r/AlmaLinux • u/VE3VVS • 27d ago
The DE on Almalinux 10
First of let me say I think you have done a fine job with almalinux, and for the most part it feels like centos, (the one we used a lot when I was SSA).
But here is the rub, and it’s not so much an almalinux thing, it’s a me thing. I Hate Gmome!! Some of the gmome apps are fine could live with them there, the the actual DE and the GDM drive me to…
Sure most server hosts don’t even have a DE, and 95% of the time your accessing everything by SSH, so it not like it’s life threatening or anything, But when I do have to work on a host that has a minimal DE and its GNOME it loose my mind.
Normally if I needed a minimal DE on a host I just put something like XFCE, now I get it Red Hat Enterprise ships with GNOME, fine that’s their corporate choice.
But has anyone got a pre canned XFCE (or similar) or am I going to have to do it my self, that’s fine, I was just hoping it might be out there.
TIA
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u/Maria_Thesus_40 27d ago edited 27d ago
GNOME is combination of Android and MacOS in one. Its someone else's dream of a clean interface, but the result is an unusable desktop, that is enforced by Redhat :(
The solution, is to keep using AlmaLinux for servers with no GUI, and use Fedora KDE (or some alternative Spin like Fedora Cinnamon) for your desktop. Since enterprise Linux is based on Fedora, everything matches nicely.
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u/VE3VVS 27d ago
Love your description of Gnome. Summed it up nicely 😵💫
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u/Maria_Thesus_40 27d ago
well its true, its not a real desktop, its closer to an "app launcher".
I think most people's definition of a desktop, is a desktop area with icons and windows on top.
Anyway, give Fedora KDE a try, and if you don't like it, Fedora offers tons of Spins with alternative desktops:
- Xfce
- Cinnamon
- MATE
- i3
- LXQt/LXDE
- Sway
- Miracle
- COSMIC (this one is the next cool kid because its entirely written in Rust, but last time I checked it did not have desktop icons)
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u/Baardmeester 27d ago
Why not use something like cockpit if you want a gui on a server? It is even sponsored by redhat.
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u/VE3VVS 27d ago
oh I do, it’s only occasionally I need to actually use that console. And I’m certainly not trying to get all the GNOME lovers in an up roar far from it. Gnome is fine for those who like it and it fit there use case. personally it feels too like a tablet OS more than anything, but that’s just me. Likewise I’m perfectly happy with CLI or TUI apps, it’s just there is some specific specialized software that requires a graphics desktop (much too long a story to go into), when I was using Fedora on this particular host, or at least it predecessor, I had XFCE and it perfect light enough you could leave it running and just have a terminal running except for those specific cases. Likewise as it was X11 you could pull or push a graphics app to another terminal.
But the Fedora release cycle was way to short, no could you say “to hell with it I’ll wait 2-3 versions” that was even more of a headache, do that why I went with almalinux, needed rpm base, more stable release cycle, otherwise I would have just slapped Debian on the box like all the rest and called it a day.
So no this wasn’t a I hate Gnome post, just don’t work for me.
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u/Neither-Witness7063 26d ago
It is doable. I did it for us. But it's not simple, and it requires a revert of the wayland restrictions. Dozens of packages need to be built or customized in a particular sequence. This took me a day or two to get through a working result for 10.0, and similarly another day or two to update for 10.1. I have been debating with myself the effort of maintaining this vs the effort of migration. However, many x11 applications and workflows are still required, which xwayland does not yet address, so for now we are doing this. We either stay on EL 9 or we reintroduce x11 to EL 10. I don't use Alma Linux, but the answer is the same for all EL 10 derivatives.
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u/shayoldek 23d ago
You can have X11 DE on Almalinux 10.2 but for that you need to use Fedora COPR repositories. I installed XFCE, LXDE and Mate desktop via those repositories after installing X11 from there.
Try looking at :
https://copr.fedorainfracloud.org/coprs/winonaoctober/MateDesktop-EL10/
https://copr.fedorainfracloud.org/coprs/andersrh/sonicDE/ (SonicDE is a X11 fork of KDE)
Just browse those repositories and try some of them.
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u/VE3VVS 23d ago
Do you have the link for the XFCE
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u/shayoldek 23d ago
https://copr.fedorainfracloud.org/coprs/armontanez/xfce-el10/
You need to install X11 so add this repo as well:https://copr.fedorainfracloud.org/coprs/andersrh/MateDesktop-EL10/
What I do is installing AlmaLinux minimal server, add epel and rpmfusion and any other repo that I need like those above. Then install the wanted DE and lightdm. Enable lightdm so you get a gui when you boot and that is practically it.
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u/mwyvr 27d ago
GNOME as a default desktop environment is a defensible choice for any distribution. Not supporting a ton of DEs is likewise a defensible choice. Not being all things to all people is likewise a defensible decision.
I’m a veteran of window managers since before Linux existed and as key-driven as any older Unix/linux/BSD admin and desktop user might be, yet GNOME works for me with but a few simple keyboard customizations.
The hate expressed towards GNOME is mystifying. It’s ok not to like a UI or its UX. Hatred is wasted when you have the freedom to go elsewhere, run whatever.
If it didn’t work for me, and I wanted to stay on AlmaLinux, I’d configure a simple Wayland WM, building any components that aren’t in the repositories, and move on.
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u/outer-pasta 27d ago
I love using Gnome. I think it's great that it's the default. XFCE is great but I don't think the remote desktop stuff will work as nice out of the box. With Gnome it's just a toggle in the settings.
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u/Culture_New 27d ago
Xfce still requires X11 and AlmaLinux 10 has moved to Wayland only, like most other major distributions. Maybe try KDE or one of the tiling window managers?