wimpysworld/desktopify

Convert Ubuntu Server for Raspberry Pi into a Desktop

desktopify's Issues

No Youtube Video (after today's update)

Sorry if this is the wrong place to report this, but I was so happy with using Ubuntu Mate with my RPI4 since a couple of weeks ago as my main desktop computer, but today after applying the updates suggested by the Software Updater now I dont have Youtube video in either Firefox or Chromium. A message pops up in the video window: "If playback doesn't begin shortly, try restarting your device".

LUbuntu User and Group Settings

Install desktopify with the lubuntu option. Gui desktop comes up. Using account 'ubuntu' which has sudo rights. Run 'users groups and settings' to add a group to user ubuntu. Add group to user and am prompted for password. Enter password. Get error 'lxqt-admin-user usermod failed error executing as another user ....'. I can run 'sudo usermod' from a command window with no problem. How do I get the gui configuration center to work?

******* Pilot error. Issue resolved. Ignore / delete post **************

Refuse issue

If I run the command "git clone https://github.com/wimpysworld/desktopify.git" there comes the error
"Cloning into 'desktopify'...
fatal: unable to access 'https:// ... ': Failed to connect to github.com port 443: Connection refused"
I'm connected with LAN
I'm from Germany, but why is Github refusing to connect?
Is it my region?

OEM Mode: Doesn't work with Lubuntu Desktop

I believe this is because of how the Lubuntu stuff has changed but will check with the Lubuntu Team. When you try and enable oem installation mode it just doesn't work. This is probably fixable, but I'll check with the Lubuntu Team first.

64 bit mate hangs on evolution and dep.

i just entered
./desktopify --de ubuntu-mate
on the 64bit ubuntu server image and it hangs on evolution and dependencies.
Because of that it installs nothing.

Please add unity

Please add "ubuntu-unity-desktop" as an option

Allow desktopify to run on 20.10

I've been successfully using desktopify to test Ubuntu Budgie on the Ubuntu Server 20.10 64-bit daily image. Though it does seem to work well, I have to edit the script to allow it to run on groovy. It would be nice to be able to run it "out of the box" on groovy now that 20.10 has reached beta.

cloud-init error when installing kubuntu

This is a great idea! I came across this on the ubuntu podcast. But I'm having trouble getting it to work in installing kubuntu.

This is my first ever bug report... Not a programmer and don't know if I'm doing it right, but I'm trying to be helpful!

Environment: Raspberry Pi 4 (2GB of RAM), Fresh install of 64-bit 20.04 Ubuntu Server

Steps to reproduce: Fresh install Ubuntu Server, apt update, apt upgrade, git clone [desktopify-url], desktopify/desktopify --de kubuntu, reboot

[I get a similar result after the second reboot when using --oem. The first reboot gets me successfully to a config screen; the second reboot has the same error]

Expected result: Kubuntu Desktop

Actual result: gets hung up at Cloud-init and stops booting

Cloud-init v. 20.1-10-g71af48df-0ubuntu5 running 'modules:config' at Sun, 31 May 2020 18:49:40 +0000. Up 27.85 seconds.
Cloud-init v. 20.1-10-g71af48df-0ubuntu5 running 'modules:final' at Sun, 31 May 2020 18:49:40 +0000. Up 29.40 seconds.
Cloud-init v. 20.1-10-g71af48df-0ubuntu5 finished at Sun, 31 May 2020 18:49:40 +0000. DataSource DataSourceNoCloud [seed=/dev/mmcblk0p1][dsmode=net]. Up 29.63 seconds.
Then nothing...

After a hard reset, same result

Attempts to fix:

I don't really understand what Cloud-init does, so I'm pretty much flailing around here, but this is what I've tried

Following this bug, I SSH'd into the stalled system and added After=systemd-tmpfiles-setup-dev.service to /lib/systemd/system/cloud-init-local.service. No luck

Following this, I ssh'd in and did sudo touch /etc/cloud/cloud-init.disabled. After reboot, I get to this point:

udiskss2.service
NetworkManager-wait-online.service
cron.service
whoopsie.service
atd.service
blk-availability.service
systemd-user-sessions.service
[email protected]
and then nothing.

Line 237 fails ShellCheck

desktopify/desktopify

Line 237 in 50b72f9

if [ "$(apt list --installed ${DESKTOP_PACKAGES} 2>/dev/null | grep installed)" ] && [ "${FORCE}" -eq 0 ]; then

Per ShellCheck, this is an invalid implementation - instead you should be using a grep -q instead of an [-n ... ] comparison check.

This breaks all CI tests.

Can you run desktopify multiple times on same raspberry pi?

There is no mention of this in the Readme, but I would like to install multiple Desktop Envs for my pi using Desktopify. Is this possible in the current implementation?

USB Boot

Hi
I just wondered how you are getting on with USB Booting of Desktopify on the Pi
Paul

HDMI0 horizontal shift

First of all, thanks for desktopify. I'm not sure if it is an issue! I have little experience with linux and no experience with the Raspberry Pi 4B (which I use here) or any Rpi!

I used the same setup (Ubuntu Server 20.04.2 LTS 64-bit server OS) as in Wimpys (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umtZuUJOU38) video. Means HDMI0.

Different to Wimpy, I chose Xubuntu. The Xubuntu installation was smooth and worked.
After rebooting, my screen looked like this:

Connection between Pi and monitor is: Pi HDMI0 -> Monitor DVI (one cable, no adapters, monitor has just one DVI input)

I connected the Pi to HDMI1 and rebooted. Everything is fine!!!

Back to HDMI0, I played with the overscan settings in the config, there were changes, but not the way I wanted it. The pink vertikal stripe on the left side would not move.

Since this was my first experience with this brandnew Pi 4B, I thought my hardware has an issue.

Thinking a little longer about the problem, I decided can't be hardware.

Tried "Ubuntu Desktop 20.10 64-bit server OS". HDMI0 and HDMI1 are fine.

Tried "Rasberry Pi OS". HDMI0 and HDMI1 are fine.

So it is definetely not my Pi hardware!

I compared all this config stuff, but couldn't find anything suspectful.

Another try, I did exactly the same as in Wimpys (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umtZuUJOU38) video. Means, using ubuntu instead of xubuntu.

Result: HDMI0 shifted in the same way to the right as above. HDMI1 ok.

I am at my wit's end! Help!!!!!

Did anybody else made similar experiences? I don't know, if it is an issue with desktopify!

Pop up after boot up [Ubuntu Mate]

git clone asks for password

I can git clone desktopify to my workstation without a problem. When I try to git clone from Ubuntu server on a RasPi, I get asked for a password!? All I can give it are my github credentials but then I get: fatal: repository … not found. Can someone please explain?

Does desktopify work on raspberrypi os lite ?

Start menu disappeared

Hey,

My start menu disappeared for some reason. was wondering if you can share any sort of reset/re-enable command to fix this?

Do you have plan to make it work on standard ubuntu x64 machine, and other board?

Do you have plan to make it work on standard ubuntu x64 machine, and other board?

additional languages missing from region settings

expected behavior: being able to choose my keyboard and language in the regional settings
actual behavior: only english being available

please add additional languages :)

Windows resolutions 2560x1080

Testing on ubuntu-mate and fail to adjust resolutions. Is there away to do it?

It work on raspiOS without have to do anything btw.

Solve by actually setting your config.txt. Anyway for you guys who would like to run ubuntu-mate bootable from SSD Drive only then you should try my guide and also it will adjust to 2560x1080 screen automatically.. AWESOME

how do I reverse it?

I did it and everything froze and I realized I have a 1GB Pi.
How do I reverse it?

HDMI audio is not working even after hdmi_drive=2 usercfg

Desktopify version : master branch at commit

Issue: HDMI audio is not working.

Extra details: Using Ubuntu 20.04. Also I’m using BerryBoot (berry boot link) to boot Ubuntu (Ubuntu image link) off a usb stick if that is relevant.

Description: I can confirm that /boot/firmware/usercfg.txt has the line hdmi_drive=2, which should have enabled the HDMI audio. I’m fine with either HDMI audio or audio from 3.5 mm audio jack so any help is appreciated.

Ubuntu 64b Gnome Desktop on Rpi 4 graphical issues

I just installed the default ubuntu 20.04 64bit Gnome on my rpi 4 8gb via desktopify , and had issues like frequent desktop redraws. I know that Gnome is more recommended, but have been using gnome since long, and I wondered if this is fixable ?

[Suggestion/Workaround]: Add ZRAM-swap to Desktopify for smooth web browsing/video

( @flexiondotorg - in addition to my other two fix suggestions -- see: #55 and #56 -- here's something to look into for an enhanced desktop experience, esp. in Xubuntu.)

I don't know if this is a de facto solution to the web video playback issue, but at least it's a helluva workaround to a majority of the video sluggishness experienced in i.e. Chromium and Firefox.

As suggested in this article in particular:

Raspberry Pi Performance: Add ZRAM and these Kernel Parameters

See: https://haydenjames.io/raspberry-pi-performance-add-zram-kernel-parameters/

(Also mentioned in Hackaday: https://hackaday.com/2020/05/20/zram-boosts-raspberry-pi-performance/ )

I have now tested this on two 4GB models of Raspberry Pi4B's, running on Desktopify along with a few of my own tweaks on Xubuntu (Xfce4) with great results. I think especially the higher RAM models would benefit significantly from a ZRAM type ram cache/swap.

---

I initially installed the zram-tools and zram-config via apt:

sudo apt install zram-tools zram-config

Then, after tweaking around for a while I fetched the zram-swap Git repo and ran the script, overriding the initial tests I had made.

git clone https://github.com/foundObjects/zram-swap.git cd zram-swap && sudo ./install.sh

Note -- as stated in the Hackaday article: if you do take it for a spin make sure you stop and disable zram-config before switching, the two scripts won’t play nicely together.

Then, added the recommended zram-swappiness parameters to /etc/sysctl.conf as in the instructions:

sudo echo 'vm.vfs_cache_pressure=500' >> /etc/sysctl.conf
sudo echo 'vm.swappiness=100' >> /etc/sysctl.conf
sudo echo 'vm.dirty_background_ratio=1' >> /etc/sysctl.conf
sudo echo 'vm.dirty_ratio=50' >> /etc/sysctl.conf

(For tweaking around with these settings, please refer to the article at https://haydenjames.io/raspberry-pi-performance-add-zram-kernel-parameters/ )

---

After adding ZRAM, all browsing and other desktop activity became lightning-fast in comparison to what it had been. CPU usage also drops extremely low when playing non-fullscreen browser videos (YouTube), especially when the FKMS has been applied and the h264ify browser add-on is in use in Firefox / Chromium.

Since the world is far from being perfect, and Raspberry Pi4B is still a work-in-progress on many frontiers, if none of my previous tips improve the performance enough, I'd encourage users to settle for a 720p display resolution -- with the FKMS v3d acceleration + ZRAM swap, there's next to no dropped frames (10-30 frames out of ~10000+ total when playing longer videos, according to Youtube's video stats), even if you force the output to 1080p, which then downscales it to your 720p resolution.

Some may find no need to lower the display output resolution, as the performance difference in Xubuntu is significant regardless of the display resolution, esp. when using the tweaks mentioned in #55 and #56 in conjunction with the above mentioned script to configure zram-swap.

The performance enhancement applies also on 1920x1080/60 and 1920x1200/60 resolutions/refresh rates that I've tested. But, on a 720p resolution things work basically seamlessly with Youtube and other web video sources alike, and Youtube's "Auto" selection often chooses 720p as the output resolution on the RPi4B anyway.

As a side note: I've usually had the h264ify browser add-on installed on both Chromium and Firefox and have been switching it on and off to try out what works best with the fkms-v3d driver enabled. Mostly I've found the h264ify browser add-on beneficial and recommend using it on both Chromium and Firefox + making sure that both of the check-boxes ([x] Enable h264ify, [x] Disable 60p video) are ticked.

I would contend that tweaking zram-swap or a similar RAM cache solution would help out a lot in browser video playback issues, as in addition to enhanced video playback, it also makes other web browsing functionality way more reponsive.

More info on what different types of RAM caching possibilities (Ubuntu) Linux has can be found from i.e.: https://askubuntu.com/questions/471912/zram-vs-zswap-vs-zcache-ultimate-guide-when-to-use-which-one

If anyone has any suggestions on how to prioritize web browsers (Chromium/Firefox) on both Linux's side and in zram-swap, that might be a suitable workaround (for now) for smoothing web video playback and/or browser responsiveness even further.

Happy tweaking! :o)

Any objection to me tweaking this to support AWS, Azure and Vagrant boxes?

I'm already doing a little bit of this with my Ansible scripts, but this seems far more thorough (surprisingly ;) ). It'd be interesting to make this more akin to an OEM'ing tool, with architecture consideration for RPi.

Does that make sense? I'm not sure if you've covered this in the video, as I only caught a couple of minutes of it...

Bug: Desktopify doesn't enable the OpenGL compositing in browsers (KMS/FKMS) by default (Xubuntu)

A small glitch that may cause a bit of head-scratching for newcomers; you need to enable the OpenGL / acceleration manually in Firefox and Chromium (otherwise the whole KMS/FKMS tweak does not give any performance benefit.)

Desktopify installation seems not to do these configs by default, at least on Xubuntu.

---

As described in Dedoimedo's configuration instructions: https://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/rpi4-ubuntu-mate-hw-video-acceleration.html :

Firefox:

To override, go to about:config, and search for the following key:

layers.acceleration.force-enabled

And toggle it to true.

Chromium:

Similarly, if you choose to use Chromium, it will initially report no HW acceleration under chrome://gpu. We can change that through chrome://flags. What you want is Override software rendering list, and change the setting to Enabled.

---

Those two are the workaround(s) for now, but I wonder if there's a way to set those parameters using a bash script?

Other than those two and the PulseAudio glitch that I mentioned in another post on issues (see: #55 ), the Desktopify for Xubuntu seems to be working just great! Video playback especially on Firefox enhanced significantly after I got the layers.acceleration.force-enabled set to true.

Keep up the good work, all the best.

[Suggestion] Add Regolith Linux as Desktop Option

Since Regiloth can be installed over ubuntu with a single package (see here) I think it would make a great addition to the project, since the tiling window desktops is what would be rather welcome to use. I already do, but I've just installed a package to the server directly. Thou not many people might know about it, since it's not official.

Audio crackling on Xubuntu during video playback / here's the solution

Year after year, the culprit stays the same, at least on the Raspberry Pi, and especially in Ubuntu -- the problem is in PulseAudio's settings, particularly the tsched=0 parameter that needs to be set to PA's configuration at /etc/pulse/default.pa to avoid audio crackling, esp. during web video playback. (See more on the subject at: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/GlitchFreeAudio)

I already solved the problem, as usual.

Here's my solution & a suggestion - add this or some kind of variant of it to the Desktopify setup script:

sudo sed -i 's/load-module udev-detect/load-module udev-detect tsched=0/g' /etc/pulse/default.pa
sudo sed -i 's/load-module module-udev-detect/load-module module-udev-detect tsched=0/g' /etc/pulse/default.pa

That solved all audio crackling issues in web browsers, i.e. Firefox, for me. The problem has been present at least ever since the first unofficial 64-bit Ubuntu Server forks appeared for the Raspberry Pi 4B.

Update with Ubuntu MATE

Thank you for the really useful script! I used it to install Ubuntu MATE on a RPI 4 with Ubuntu 20.04 LTS. The desktop is up and running, but when I try sudo apt update I get the following errors:

Reading package lists... Done
E: Failed to fetch http://c.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/focal/main/binary-arm64/Packages  404  Not Found [IP: 91.189.91.38 80]
E: Failed to fetch http://c.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/focal-updates/main/binary-arm64/Packages  404  Not Found [IP: 91.189.91.38 80]
E: Failed to fetch http://c.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/focal-backports/universe/binary-arm64/Packages  404  Not Found [IP: 91.189.91.38 80]
E: Failed to fetch http://c.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/focal-security/main/binary-arm64/Packages  404  Not Found [IP: 91.189.91.38 80]
E: Some index files failed to download. They have been ignored, or old ones used instead.

This unfortunately prevents me to install a lot of useful packages using sudo apt intall.

When I previously installed Ubuntu MATE manually on top of Ubuntu 20.04 LTS (sudo apt install ubuntu-mate-desktop) I never encountered this problem. Am I doing something wrong?

Suggestion: Conditioning as a preinstalled image

Currently the tool allows a user to start with base Ubuntu Server and add a desktop of choice on top. Though, like with previous Ubuntu MATE releases, there is demand for a 20.04 "snapshot" image so users can quickly download once and be ready to go.

📈 Ubuntu MATE is also the first third party OS link on the Raspberry Pi downloads page!

The easiest approach I can think of would be to:

1. Start clean. Run desktopify configured with OEM.
2. Configure the system to enlarge the root partition on next boot.
3. Shut down and place the microSD card into the computer.
4. Shrink the partitions to a reasonable size (2-4 GB?)
5. Create a new compressed image with the boot and root partitions.
6. Ship 'em!

💡 Could the power of QEMU make it possible to automate the process? I haven't tested this, but may be of interest:

• https://github.com/wimvanderbauwhede/limited-systems/wiki/Raspbian-%22stretch%22-for-Raspberry-Pi-3-on-QEMU

Unable to login via GUI in Lubuntu

After doing conversion of 20.04 on my RPI 4 B to run Lubuntu desktop, I'm still able to login via mosh/ssh, but when I try entering my password in the GUI login screen, it says Login Failed.

No WiFi Adapter Found on Raspberry Pi 4

I was converting between Ubuntu 20.04.4 LTS Server for Raspberry Pi 4 and the standard Ubuntu Desktop. Once the desktop was booted, it says that no wifi adapter is found.

Please add Unity7 as an option

Please add ubuntu-unity-desktop as an option

Unable to boot into desktop mode after lubuntu install

After logging in with ubuntu user, cloning the repo and installing lubuntu by: sudo ./desktopfiy --de lubuntu, reboot won't boot into desktop mode and rather brings me into the tty1 cli. The ubuntu server version used is: Ubuntu Server 20.04.1 LTS

Please create desktopify-unofficial

Please make a version of desktopify with elementary/pantheon and unity7

Support for alpine linux

Can you create similar solution for alpine linux in pi?

[Error] "Is a directory"

When following the instructions, I get the message "is a directory" after entering sudo ./desktopify --de lubuntu

"System issue" dialogue, after booting without HDMI

I have a replicable issue with video/system. Install Ubu-20.04, Desktopify it with MATE. Everything is awesome. Install x11vnc, and it works beautifully. If I shut down, unplug the HDMI, boot back up, the VNC now rejects the connection. I ssh over, and shut it down gracefully. Plug the HDMI back in, boot up, and now have a screen flicker, and a dialogue box ("Cancel" or "Report Issue") about a non-specific (no code, or comment) system issue, that will continue to intermittently pop back up, but I'm generally back in business. I've done this four times, with the exact same outcome. I'd like to be able to boot into MATE without HDMI, and connect to the headless Pi via VNC.

Sorry I didn't screen shot the error. Let me know what other info would be helpful. Pi4-2Gb, out-of-the-box, no overclock, Samsung Pro Endurance 32Gb SD

Ubuntu Mate wont boot into X after update

Used desktopify on Ubuntu Server 64 bit to install ubuntu mate
Got to desktop and after first update (250MB) won't boot into X. Error message right before reboot was sent to dev.

Raspberry pie 4 ubuntu error

I was setting up an ubuntu on a raspberry pie 4 and at the point I typed

git clone https://github.com/wimpysworld/desktopify.git

this error pops up

fatal: unable to access 'http://github.com/wimpysworld/desktopify.git' Could not resolve host: github.com

can anyone help me?

Changes so it works on RPi 3

To get this to work on a RPi 3, I had to remove configure_network, enable_oem and updates to /boot/firmware/usercfg.txt & /boot/firmware/cmdline.txt. I also had to add "hdmi_ignore_edid=0xa5000080" to /boot/firmware/usercfg.txt.

I also was able to boot from a USB SSD drive.

Argon one case

When I try to install the argon one case configuration file I get this: Unable to locate package raspi-gpio

I guess it has to do with the different way gpio works on desktopify, so if anyone know a way to edit the script i would be very thankful.

This is the script: https://download.argon40.com/argon1.sh

Add and enable vnc server right out of the box

Kindly add vnc server support to be enabled and configured before first reboot

Helps people having a headless setup

How is this different than running `sudo apt install [desktop-name]-desktop`?

Hi, I'm quite new to the Ubuntu world. I read the Ubuntu's guide to install a desktop over the server image. The commands for installing are very few comparing to desktopify's.

So I wonder what else does it do and why should I use desktopify over running just sudo apt install [desktop-name]-desktop?

Thanks!

lockfile issue with Lubuntu

Using ubuntu server 64bit 20.04.lts when running the desktopify install command for lubuntu, it says there is a lockfile dpkg issue associated with unattended update mgr.

Removing these locks seems to fix it:
sudo rm /var/lib/apt/lists/lock
sudo rm /var/cache/apt/archives/lock
sudo rm /var/lib/dpkg/lock

Add Ubuntu 21.04 support

Please add Ubuntu Server 21.04 support.

At the moment I get "This script is only intended to run on Ubuntu 20.04."

If this script is only supposed to be used with 20.04, then the description and installation procedure in README.md needs to be changed.

Add Ubuntu 20.10 support

Please add Ubuntu 20.10 support to dekstopify, something like this

Check if we're running 20.04 or 20.10

CODENAME=$(lsb_release -cs)
if [ "${CODENAME}" != "focal, groovy" ]; then
echo "[!] This script is only intended to run on Ubuntu 20.04 or 20.10."
exit 1
fi

I dont know if

if [ "${CODENAME}" != "focal, groovy" ]; then

Is correct but you should understand what i mean

doesn't work with 22.04

Any plans to update to work for 22.04 ubuntu?
Thank you

Ethernet Stops working on 2 GB Raspberry pi 4