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• Anonymize Other Operating Systems
• Other Desktop Environments

How to use Other Desktop Environments other than Xfce with Whonix. Current situation. Risks. Future. (GNOME, KDE, LXDE, MATE, ...)

Current Situation

The Downloadable Whonix versions are available with either:

• Xfce desktop environment; OR
• CLI text terminal only (no desktop environment).

However, other desktop environments like GNOME, KDE, LXDE and so on can be manually installed.

Risks

When installing your own desktop environment such as GNOME, you're on your own. If you are going that path, start with Whonix CLI, the text terminal only version of Whonix, which comes without a desktop environment installed by default, and install a desktop environment of your choice there. This is much better than starting with Whonix Xfce and then uninstalling Xfce to install another desktop environment.

Other desktop environments install other background services. The Whonix project hasn't researched the security/privacy implications of having these installed. For example, GNOME automatically installs GeoClue. (systemcheck warns if that very package is installed, but still... Other desktop environments also ship a different selection of default applications that have not necessarily been checked for security/privacy. Installing your own desktop environment may result in installing software packages not well hardened or chosen based on security wise.

Future

Since Whonix is an Open Source / Freedom Software project, Whonix developers are hoping that other developers join the project and maintain other desktop environments. That someone could be you?

See Also

• Whonix Debian Packages, which ones are safe to remove?

Footnotes

Whonix The most watertight privacy operating system in the world.

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