Workstation

Now that server deployments are done, the administrators can focus on installing the individual workstations and creating a typical configuration.

Configuring the X11 Server

XFree86

X.org

X.org

X11

X.org

interface

graphical

A brief reminder: X.org is the software component that allows graphical applications to display windows on screen. It includes a driver that makes efficient use of the video card. The features offered to the graphical applications are exported through a standard interface, X11 (Bookworm contains version X11R7.7).

Current versions of X.org are able to auto-detect the available hardware: this applies to the video card and the monitor, as well as keyboards and mice; in fact, it is so convenient that the package no longer even creates a /etc/X11/xorg.conf configuration file.

/etc

/etc/X11/

X.org

resolution

The keyboard configuration is currently set up in /etc/default/keyboard. This file is used both to configure the text console and the graphical interface, and it is handled by the keyboard-configuration package. Details on configuring the keyboard layout are available in ???.

/etc

/etc/default/keyboard

The xserver-xorg-core package provides a generic X server, as used by the 7.x versions of X.org. This server is modular and uses a set of independent drivers to handle the many different kinds of video cards. Installing xserver-xorg ensures that both the server and at least one video driver are installed.

server

X

Note that if the detected video card is not handled by any of the available drivers, X.org tries using the vesa and fbdev drivers. VESA is a generic driver that should work everywhere, but with limited capabilities (fewer available resolutions, no hardware acceleration for games and visual effects for the desktop, and so on) while fbdev works on top of the kernel's framebuffer device. Nowadays the X server can run without any administrative privileges (this used to be required to be able to configure the screen) and its log file is then stored in the user's home directory in ~/.local/share/xorg/Xorg.0.log, whereas it is /var/log/Xorg.0.log for X servers started with root privileges and for versions older than Debian 9 Stretch. That log file is where one would look to know what driver is currently in use. For example, the following snippet matches what the intel driver outputs when it is loaded:

VESA

X.org

fbdev

X.org

vesa

fbdev

vesa

X.org

Xorg.0.log

Xorg.0.log

(==) Matched nouveau as autoconfigured driver 0
(==) Matched modesetting as autoconfigured driver 1
(==) Matched fbdev as autoconfigured driver 2
(==) Matched vesa as autoconfigured driver 3
(==) Assigned the driver to the xf86ConfigLayout
(II) LoadModule: "intel"
(II) Loading /usr/lib/xorg/modules/drivers/intel_drv.so
(II) Module intel: vendor="X.Org Foundation"

video card

Customizing the Graphical Interface

Choosing a Display Manager

manager

display manager

display manager

gdm3

display manager

sddm

display manager

xdm

display manager

lightdm

display manager

x-display-manager

gdm3

sddm

xdm

lightdm

x-display-manager

The graphical interface only provides display space. Running the X server by itself only leads to an empty screen, which is why most installations use a display manager to display a user authentication screen and start the graphical desktop once the user has authenticated. The three most popular display managers in current use are gdm3 (GNOME Display Manager), sddm ( Simple Desktop Display Manager, suggested for KDE Plasma) and lightdm (Light Display Manager). More alternatives exist and can be found by searching for the x-display-manager virtual package.

Since the Falcot Corp administrators have opted to use the GNOME desktop environment, they logically picked gdm3 as a display manager too. The /etc/gdm3/daemon.conf configuration file has many options (the list can be found in the /usr/share/gdm/gdm.schemas schema file) to control its behavior while /etc/gdm3/greeter.dconf-defaults contains settings for the greeter “session” (more than just a login window, it is a limited desktop with power management and accessibility related tools). Note that some of the most useful settings for end-users can be tweaked with GNOME's control center.

/etc

/etc/gdm3/daemon.conf

/etc

/etc/gdm3/greeter.dconf-defaults

Choosing a Window Manager

manager

window manager

window manager

x-window-manager

window manager

mutter

window manager

kwin

window manager

xfwm

window manager

openbox

Since each graphical desktop provides its own window manager, which window manager you choose is usually influenced by which desktop you have selected. GNOME uses the mutter window manager, Plasma uses kwin, and Xfce (which we present later) has xfwm. The Unix philosophy always allows using one's window manager of choice, but following the recommendations allows an administrator to best take advantage of the integration efforts led by each project.

mutter

kwin

xfwm

openbox

Older computers may, however, have a hard time running heavyweight graphical desktop environments. In these cases, a lighter alternative (search for the x-window-manager virtual package) should be used. “Light” (or small footprint) window managers include WindowMaker (in the wmaker package), afterstep, icewm, blackbox, fluxbox, or openbox. In these cases, the system should be configured so that the appropriate window manager gets precedence; the standard way is to change the x-window-manager alternative with the command update-alternatives --config x-window-manager.

window manager

wmaker

window manager

afterstep

window manager

blackbox

window manager

icewm

window manager

fluxbox

window manager

openbox

window manager

x-window-manager

WindowMaker

afterstep

blackbox

icewm

fluxbox

openbox

x-window-manager

Menu Management

menu

update-menus

.desktop

Modern desktop environments and many window managers provide menus listing the available applications for the user. In order to keep menus up-to-date in relation to the actual set of available applications, each package usually provides a .desktop file in /usr/share/applications. The format of those files has been standardized by FreeDesktop.org:

The applications menus can be further customized by administrators through system-wide configuration files as described by the “Desktop Menu Specification”. End-users can also customize the menus with graphical tools such as kmenuedit (in Plasma), alacarte (in GNOME) or menulibre.

Graphical Desktops

The free graphical desktop field is dominated by two large software collections: GNOME and Plasma by KDE. Both of them are very popular.

graphical desktop

GNOME

KDE

GTK+

Qt

This diversity is rooted in history. Plasma (initially only KDE, which is now the name of the community) was the first graphical desktop project, but it chose the Qt graphical toolkit and that choice wasn't acceptable for a large number of developers. Qt was not free software at the time, and GNOME was started based on the GTK+ toolkit. Qt has since become free software, but the projects still evolved in parallel.

The GNOME and KDE communities still work together: under the FreeDesktop.org umbrella, the projects collaborated in defining standards for interoperability across applications.

FreeDesktop.org

Choosing “the best” graphical desktop is a sensitive topic which we prefer to steer clear of. We will merely describe the many possibilities and give a few pointers for further thoughts. The best choice will be the one you make after some experimentation.

GNOME

Debian Bookworm includes GNOME version 43, which can be installed by a simple apt install gnome (it can also be installed by selecting the “Debian desktop environment” task - task-desktop and task-gnome-desktop).

GNOME is noteworthy for its efforts in usability and accessibility. Design professionals have been involved in writing its standards and recommendations, which has helped developers to create satisfying graphical user interfaces. The project also gets encouragement from the big players of computing, such as Intel, IBM, Oracle, Novell, and of course, various Linux distributions. Finally, many programming languages can be used in developing applications interfacing to GNOME.

For administrators, GNOME seems to be better prepared for massive deployments. Application configuration is handled through the GSettings interface and stores its data in the DConf database. The configuration settings can thus be queried and edited with the gsettings, and dconf command-line tools, or by the dconf-editor graphical user interfaces. The administrator can therefore change users' configuration with a simple script. The GNOME website provides information to guide administrators who manage GNOME workstations:

gsettings

dconf

dconf-editor

KDE and Plasma

Debian Bookworm includes version 5.27 of KDE Plasma, which can be installed with apt install kde-standard (task-kde-desktop).

Plasma has had a rapid evolution based on a very hands-on approach. Its authors quickly got very good results, which allowed them to grow a large user-base. These factors contributed to the overall project quality. Plasma is a mature desktop environment with a wide range of applications.

Since the Qt 4.0 release, the last remaining license problem with KDE software has been solved. This version was released under the GPL both for Linux and Windows (the Windows version was previously released under a non-free license). KDE applications are primarily developed using the C++ language.

Xfce and Others

Xfce is a simple and lightweight graphical desktop, which is a perfect match for computers with limited resources. It can be installed with apt install xfce4 (task-xfce-desktop). Like GNOME, Xfce is based on the GTK+ toolkit, and several components are common across both desktops.

Xfce

Unlike GNOME and Plasma, Xfce does not aim to become a vast project. Beyond the basic components of a modern desktop (file manager, window manager, session manager, a panel for application launchers and so on), it only provides a few specific applications: a terminal, a calendar (orage), an image viewer, a CD/DVD burning tool, a media player (parole), sound volume control and a text editor (mousepad).

Other Desktop Environments

LXDE and LXQt are two desktop environments focusing on the “lightweight” aspect. The former is GTK+ based while the latter is Qt based. They can be installed with the lxde (task-lxde-desktop), and lxqt (task-lxqt-desktop) metapackages.

LXDE

LXQt

Cinnamon and MATE both started when GNOME 3 moved away from the traditional desktop paradigm, dropping the usual panel and its menu in favor of the new search-based shell. The former reintroduced a panel by forking GNOME Shell and the latter is a continuation of GNOME 2. They can be installed with the cinnamon-desktop-environment (task-cinnamon-desktop) and mate-desktop-environment (task-mate-desktop) meta-packages.

Cinnamon

MATE

Email

email

software

Evolution

Evolution

email

Evolution is the GNOME email client and can be installed with apt install evolution. It is more than a simple email client: it also provides a calendar, an address book, a task list, and a memo (free-form note) application. Its email component includes a powerful message indexing system, and allows for the creation of virtual folders based on search queries on all archived messages. In other words, all messages are stored the same way but displayed in a folder-based organization, each folder containing messages that match a set of filtering criteria.

An extension to Evolution allows integration with a Microsoft Exchange email system; the required package is evolution-ews.

KMail

KMail

email

The KDE email software can be installed with apt install kmail. KMail only handles email, but it belongs to a software suite called KDE-PIM (for Personal Information Manager) that includes features such as address books, a calendar component, and so on. KMail has all the features one would expect from an excellent email client.

Thunderbird

email

Thunderbird, Mozilla

Mozilla

Thunderbird

The thunderbird package provides the email client from the Mozilla software suite. Various localization sets are available in thunderbird-l10n-* packages; the enigmail extension handles message encrypting and signing, but it is not available in all languages.

Web Browsers

Web browser

browser, Web

Epiphany, the web browser in the GNOME suite, uses the WebKit display engine developed by Apple for its Safari browser. The relevant package is epiphany-browser.

WebKit

Epiphany

browser, Web

Konqueror, available in the konqueror package, is KDE's web browser (but can also assume the role of a file manager). It uses the KDE-specific KHTML rendering engine; KHTML is an excellent engine, as witnessed by the fact that Apple's WebKit is based on KHTML. KDE also has a newer browser called Falkon, available in the falkon package. It uses the QtWebEngine.

Falkon

Konqueror

browser, Web

Users not satisfied by any of the above can use Firefox. This browser, available in the firefox-esr package, uses the Mozilla project's Gecko renderer, with a thin and extensible interface on top.

Gecko

Mozilla

Firefox

Firefox, Mozilla

browser, Web

Last but not least, Debian also contains the Chromium web browser (available in the chromium package). This browser is developed by Google and has become the most popular browser in just a few years. Its clear purpose is to make web services more attractive, both by optimizing the browser for performance and by increasing the user's security. The free code that powers Chromium is also used by its proprietary version called Google Chrome.

browser, Web

Development

Tools for GTK+ on GNOME

Anjuta (in the anjuta package) and GNOME Builder (in the gnome-builder package) are Integrated Development Environments (IDE) optimized for creating GTK+ applications for GNOME. Glade (in the glade package) is an application designed to create GTK+ graphical interfaces for GNOME and save them in an XML file. These XML files can then be loaded by the GTK+ shared library through its GtkBuilder component to recreate the saved interfaces; such a feature can be interesting, for instance for plugins that require dialogs.

Anjuta

Builder, GNOME Builder

Glade

Tools for Qt

The equivalent applications for Qt are KDevelop by KDE (in the kdevelop package) for the development environment, and Qt Designer (in the qttools5-dev-tools package) for the design of graphical interfaces for Qt applications.

KDevelop is also a generic IDE and provides plugins for other languages like Python and PHP and different build systems.

KDevelop

Qt

Designer

Office Suites

office suite

suite, office

Office software has long been seen as lacking in the free software world. Users require replacements for Microsoft tools such as Word and Excel, but these are so complex that replacements were hard to develop. The situation changed when Sun released the StarOffice code under a free license as OpenOffice, a project which later gave birth to LibreOffice, which is available on Debian. The KDE project also has its own office suite, called Calligra Suite (previously KOffice), and GNOME, while never offering a comprehensive office suite, provides AbiWord as a word processor and Gnumeric as a spreadsheet. The various projects each have their strengths. For instance, the Gnumeric spreadsheet is better than OpenOffice.org/LibreOffice in some domains, notably the precision of its calculations. On the word processing front, the LibreOffice suite still leads the way.

OpenOffice.org

StarOffice

LibreOffice

GNOME Office

Calligra Suite

Gnumeric

Another important feature for users is the ability to import Microsoft Office documents. Even though all office suites have this feature, only OpenOffice.org and LibreOffice are functional enough for daily use.

Word, Microsoft

Excel, Microsoft

Microsoft

Word

Microsoft

Excel

LibreOffice and Calligra Suite are available in the libreoffice and calligra Debian packages, respectively.

Language-specific packs for LibreOffice are distributed in separate packages, most notably libreoffice-l10n-* and libreoffice-help-*. Some features such as spelling dictionaries, hyphenation patterns and thesauri are in separate packages, such as myspell-*, hunspell-*, hyphen-* and mythes-*.

office suite

office suite

Emulating Windows: Wine

Emulating Windows

Windows, emulation

In spite of all the previously mentioned efforts, there are still a number of tools without a Linux equivalent, or for which the original version is absolutely required. This is where Windows emulation systems come in handy. The most well-known among them is Wine.

However, one should keep in mind that it is only a solution among others, and the problem can also be tackled with a virtual machine or VNC; both of these solutions are detailed in the sidebars sidebar_title and sidebar_title.

Let us start with a reminder: emulation allows executing a program (developed for a target system) on a different host system. The emulation software uses the host system, where the application runs, to imitate the required features of the target system.

Wine

Now let's install the required packages (ttf-mscorefonts-installer is in the contrib section):

# apt install wine ttf-mscorefonts-installer

winecfg

On a 64 bit (amd64) system, if your Windows applications are 32 bit applications, then you will have to enable multi-arch to be able to install wine32 from the i386 architecture (see ???).

The user then needs to run winecfg and configure which (Debian) locations are mapped to which (Windows) drives. winecfg has some sane defaults and can auto-detect some more drives; note that even if you have a dual-boot system, you should not point the C: drive at where the Windows partition is mounted in Debian, as Wine is likely to overwrite some of the data on that partition, making Windows unusable. Other settings can be kept to their default values. To run Windows programs, you will first need to install them by running their (Windows) installer under Wine, with a command such as wine .../setup.exe; once the program is installed, you can run it with wine .../program.exe. The exact location of the program.exe file depends on where the C: drive is mapped; in many cases, however, simply running wine program will work, since the program is usually installed in a location where Wine will look for it by itself.

Note that you should not rely on Wine (or similar solutions) without actually testing the particular software: only a real-use test will determine conclusively whether emulation is fully functional.

Real-Time Communications software

Real-Time Communication

RTC

RTC

Debian provides a wide range of Real-Time Communications (RTC) client software. The setup of RTC servers is discussed in ???. In SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) terminology, a client application or device is also referred to as a user agent.

User agent (SIP)

SIP

user agent

Each client application varies in functionality. Some applications are more convenient for intensive chat users while other applications are more stable for webcam users. It may be necessary to test several applications to identify those which are most satisfactory. A user may finally decide that they need more than one application, for example, an XMPP application for messaging with customers and an IRC application for collaboration with some online communities.

To maximize the ability of users to communicate with the wider world, it is recommended to configure both SIP and XMPP clients or a single client that supports both protocols.

SIP

XMPP

IM

Telepathy

The KDE project provides KDE Telepathy, a communications client. Popular alternatives include Linphone, Psi, Jitsi and Jami (formerly known as Ring).

Linphone

Psi

Jami (soft-phone)

Jitsi

Jitsi requires no client other than a web browser. It supports encrypted calls, and there is a huge list of public instances. There is no official Debian package for Jitsi, but it can be downloaded from their official website.

Some of these applications can also interact with mobile users using apps such as Lumicall on Android.

Lumicall

The Real-Time Communications Quick Start Guide has a chapter dedicated to client software.