Linux desktop on the web

Meet Webtops A Linux Desktop Environment In Your Browser

Before I joined the LinuxServer organization I had been working on a Docker management solution called Taisun. Over the years it became apparent everyone downloading this application was only really using the subfeature to be able to run a Linux desktop in their web browser. From parts of this project we as a team started deploying containers for popular GUI applications in docker containers and have now released: https://hub.docker.com/r/linuxserver/webtop

This technology stack goes a bit against the Docker grain as we are running many services in a single container to facilitate spinning up a usable web based desktop experience with a single command consisting of:

A lot of different Docker GUI solutions exist today, but what we always found is they were just missing some common sense stuff like:

• Pixel perfect resolution for rendering
• A basic window manager
• Audio support
• Using the RDP protocol
• Clipboard support
• On screen keyboard support
• Remote file management for uploads/downloads

Because we control the whole stack and went into this with the design philosophy of building a baseimage any Linux GUI app could be easily embedded in, doing a desktop environment where users could customize it to their needs by installing the packages they want, seemed like the logical next step.

For Users

Basic Usage:

Spinning up is relatively straightforward:

Hop into http://localhost:3000 and you should be greeted with an Alpine XFCE desktop environment: On the left hand side of the screen is an arrow that will expand a menu with some baked in features, this menu can also be opened and closed using the keyboard combination of ctrl+alt+shift: From this menu you can launch a file browser, a keyboard overlay, or pull clipboard contents in and out of the desktop. The current webtop’s clipboard contents will be in the text area in the menu and any text you enter in there will be available on the webtop’s native clipboard. If you are a heavy user pressing ctrl+alt+shift to move clipboard contents in and out becomes second nature.

Flavors:

The image is also available in Ubuntu outside of just Alpine in the following Desktop environments installed and pre-configured:

Please take a look at the Github Repo for updated lists of supported tags:

Authentication:

By default the image is based around the abc user and we recommend using this user as all of the init/config is based around it. The default password is also abc . If you want to change this password and require authentication when accessing the interface simply issue passwd inside a gui terminal in the webtop. Then when accessing the web interface use the path:

http://localhost:3000/?login=true This will bring up xrdp’s default login manager where you can enter the credentials you set inside of the container.

If you are planning to publish this port to the internet to hop into your remote server first off never do it over plain http you will expose your credentials, also we highly recommend doing two layers of security and running something like SWAG with password authentication at the reverse proxy level:

Keeping Up to Date:

As stated previously baking a whole Linux desktop env is not really compatible with the classic Docker model, and because these are designed to be customized by the user inside the running container we highly recommend not using Docker to handle image updates. Your user’s home folder will stay in tact with it’s files and settings but you would lose any software you installed inside of the container. Instead just use Alpine and Ubuntu’s package managers to keep software up to date inside the container.

For Developers

Building an image:

We tried to make using our desktop base image for embedding a desktop application as easy as possible. Let’s take a look at an example Dockerfile for a Firefox container:

On top of installing the app in the Dockerfile you need to create the file /root/defaults/autostart with the contents firefox .

And that’s it, when the container spins up and the user accesses the web interface on port 3000 Firefox will be launched in a basic Openbox gui: For a slightly more advanced example check out the LibreOffice image:

Autostart applications:

By default the desktop applications will only be launched when the user logs into the web interface, if you need your application to run on container spinup you will need to set the environment variable:

If the user changes the in container password from the default abc , they will also need to pass a password option to ensure the application autostarts:

Branding:

If you do not want the Linuxserver splash on container spinup make sure to include a modified one in your repo’s path /root/etc/cont-init.d/10-adduser , the only required logic is:

We are here to help

If you have any questions about using these Webtop images or developing new containers based on our rdesktop-web baseimage just hop on Discord and ask:

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10 Best and Most Popular Linux Desktop Environments of All Time

One exciting aspect of Linux unlike with Windows and Mac OS X, is its support for numerous number of desktop environments, this has enabled desktop users to choose the appropriate and most suitable desktop environment to best work with, according to their computing needs.

A Desktop Environment is an implementation of the desktop metaphor built as a collection of different user and system programs running on top of an operating system, and share a common GUI (Graphical User Interface), also known as a graphical shell.

In this article, we shall list and walk through some of the best desktop environments for Linux, including a few of their illustrious features and components. However, we should note that this list is not organized in any particular order.

That said, let’s move to listing the desktop environments.

1. GNOME 3 Desktop

GNOME is probably the most popular desktop environment among Linux users, it is free and open source, simple, yet powerful and easy to use. It is designed from ground up to offer Linux desktop users a wonderful and exciting computing experience.

It presents a activities overview for easy access to basic tasks, provides a powerful search tool for users to access their work from any place. However, GNOME 3 latest stable release ships in with the following distinguished components and features:

1. Uses Metacity as default window manager
2. Comes with Nautilus as default file manager
3. Supports desktop notifications using a convenient messaging system
4. Enables on/off switching of desktop notifications and many more

Gnome 3 Desktop Environment for Linux

2. KDE Plasma 5

KDE is a well-known, powerful and highly customizable desktop environment, designed to offer Linux desktop users absolute control over their desktop.

The latest release in the KDE desktop series is the Plasma 5, which has brought in several improvements and new features. It has come with clean and well-polished user interfaces in comparison to previous versions, with improved readability.

Built using Qt 5 and frameworks 5, a number of the notable components and new features in Plasma 5 include:

1. Dolphin file manager
2. Kwin window manager
3. A converged shell
4. Updated graphics stack enabling smoother graphics performance
5. Modernized launchers
6. Workflow improvements in the desktop notification area
7. Improved support for high-density (high-DPI) display plus many other minor features

KDE Plasma System Monitor Window

3. Cinnamon Desktop

Cinnamon is in fact a collection of several minor projects such as Cinnamon, a fork of the GNOME shell, Cinnamon screensaver, Cinnamon desktop, Cinnamon Menus, Cinnamon Settings Daemon coupled with many more.

Cinnamon desktop is a fork of the GNOME desktop environment, it is the default desktop environment on Linux Mint together with MATE.

Other minor projects and components integrated in the Cinnamon desktop comprise of the following:

1. MDM display manager
2. Nemo file manager
3. Muffin window manager
4. Cinnamon session manager
5. Cinnamon translations
6. Blueberry, a bluetooth configuration tool plus many more

Cinnamon Desktop

4. MATE Desktop

MATE is an intuitive and appealing desktop environment, that is an extension of GNOME 2. It works on Linux and many other Unix-like systems. It comes with a handful of default applications such as Caja file manager, Pluma text editor, MATE terminal and more.

Additionally, it is also the default desktop environment for Linux Mint along side Cinnamon desktop.

Mate Desktop in Ubuntu 16.04

5. Unity Desktop

Unity is a graphical desktop shell for GNOME desktop environment. The Unity project was started by Mark Shuttleworth and Canonical, the makers of the well-known Ubuntu Linux distribution. It was started back in 2010, with aims of offering desktop and netbook users a consistent and elegant computing experience.

We must note that, Unity is not a totally new desktop environment, but basically an interface to existing GNOME applications and libraries, with various technologies integrated within it, Unity comes with the following prominent components and features:

1. Compiz windows manager
2. Nautilus file manager
3. A system dashboard
4. Lens, that sends search queries to Scope
5. Scope, a powerful search feature, that searches both locally and online in case the machine is connected to Internet
6. Unity preview, that previews search results in the dashboard
7. Offers an application indicator
8. System indicator that provides information about system settings such as power, sound, current session and many more
9. A simple and sleek notification component combined with other minor features

Unity Desktop

6. Xfce Desktop

If you are looking for a modern, open source, lightweight and easy-to-use, desktop environment for Linux and several other Unix-like systems such as such as Mac OS X, *BSD, Solaris and many others, then you should consider checking out Xfce. It is fast, and importantly user friendly as well, with low system resources utilization.

It offers users a beautiful user interface combined with the following components and features:

1. Xfwm windows manager
2. Thunar file manager
3. User session manger to deal with logins, power management and beyond
4. Desktop manager for setting background image, desktop icons and many more
5. An application manager
6. It’s highly pluggable as well plus several other features

XFCE Desktop

7. LXQt Desktop

LXQt is also free, open source, lightweight, simple and fast desktop environment for Linux and BSD distributions. It is the latest version of LXDE, specifically designed, and a recommended desktop environment for cloud servers and old machines due to its remarkably low system resources usage such as low CPU and RAM consumption.

It’s the default desktop environment on Knoppiz, Lubuntu and a few other less known Linux distributions, some of its notable components and features are listed below:

1. pcmanfm-qt file manager, a Qt port for PCManFM and libfm
2. lxsession session manager
3. lxterminal, a terminal emulator
4. lxqt-runner, a quick application launcher
5. Supports multiple international languages
6. A simple and beautiful user interface
7. Supports an integrated energy-saving component
8. Supports several keyboard shortcuts plus many more

LXQT Desktop

8. Pantheon Desktop

Pantheon is a simple and well-designed desktop environment for Elementary OS, a Windows and MacOS X like Linux distribution. It offers users a clean and organized desktop experience. Due to its simplicity, Pantheon comes with not many visually observable features as compared to other popular desktop environments.

Nevertheless, it works exceptionally well for new Linux users switching from Windows or Mac OS X operating systems.

Elementary Pantheon Desktop

9. Deepin Desktop Environment

Deepin Desktop Environment(DDE) is also a simple, elegant and productive desktop environment for Linux, developed by the makers of Deepin OS.

It works on several other Linux distributions as well including Arch Linux, Ubuntu, Manjaro among others, it ships in with some well designed and sleek user interfaces for absolute productivity.

Furthermore, it is also user friendly with few configurations available. Most configurations are performed from a pop-out side panel, additionally, users can launch applications from a dock at the bottom of the screen similar to that in Pantheon desktop.

Deepin OS

10. Enlightenment Desktop

Enlightenment initially started as a windows manager project for x11 system. However, the project has grown to include a full desktop environment, mobile, wearable and TV user interface platforms as well. Additionally, the developers also wrote some useful libraries in the course of the project advancement.

The libraries created will be used to build several desktop applications as well such an image viewer, video player and a terminal emulator and more, with up coming future works on a complete IDE.

Notably, it is in active evolution from x11 to Wayland as the primary graphical display layer for the Linux ecosystem.

Enlightenment Desktop

Which of the above desktop environments is your favorite? Let us know via the feedback section below by sharing your Linux desktop computing experience with us, you can as well inform us of other less known, yet powerful and exciting desktop environments not mentioned here.

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