September 19, 2024

A decluttered, minimal and customised desktop with netinstall Trisquel GNU/Linux

Install Trisquel

Install GNU/Linux Trisquel Netinstall¹

Once the install is done, you should be prompted to decrypt your drive and log in.

Unlike with most graphical interface, you have to type you username.

Then type your password.

Press enter.

The home screen looks like this:

Welcome to Trisquel GNU/Linux 11.0, Aramo (GNU/Linux 5.15.0-84-generic x86_64)
   ___        ___               ___        ___       ___        ___        ___
  /\  \      /\  \      ___    /\  \      /\  \     /\__\      /\  \      /\__\
  \ \  \    /  \  \    /\  \  /  \  \    /  \  \   / /  /     /  \  \    / /  /
   \ \  \  / /\ \  \   \ \  \/ /\ \  \  / /\ \  \ / /  /     / /\ \  \  / /  /
   /  \  \/  \ \ \  \  /  \__\ \ \ \  \/ /  \ \  \ /  /  ___/  \ \ \  \/ /  /
  / /\ \__\/\ \ \ \__\/ /\/__/\ \ \ \__\/__/ \ \__\__/  /\__\/\ \ \ \__\/__/
 / /  \/__/_|  \/ /  / /  /\ \ \ \ \/__/\  \ / /  /  \ / /  /\ \ \ \/__/\  \
/ /  /      | |  /  / /__/  \ \ \ \__\ \ \/\/ /  / \  / /  /\ \ \ \__\ \ \  \
\/__/       | |\/__/\ \__\   \ \/ /  /  \    /  / \ \/ /  /  \ \ \/__/  \ \  \
            | |  |   \/__/    \  /  /    \  /  /   \  /  /    \ \__\     \ \__\
             \|__|             \/__/      \/__/     \/__/      \/__/      \/__/

Documentation: https://trisquel.info/wiki/
Support forum: https://trisquel.info/forum/

Set up a minimal desktop (a.k.a.: a minimum viable desktop (MVD)) with a web browser

At this point, you only have this text session to interact with your computer.

You can do plenty, including display the weather (see below), but most of us can’t live without the web - and we need a browser to surf the web, check emails, apps, etc.

Before we download a browser, we need to set up our system so it can handle windows, actual windows frame that we can move around with a mouse, windows where the web will be showed to us.

To prepare our computer to do so, we download three programmes: xorg, mwm and xterm. Xorg is the programme which will enable our systems to run windows (and much more), mwm is the programme that will provide us with the actual windows, and xterm is a programme for us to access the terminal (like this text session) from a window interface.

To download these three programmes, type:

sudo apt install xorg mwm xterm

Press enter.

You might have to type your password again.

Once the install is complete, we need to tell our system to use xterm and mwm when the computer starts.

To communicate that to our computer, we create a text file which our computer will read when it starts.

To create this file we type:

nano

this should open a text editor; another black screen where you can type; the cursor is in the top left corner.

In this file, type:

xterm&
mwm

That is it.

To save the file, press the keyboards’ keys Control (Ctrl) and the letter O simultaneously.

Now look at the bottom of the screen.

You should see a white ribbon.

On the left of this ribbon, you can read: File Name to Write:.

The cursor is already on that ribbon, you just have to type the name of the file.

The file needs to be called .xinitrc, that is what the system will look for.

In the white ribbon, type:

.xinitrc

Don’t forget the . at the beginning.

Press the key Enter to save this file.

And then press the keys Control (Ctrl) and X simultaneously to quit the text editor.

You should be back in the text session, with the $ sign.

Last, we download a web browser called abrowser²:

sudo apt install abrowser

Concluding note

At this point, you have a computer to process text, and browser the web.

We need to restart the computer for all our work to take effect.

To restart the computer, type:

reboot

you computer should reboot.

You will still see the text interface to decrypt your drive and log in.

Once you are logged, you should see a terminal window, where you can type:

abrowser

to launch an internet browser.

Here you go.

Troubleshooting

Sometimes things don’t work as we expect.

I don’t see a window after my computer restarted

Type:

startx

after you’ve logged in.

Declare $DISPLAY

If your system tells you something like:

Error: no DISPLAY environment variable specified

tell your computer that the display (screen) is the screen of that computer, to do so, type:

export DISPLAY=:0.0

Abrowser doesn’t start

Maybe you need to type:

startx /usr/bin/abrowser

to launch Abrowser.

Questions? Feedback?

Feel free to email me if you think this wiki isn’t clear enough (I want this page to be clear!), or if you think I should spell out instructions further (that’s also a good thing!). If you think so, others certainly also do. Email me. Let me know, otherwise I will never know. You can find my email address on this page: https://yctct.com/contact

Display the weather for the next 3 days

Type:

sudo apt install curl

to install a programme called curl.

Type your password.

You should see the installation run.

Now, to display the weather, type:

curl wttr.in

you should see the weather for the next three days.

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1. To install Trisquel, follow the instruction there: https://trisquel.info/en/Download, click on More, click on Netinstall; I can also send you a USB stick with Trisquel GNU/Linux on it; you’ll save a few hours, if you’ve never prepared one.↩︎

2. It is like Firefox but without the tracking applications Mozilla embeds↩︎

personal computing command-line interface (cli) gnu linux trisquel shell literacy office applications wiki netinstall Minimum Viable Computer (mvc)