Raspberry PI OS Bookworm. Does it support multiple desktops/workspaces?

Install MATE and possibly Ubuntu instead of Debian

Raspberry Pi OS is an OS distribution. That distribution provides a desktop environment (DE). By default RPiOS uses a DE called PIXEL based on customised LXDE.

If the default DE doesn't provide what you want, install another one. If KDE is the thing you want, install that. Or find another DE. Don't throw out the OS just because you want to change the window dressing.

It is also possible to skip using a DE and do it 'by hand' by installing a window manager directly (like i3 or FVWM), which gets you basic window manipulation without also giving you a dock, system tray, file manager, etc. I know FVWM supports multiple workspaces.

Theo

I've already installed Cinnamon and will stick with it. There are no performance issues with it, those only start with the ginormous loads all modern browsers place on systems. Only chromium seems to use hardware acceleration on youtube.

Another Dave

Yes yes, I know all that. I just wanted to use a desk top optimised for the pi. ALL desktops have the ability to use multiple workspaces except Pixel. It was removed from Pixel specifically because somebody at Raspberry Pi couldn't be bothered to fix a bug in it.

Another Dave

I've installed Raspian/Bookworm on FOUR boards in the past couple weeks. Yep, it does all the usual. ONE very annoying aspect with Bookworm though is the pointless demise of dhcpcd.conf and WPA_Supplicant.conf in favor of "network manager'. If you use the 'lite' version, no GUI, this becomes a PROBLEM if you want to do static IPs. For the GUI versions just install the Gnome network manager GUI thingie and use that to set everything.

DID discover network manager stores the configs in /etc/NetworkManager/session-something in readable/tweakable files. For a 'lite' OS though you should use nmcli to 'add' an interface (pain enough) and then use nano to fine-tweak the config file. Fortunately I had some made WITH the GUI as patterns for the non-GUI units.

Remember /etc/networking ? THAT worked JUST FINE and you could tweak to your heart's content. NO REASON for Deb to deviate and make it all infinitely more difficult. Who sells something far closer to Old Deb ??? I'll check MX, maybe Devuian, but it has to run on a Pi. (mx will, but unsure about the networking without a GUI)

DID run into one very WEIRD issue with Bookworm - can't get /home/pi/.config/lxsession/LXDE-pi/autostart to work properly on a Pi4. Works fine on a Pi3 though. Tried one made ON a Pi3, moved to a Pi4, and another completely installed on a Pi4. Alas I have something that badly NEEDS the local autoexec so it'll have a real 'screen' to put graphic output on (a python pgm).

Even putting the attempted startup into .profile or .bashrc ain't doing it. Tried a bash script that starts the py script - again no-go. I'll try adding a sleep in there somewhere tomorrow ....... as said, just a very very WEIRD diff between Pi models. Worst case, I'll try last-years Raspbian.

I didn't know there was a problem until I read this but you're right there is. I have managed a static IP on an ethernet connection by creating a file /etc/network/interfaces.d/eth0 which contains:

allow-hotplug eth0 iface eth0 inet static address 192.168.1.3 network 192.168.1.0 netmask 255.255.255.0 gateway 192.168.1.1

I *presume* it would be similar for a Wi-Fi connection but that the file name would not be eth0 but whatever the Wi-fi interface is called. I don't know what that is at the moment.

So I tried to get a Wi-Fi dongle to work using the usual the old method, copying a file wpa_supplicant.conf to the boot partition of the sd card before it is transferred to the pi. This worked great with bullseye but fails with bookworm.

I've done some googling and found something I thought was the answer, I had to create a file at /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf and then run it with: wpa_supplicant -iwlan0 -c/etc/wpa_supplicant.conf -d

With only two steps I half expected it to work but of course it gave me miles of text and failed to work.

Has anyone discovered how to make a Wi-Fi dongle work with bookworm lite? If so, could you enlighten me please.

Thanks.

Bob.

That should[1] still work (maybe after installing the ifupdown package). Install "resolvconf" if you want to specify DNS in /etc/network/interfaces, too.

Have a look at

cu Michael

Nothing beats a static IP. DHCP can, and eventually WILL, move stuff around - and then you get weird annoying failures.

Modern Deb-derivatives have completely abandoned /etc/networking. I guess it worked too well, was too-well documented. You actually have do do some DAMAGE to force /etc/networking to take control.

Raspbian used /etc/dhcpcd.conf for quite awhile. Bookworm broke that - again for NO sane reason.

With Bookworm it's all hidden away in /etc/NetworkManager/ system-connections. Alas if you NEVER had a GUI then it's all DHCP from SOME yet-unknown source. Fortunately I'd made some with and without GUI ... and the ones WITH GUI provided the necessary pattern. You need to use "nmcli add con" to create the skeleton of a new networking device ... can be the wired or wireless. Then you EDIT it and insert the needed names and numbers. This works.

And it's also VERY VERY unnecessarily complex/obscure.

Raspbian IS the best-tuned to PIs. However these unneeded and vexing changes are getting to be TOO MUCH. There are now a number of Lini that can run pretty well on PIs - including MX and Arch-derivs. I'm really gonna look into the Arch branch ... not that I love Arch, but there are just SOME things that should be convenient, comprehensible and consistent for people who do PRACTICAL stuff.

I'll provide a skeleton for a /system-connections template on Monday ... there ARE a very few example on the web, but VERY few and hard to find. They look nothing like anything from before.

And how much other stuff ???

/etc/networking worked JUST FINE and is hugely documented

There was NO reason to change.

So, basically, you now have to BREAK Deb to get it to work like it used to. Cannonical led the way toward STUPID changes and now Deb seems to have even exceeded THEM.

I'm gonna look into Arch ......

Um ... TRY that. Neither /etc/network or WPA_supplicant or dhcpcd.conf are used any more by any sort of default/ fallback.

For a GUI-less Bookworm you have to fool with the very horrible 'nmcli' and then manually EDIT the net def templates it creates way down in /etc/NetworkManager/ system-<something>

Bookworm is just HORRIBLE in this respect on a Pi.

Gonna check into Arch - seriously check into it. IF IT WORKS *DON'T BREAK IT*

Actually does not have to be true.

It is possible to run a dhcp server that hands out a fixed IP address for a specific MAC. Many home routers allow this feature too. I run my own DHCP server exactly to have full control over this and many other features.

Not defending Debian here at all :-) Though I do use debain derived OSes

- but much reconfigured.

If I understand you correctly, I'm looking forward to that.

Thanks.

Bob.

I'm reading that now and trying to understand it. Not heard that penny drop yet. :-)

Thanks for that.

Bob.

Which can be a pain when you upgrade a box or want to hand a fixed IP to something like a phone that randomly changes MAC address to prevent IPv6 auto allocation being used for tracking.

Many DHCP servers can also allocate a static IP based on hostname which is really handy especially with DNS/DHCP integrated as in dnsmasq.

Supposedly it was because ifupdown depends on dhclient, which is now abandonware. Hence they needed to replace that part of the stack, either with NetworkManager or systemd-networkd:

Seems like Arch uses the same tools, with systemd-networkd by default:

For my Pi Zero W running bookworm.

I did an in-place upgrade from bullseye to bookworm and then a later upgrade broke the networking. See the thread "Arrgh!! systemd strikes again!"

Using a separate Linux system to access the Pi's SDcard I added the following files

/etc/network/interfaces.d/wlan0 /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf

In my case the content is

/etc/network/interfaces.d/wlan0 allow-hotplug wlan0 iface wlan0 inet dhcp wpa-conf /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf

/etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf ctrl_interface=DIR=/var/run/wpa_supplicant GROUP=netdev update_config=1 country=GB

network={ ssid="MyHomeWifiName" psk="XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX" }

My router is setup to allocate a set of fixed IP addrs based on MAC address for some devices that use DHCP. The rest have fixed IP addrs anyway.

Fantastic !! It works !! Well done - thank you.

On a raspberry pi 2 with no built in wi-fi I tried a couple of different dongles but they both worked

Yes, same here.

Thanks again.

Bob.

Glad to be of help. I found stuff about this online so it's not my own hard work here just the distillation of someone else's efforts.

And NOBODY else in the LiniVerse could maintain/tweak/replace dhclient ??? This exposes a PROBLEM.

May have to just stick with BullsEye for quite awhile then ...

Depending, there ARE ways to manage any security risks even after updates get thin.

I've HAD it with stupid pointless changes in What Works. Sounds like, horrors, MICROSOFT !

As is now, EVERY update might now totally BREAK your hard-won applications. This is NOT acceptable.

ANYway, I'll post templates for nm entries tomorrow, one for wired, another for wireless. Get 'em going with an easy nmcli and then tweak to taste with nano.

Hmm ... I can already visualize an EASY TO USE replacement for common nmcli uses on a Pi ... I'll do it in Python (no, not bash with it's obscure syntax I have to look up EVERY time) and post it somewhere findable. Fill-in-the-blanks is the simplest approach along with a 'ladder' structure so you can key 'next' or 'go back'. Oh sure, you can install Gnome or something, use the GUI nm app (gotta run it as root) and then try to UN-install all that junk ... until you need to repeat .....

There ARE Pi-runnable versions of FreeBSD and even Plan-9 these days. I'm betting they're less volatile. I've run OpenSuse on a Pi (though it's 'heavy') but I'll have to check if RHEL and/or Fedora keep breaking What Works first.

Did that work on BOOKWORM ???