Category:Interface

postmarketOS running Plasma Mobile on top of mainline Linux on the Google Nexus 5.

An interface is the graphical shell that runs on a device. Traditionally, these are called "desktop environments"; however, we prefer to use the name "interfaces" as we ship multiple mobile-first user interfaces as well.

As of writing, there are 24 user interfaces readily available in postmarketOS. These range from regular desktop environments to mobile-centric interfaces.

Commonly used interfaces

Clicking on the images in the interface info boxes will take you to the wiki page for the respective interface.

These are recommended for devices running a (close to) mainline kernel.

Other interfaces

Xfce4

Xfce4 is a lightweight desktop environment. It might be the best choice for new ports (non-DRM).
Wiki page

MATE

MATE is a fork of GNOME 2. It's not as configurable as Xfce4 and thus the setup in postmarketOS is less touch-friendly.
Wiki page

fbkeyboard

fbkeyboard is a keyboard that runs in the framebuffer. Useful when regular graphical interfaces don't work.

none/console

none literally is a minimal environment with none of the UIs. console also has some extra packages such as NetworkManager included.

Weston

Weston is the reference implementation of a Wayland compositor. It can be used as a demo for DRM support.
Wiki page

GNOME

Gnome-Shell either with or without the experimental mobile patches.
Wiki page

Bananui

Bananui is a user interface for feature phones based on parts of Phosh and a custom UI toolkit.
Wiki page

Other than these few, we package other user interfaces, ranging from various desktop environments to 10-foot UIs like Kodi or Plasma Bigscreen, as well as experimental UIs like Shelli. If you'd like to learn more, you can find more links to wiki pages of various interfaces at the bottom of this page.

Which interfaces work where (and which interface should I use?)

For devices running a (close to) mainline kernel (they typically have working GPU acceleration), Phosh, Plasma Mobile and Sxmo are recommended. There are also some alternative mobile interfaces like Lomiri, but support for them is still work-in-progress.

For new ports, using a simple, light-weight X11 interface such as Xfce4, MATE, LXQt may provide a better experience. Sxmo and i3wm could also be used as options.

Phosh and Weston currently don't work on devices running downstream kernels due to lack of DRM support (only supported in mainline kernel). It also does not work on mainline devices without working hardware acceleration; however, some progress towards fixing this was made - see pmaports#948. Plasma Mobile can be launched in software rendering mode, but performs poorly.

Additionally, Phosh, Plasma Mobile and other 'modern' UIs may be too heavy for resource constrained devices (e.g. those with little RAM or less powerful CPU/GPU)

For minimal usage like an SBC or a Raspberry Pi, use console or none.

Installing interfaces

For devices in the main or community category, you can download official postmarketOS images with pre-installed interfaces.

If you'd like to install a different interface, you have multiple options:

Install postmarketOS with pmbootstrap. During pmbootstrap init you will be asked to select an user interface.
If you'd like to install a different UI on a device running postmarketOS, install the UI package for it with apk add postmarketos-ui-<UI name>. You can get a list of available UIs by using the command apk search postmarketos-ui-.

For none/console UI, you can run these commands according to your demand:

# rc-service tinydm stop # Stop current DM. Replace tinydm with the DM that you are using
# rc-update del tinydm # Don't start DM by default
# apk del postmarketos-ui-* # Delete UI metapackages if you don't need them anymore
# apk add postmarketos-ui-console # Install console UI metapackage