Consider the implications of using Gnome in dom0

[kennethrrosen]

For a while, the Qubes developers considered migrating dom0 to GNOME:

The desktop GUIs that QubesOS versions 1 - 4.1 offer are KDE and Xfce. We are currently migrating towards using GNOME. We know some people prefer KDE, but we believe Gnome is easier to use for average non-technical users. Xfce will always be supported, and technical users will always have the choice to use KDE or other desktop environments.

This is no longer the case. More discussion on the matter here.

However, I believe that the Gnome experience is perhaps the best inroad for new users to Linux. I do like the cleanliness of the i3 layout and think that is more welcoming and has a neater style, but the learning curve is much greater, though perhaps could be mitigated and at least it is officially (somewhat) supported by Qubes -- will consider after a successful GNOME install.

Steps to take for testing:

sudo qubes-dom0-update gnome-shell gnome-shell-extension-pop-shell

sudo glib-compile-schemas /usr/share/glib-2.0/schemas

Reboot.

#!/bin/bash

while true
do

  ID=`xdotool getwindowfocus`
  QUBE=`xprop _QUBES_VMNAME -id $ID|cut -f2 -d\" `
  if [[ "$QUBE" == "_QUBES_VMNAME:  not found." ]]; then
    gsettings set org.gnome.shell.extensions.pop-shell hint-color-rgba 'white'
  else
    LABEL=`qvm-prefs "$QUBE" label`
    #echo $LABEL
    gsettings set org.gnome.shell.extensions.pop-shell hint-color-rgba $LABEL
    sleep 0.05
  fi
done

[kennethrrosen]

gnome-shell-extension-appindicator may have been what was missing.

[kennethrrosen]

It was in fact the need to set pop-shell in extensions. Must also add blur-my-shell to get a white tray that doesn't clash with system icons (temp fix), though service VMs aren't appearing (sys-net, sys-whonix) ... except once, when sys-net appeared then disappeared. Still recommend gnome-shell-extension-appindicator though with 8gb on my test rig, Gnome isn't ideal.

[kennethrrosen]

16G minimum and the sys-net:Nm-applet appears without issue.

[kennethrrosen]

This also seems promising. QubesOS/qubes-issues#9407

[kennethrrosen]

With limited bandwidth, I think that Cosmic could be the best approach moving forward, once it's out of Alpha: https://system76.com/cosmic