Whonix with Xfce4

I am working with AppArmor (see the ‘Whonix in chroot’ thread). At the moment I am trying to confine TBB inside Whonix-Workstation. It looks promising but I am running into the following problem: for the profile to be completely transparent, you have to allow some processes and configuration files directly related to KDE. It is not good for portability.

Which brings the subject.

I think that a distribution like Whonix should get rid of the heavy machines, KDE or the depressing Gnome 3, to favor a lighter DM like Xfce4 (it looks like Debian is heading that way with jessie). It uses a lot less resources and seems more tolerant to packages playing at kernel level. I have written the profile for VirtualBox under Xfce4.

It is also nearly endlessly configurable, letting the user tailor it to her needs and tastes. It is important to me. Generally speaking, I don’t like much feeling trapped in an environment I despise.

Unless the customization could have an impact on anonymity?

[quote=“troubadour, post:1, topic:75”]I think that a distribution like Whonix should get rid of the heavy machines, KDE or the depressing Gnome 3, to favor a lighter DM like Xfce4 (it looks like Debian is heading that way with jessie). It uses a lot less resources and seems more tolerant to packages playing at kernel level. I have written the profile for VirtualBox under Xfce4.

It is also nearly endlessly configurable, letting the user tailor it to her needs and tastes. It is important to me. Generally speaking, I don’t like much feeling trapped in an environment I despise.[/quote]
Please share whatever you come up with in that regard. I’m working on the very same thing for the very same reason. I’m still on my way setting up a new 7.7.8.9 workstation with the gateway running already. Will get back asap, hopefully with promising results in regard to xfce4 or lxde, i.e some LowFat Whonix setup. My goal is to get it running with 1gb ram + zram, gateway physically isolated (i know it’s ambitious).

For TBB app please have a look here:
https://gitorious.org/tbb-apparmor/tbb-apparmor
See if it works for your. Perhaps work with him.
Please also feel free to link your apparmor profile in Whonix’s wiki. (Advanced Security Guide - Whonix) (There are a few bits of AppArmor information already.)

[quote=“troubadour, post:1, topic:75”]I think that a distribution like Whonix should get rid of the heavy machines, KDE or the depressing Gnome 3, to favor a lighter DM like Xfce4 (it looks like Debian is heading that way with jessie). It uses a lot less resources and seems more tolerant to packages playing at kernel level. I have written the profile for VirtualBox under Xfce4.

It is also nearly endlessly configurable, letting the user tailor it to her needs and tastes. It is important to me. Generally speaking, I don’t like much feeling trapped in an environment I despise.[/quote]
Please see:

Please see:

@adrelanos
I have based my TBB profile on the one from gitorious. It is not working off the shelf in Whonix. I have not tried with TBB in the host, but I doubt it will work straight away. Anyway, I will get in touch with him when I become at ease in the git environment. I have never set foot in there.

For the moment, I am stuck with the process no longer going in complain or enforce mode. I have reloaded the original profile, edited ‘GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX=“apparmor=1 security=apparmor”’ in ‘/etc/default/grub’, reinstalled Whonix 7.7.8.6, upgraded to 7.7.8.9… I am running out of ideas.

@cerberus
I am posting this from Xfce4 in Whonix. I have installed slim, a tiny login manager from the Debian stable repository, and Xfce4. KDE is still there untouched, but since I am going to use Xfce4 permanently from now on, we can assume that it is under test. Ultimately, the goal is to uninstall KDE.

[quote=“troubadour, post:4, topic:75”]@cerberus
I am posting this from Xfce4 in Whonix. I have installed slim, a tiny login manager from the Debian stable repository, and Xfce4. KDE is still there untouched, but since I am going to use Xfce4 permanently from now on, we can assume that it is under test. Ultimately, the goal is to uninstall KDE.[/quote]
I see, thanks for sharing. Maybe this isn’t the worst approach here (preserving the original build configuration). I was looking forward to actually building the Workstation VM with Xfce4 or better LXDE for that matter. That said, is Slim DM working for you so far? I researched that it is unmaintained for a considerable number of years, has issues with pam along other things and I was looking forward to use lxdm or lightdm instead.

I did not research slim, I should have! It was available in the Debian repositories, so… It just propose a list of DMs or window managers like openbox, ion3, blackbox, awesome… and fortunately Xfce4. The trouble is that you cannot login back into KDE or anything else. I do not know LXDE, so I have installed it. I cannot use it. I do not want to investigate further in a piece of obsolete software. As you suggest, I am going to try lxdm or lightdm.

I’ll update soon.