE seems to handle both multi-monitor support and application search fairly well out of the box. However, I’m not a huge fan of the default KDE aesthetic.
  • i3:
    I’ve also been considering using i3 with a custom setup (like Polybar and Rofi), but I’m not sure if this would be the best fit for Qubes in terms of usability and integration. Also ive been curious to try out a window manager based DE for a while now, using i3 obviously handles the window management differently.

Questions:

  • How does your setup/desktop environment/workflow work in Qubes?
  • If I switch to KDE or i3, will I lose any Qubes-specific menus or functionality? From what I understand, some graphical menus in Qubes are developed specifically for XFCE.
  • Based on my needs, what approach would you recommend I pursue?

Thanks in advance for any insights or advice!

1 Like
2

I’m using XFCE, xdotool + wmcrtl from key bound shell scripts is the only solution I’ve found that works for me.

It does require some work, but it gives you a lot of freedom to make the desktop do what you want.

2 Likes
3

Switching from xfce to kde has been a revelation for me. I like how I can easily customize, bring up search, add widgets, create a keyboard shortcut. In xfce I always have to poke around to find the relevant setting. You say you don’t like the aesthetics… is that not fixable with customization?

4

Very true, I tried it a long time ago, I’m commenting on how it appears out of the box.

  • Are there any Qubes specific menus that arent compatible with KDE?
  • Do windows still have the border color as they do in XFCE?
5

Did you try: upper left; Blue Q,
drop down menu to gear.
go over, “Qubes Template Manager” After it starts, can take awhile.

Choose Template Fedora 40.

Base some Qubes on Template Fedora 40. ??

Perhaps some more knowledgeable folks, than myself, can tell me about the limitations of doing this? (Uses too much RAM?)

Hope you can advise.

6
  • All the menus are there. Only thing is the default qubes menu button can’t be added back if you accidentally delete it (or I’ve never been able to find it in the options). There are more menu and alternate widgets in kde vs xfce.

A few of the status icons are buggy in appearance in kde. Eg. The internet/firewall one is blank but still usable

  • Yes, the border colors are there
7

this one is tricky, the Qubes OS launcher menu is a program that is run when you press the button, it’s actually not a XFCE widget! :smiley:

The command to run the menu is the following.

gdbus call --session --dest org.qubesos.appmenu --object-path "/org/qubesos/appmenu" --method org.freedesktop.Application.Activate "{}"

Note that this make it easy to get the menu from a keybinding.

1 Like
8

Fascinating, I had no idea !

Now I can get it back on my second desktop I oops deleted on. Thanks.

9

How can I switch to KDE?

10

In dom0 terminal

qubes-dom0-update kde-settings-qubes

Then switch in drop-down on login screen

11

Any Security problems from using KDE?

Meaning, I did not know if XFCE was chosen for;
limited RAM?
or for some Security reason?
Or some kind off modification available for XFCE?

12

Xfce was chosen somewhat for its lighter resource usage but I doubt most modern computers register the difference. Before the switch to xfce, kde was the default. Some doubt the switch to xfce was necessary

I don’t know of any security downside to kde.

1 Like
13

So I can switch at any time back to xfce and taskbar shortcuts are still there?

14

You can switch anytime. I don’t know about taskbar shortcuts, I don’t use them or xfce anymore. When I used to check, xfce stayed the same

15

I cannot see any possibility to change Desktop Environment on Login Screen after running the command (and reboot of course)…

Edit:

Activated sddm according to:

Now I can change between KDE and XFCE but my first experience with KDE was not so good, had to figure out how to logout (you have to right click your desktop for this and other things)… Also there is a white Document Icon in the taskbar which shows a warning that the folder does not exist… And Qubes App Starter ran exactly once, after closing and running it again it presents a empty Window… Seems like KDE is powerful but you have to figure things out first… XFCE was way more intuitiv for me… Good thing is I could switch back to XFCE and everything was like before (except login of course), so I can start slowly with KDE and figure out how things work…

1 Like
16

I never installed ssdm. On the login page (2nd password entry) there is a drop-down box/icon at the top right area.

For shutting down I use the qubes menu button or add a widget for log out /shutdown

You can add a qubes widget.

I use alt spacebar a lot to bring up settings and launch qubes appvms

I also appreciate the ease in which I can right click on desktop and edit the appearance, default size, location of dock etc

17

I have been using Xfce with Xfwm replaced by i3wm. It’s the best of both worlds, because you get all the default Qubes behavior of Xfce, along with the customizability and window tiling of i3.

I’ve got some notes on setup and my i3 config on my github: FrameworkHardware/QubesOS/i3 at main · andyleitermann/FrameworkHardware · GitHub

i3 makes a lot of the workflow issues you’ve mentioned pretty trivial to resolve, I highly recommend it.

1 Like
18

Thanks Andy, I’ll give this a try.

1 Like
19

Feel free to DM me if you have any issues, happy to help!

20

Trying i3 but not sure if I’m doing right…

Installed according to Docs… As I tried KDE before I’m using SDDM currenty instead of LightDM… When selecting XFCE there i3 doesn’t seem to work, still looks like XFCE… When selecting i3 and logging in I can still see the login screen (but not functional) and a thin bar at the bottom with some system info and status icons, I guess from i3… But from there I cannot do much, not even logout or shutdown…