Whonix Desktop Installer with Calamares - field report

[Patrick]

@onion_knight

Grub menu also provides a Debian-Live option, although it does not work (results in kernel panic since live packages are removed during the installation part and are not part of the installed system). Grub menu needs to be fixed accordingly in the installed machine (must be somewhere in the Calamares modules). Similarly, the persistent/live icons must be removed from the installed version.

Booting the installed Whonix Host into Live mode would be a great feature. I am using grub-live for a Debian host machine. Should be possible to fix that.

@onion_knight

As we are dealing with a host system (be it ISO or HDD install), it would be nice to have a power-manager plugin on the panel ( xfce4-power-manager ), something expected on a laptop for instance, I think this package does the trick (I must retest it on laptop hardware):

I get that done, created ⚓ T928 install xfce4-power-manager on Whonix Host and Kicksecure Host for it.

@onion_knight

same thing with pulseaudio plugin (already installed, just needs to be added in the panel tray)

Should be sorted in next git tag. 15.0.0.4.0-developers-only (upcoming)
Sorted that in https://github.com/Whonix/whonix-xfce-desktop-config/commit/12dad74b906c675f834fa6431a3892e7dc499128 for Whonix VMs so śhould also work on Whonix Host since also using package whonix-xfce-desktop-config.

@onion_knight

The Whonix Host should be graphically differentiated from the Whonix-VMs. Maybe simply a different background image/color?

That would be very good. I also want to differentiate Whonix VMs gateway vs workstation as well as differentiate from the host. Technical challenge:

Package package whonix-xfce-desktop-config owns /etc/skel/.config/xfce4/xfconf/xfce-perchannel-xml/xfce4-panel.xml. As per Debian dpkg default one file can only be owned by one pacakge.

I wouldn’t know how to cleanly stack these packages. I.e. how to add yet another package on top that only ships one different config file?

[1] whonix-xfce-workstation-config
[2] whonix-xfce-host-config

These packages could duplicate that package and then say in debian/control Replaces: whonix-xfce-desktop-config. Lots of code duplication. Not great.

Or whonix-libvirt (or some other Whonix host package) could do config-package-dev displace /etc/skel/.config/xfce4/xfconf/xfce-perchannel-xml/xfce4-panel.xml. Better but still one fully duplicated config file.

Any other way to just change the background image? A command line command that runs one time after first login? Is it possible to change the background image on the command line?