Why does Qubes with XFCE use Gnome programs?

[Defiant]

Hello.

I've a question about the Qubes default desktop setup. Basically, the
latest Qubes is running XFCE desktop environment, but I've noticed
certain default programs are actually from Gnome. I find those
particularly difficult to use.

I was wondering why not use the XFCE equivalents of these programs
instead? For example, Qubes uses Nautilus (gnome files) as the default
file manager, but there is an existing XFCE file manager called Thunar
available. The other example I found is the current default text editor.

Would it be a good idea to replace these with XFCE equivalents?

I did a quick test installing Thunar and it seemed to work fine.
Although one thing I noticed is that certain functions like the "Open in
disposable VM" in right-click menus were missing.

[shroobi]

> I've a question about the Qubes default desktop setup. Basically, the
> latest Qubes is running XFCE desktop environment, but I've noticed
> certain default programs are actually from Gnome.
>

Dom0 uses xfce but the templates use Gnome.

> I did a quick test installing Thunar and it seemed to work fine.
> Although one thing I noticed is that certain functions like the "Open in
> disposable VM" in right-click menus were missing.
>

install qubes-core-agent-thunar

[qtpie]

Defiant:

This is because of the separation between dom0 and domU. dom0 is created
by the Qubes team and they chose XFCE as a window manager. Apps like
thunar and nautilus run in a domU, based on a template that you control.
There is no official Fedora flavour with XFCE and the default one uses
GNOME so that is why you get XFCE with GNOME apps. But since you manage
it, and you already started to do this, you can easily XFCEify your
fedora template by installing the XFCE apps and changing the shortcuts
in the Qubes start menu.

[trueriver]

Hi Defiant

Slightly off topic but this might be useful for you.

In my view, and this is purely personal, there is a slightly more coherent feel to working under Debian templates anyway. In part that is because even the full Debian template is less filled out than the fedora one, so that forces you to be in more control of what software the template contains. So my suggestion would be to go over to Debian, including thunar as the file manager. As shroobi says, to get the qubes-specific exensions you need to install the relevant .deb in the Debian template.

Note also that the full Debian template, out of the box, does not support sys-net -firewall -usb. If you want to do that, then add the packages suggested in the docs that the Debian minimal template needs to support those VMs. Some of the packages are already installed, but apt is clever enough to tell you and skip over those, so its easier to "install" the lot than figure out which ones are missing.

[unman]

This isnt (shouldnt be true). You should be able to just drop in a Debian qube to fill
all these roles, bar any necessary firmware. What packages are missing?

[shroobi]

> > I've a question about the Qubes default desktop setup. Basically, the
> > latest Qubes is running XFCE desktop environment, but I've noticed
> > certain default programs are actually from Gnome.
> >
> Dom0 uses xfce but the templates use Gnome.

Qubes offers a fedora xfce template. Whonix-15 also uses xfce.

$ sudo qubes-dom0-update qubes-template-fedora-30-xfce

[Defiant]

> Dom0 uses xfce but the templates use Gnome.
>> I did a quick test installing Thunar and it seemed to work fine.
>> Although one thing I noticed is that certain functions like the "Open in
>> disposable VM" in right-click menus were missing.
>>
> install qubes-core-agent-thunar
>

Yo, can someone confirm whether this works on a debian-10 template? On
my system (fully updated 4.0.x) installing qubes-core-agent-thunar did
nothing noticable.

I had to manually run this line for the changes to take effect:
sed -i '$e cat /usr/lib/qubes/uca_qubes.xml'
/home/user/.config/Thunar/uca.xml