GNOME is the default desktop of Chimera.
Installation
The easiest way is to use the base-desktop
metapackage.
# apk add base-desktop
This adds gnome
as well as several things a desktop session
will typically want, including graphics drivers.
It is possible to install those things individually for more
fine-grained control. Those users may also be interested in the
gnome-core
package which only installs a relatively bare desktop
without auxiliary apps.
Starting
Keep in mind that GNOME requires elogind
. In a typical setup, this
is enabled by default, i.e. requires explicit masking to avoid. You
do not need to manually enable elogind
if you have not removed
its service link. Likewise, it requires dbus
, both system and
session bus, see D-Bus.
You can start GNOME either manually, or from a display manager, typically GDM.
GDM
The recommended way to start GNOME is through GDM. This makes sure all the necessary variables are set up as well as enables the lock screen to work (which depends on communication with GDM).
GDM can also be used to start other desktops.
Typically, all you need to do is enable the service:
# dinitctl enable gdm
That will make it start on every boot. If you want to run it just once, you can also do:
# dinitctl start gdm
After that, you only need to log in.
GDM with Xorg
Normally, GDM will default to Wayland. There are some specific cases where Wayland is disabled, most of them not relevant to Chimera, but e.g. when missing modesetting.
Other people may want to disable Wayland manually for other reasons.
To force-disable Wayland in GDM, edit the /etc/gdm/custom.conf
file
and uncomment the WaylandEnable=false
line.
Note that this will not make GDM with Xorg work right away, as Chimera’s Xorg setup is unprivileged and the X server started by GDM will not be allowed to switch VTs, see Xorg.
Manual startup
This is not recommended as some functionality will not work, such as the lock screen, but it can still be useful for debugging and specific setups. However, do keep in mind that this will also interfere with management of graphical user services and so on at a later point (and these instructions will change).
For Wayland (recommended), you need to log in on the desired tty and run something like:
$ gnome-shell --wayland
This will give you a shell, but for example the settings app will not work. You can fix that by exporting the following variable first:
$ export XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP=GNOME
For X11, you can create an .xinitrc
script, and put the following
inside:
gnome-session
Then you need to give it appropriate permissions (must be executable
by your user). Then you can simply use startx
.