Can I use same software after switching Window Manager or Desktop Environment in Linux - gnome

Suppose I am using Kubuntu.
So I have Kwin as Window Manager and
KDE as Desktop Environment.
I use VSCode and other software.
I am switching to other Desktop Environment and Window Manager alongside Kwin and KDE.
Note: This means I will have both KDE and other Desktop Environments installed on my computer and I will switch between these from login screen. [Same for window manager]
Now, If I switch to Cinnamon Desktop Environment or GNOME Desktop Environment or any other Desktop Environment.
or if I switch to i3, bspwm, dwm Tiling Window Manager or Fluxbox, Openbox Stacking/Floating Window Manager.
or switched both Desktop Environment and Window Manager.
Now can I use the same VSCode and other softwares on these different Desktop Environment and Window Manager? or do I need to install same software for each of these Desktop Environments and Window Managers?

All your self installed programs will work fine in whatever environment you choose.
For maximum compatibility, you should still prefer x11 over Wayland as display server - for example screen sharing in ms teams needs x11, last time I checked. This depends on your personal needs.
Although you can always start any program from a terminal, we usually like to have a graphical menu of some kind that lists all available GUI apps. Desktop environments all contain their own menu.
If you go down the window manager route, you are expected to install a launcher yourself (such as dmenu or rofi), and configure keyboard shortcuts to launch each one of your favorite apps.
I recommend watching DistroTube on YouTube for lots of good info about tiling window managers and Linux in general.

Related

virtual studio code gui launches fine from my two x-render options [mobaxterm and x-win32/ssh] but fails on Gnome gui remote graphics

Latest rpm version of virtual studio code gui launches fine from my two x-render options [mobaxterm and x-win32/ssh] but fails to launch gui from either of my remote graphics Gnome Desktop solutions [x-win32 LIVE and NICE DCV], aside from --disable-gpu, which failed to help, what else would cause this topic when DISPLAY environment variable is set in all cases?

Set foreground window for Windows program running under Wine

I'm looking for a way to programmatically manipulate a windows program running on Linux under Wine.
Is there something similar on Linux to the Windows SetWindowForeground win32 command?
A function that sets a window by name to the foreground, that will work with a Windows program running under Wine on Linux?
Doe's wine use X11? If so I may be able to utilize this answer, will experiment and circle back
In Linux application windows (including your wine apps window) are managed by your desktop environment's Window Manager (WM). The Window Manager controls how windows are placed and the controls which operate on the windows (resizing, minimize, maxize etc).
Unfortunately there is no standardised Window Manager the major desktop environments (GNOME, KDE etc) have developed their own Window Managers and some people run stand alone WMs like IceWM or more exotic tiling WMs etc.
KDE's WM is called KWin, Gnome's is Mutter, Unity uses Compiz (I think - haven't used Ubuntu for a long time).
When the WM is running in an X sesion it probably uses X11 API internally to raise and lower windows.
However most modern WMs will prevent userpace X calls from popping up windows (because of security concerns etc) You will need to use the WM's wrapper functions. I think Wayland (whenever it is finally available) will have a proper secure API so this shouldn't be an issue.
The short answer to your question is any program you write will likely need to be Windows Manager specific and you should consult the documentation for your WM.
Long Answer - there is a freedesktop.org standard called Extended Windows Manager Hints I'm not sure how good conformance to the spec is among differing WMs (major ones like Gnome and kDE should be good). The property you are interested in is Window State (NET_WM_STATE)
See: http://standards.freedesktop.org/wm-spec/wm-spec-1.3.html
I hope that helps - my knowledge of WMs is probably outdated but should steer you in the right direction - I haven't really played around with WMs since GLX first came out and Compositing (wobbly windows and all that jazz) was in vogue.
You can use X11 window manager xdotool or X window manager wmctrl.
Consider the following scenario. A MS windows application titled WordWeb Installer running in wine on Ubuntu on workspace 2. Current workspace : 1. To switch to workspace 2 and focus the wine app execute
wmctrl -R wordweb or
xdotool windowactivate $( xdotool search --name wordweb )

change color of window in win 7

I'm using cygwin/X-Sever to ssh into several other machines and then open the same control pannels on each machine. Is it possible to color the Top window bar differently for each one? Either using X11 or windows?
Clientside: Win7 - Cygwin
Serverside: Unix & Linux
If you were using Linux as a client, this could be done clientside using a nice window manager like i3 by just applying a different window decoration style based on namespace.
Now because you're using Windows 7 with cygwin, my best guess is that you're using XWin for Xserver. I am not aware of built-in functionality to XWin that would allow you do to this easily client-side. You said you're opening remote "control panels" on each machine, but not if they are GUI or CLI applications.
For CLI applications, you can set the background and foreground colour on a remote xterm session when connecting with startxwin as the Examples section of the man page shows.
For GUI applications, the simplest solution may be to follow what I described in the first paragraph but server-side. Using ssh this would be easy to script, just set a custom window manager theme on the remote host for the application at runtime. Your remote host window manager's documentation should explain how to configure there.

Effiecient Windows to Linux desktop sharing solution that support multiple screens

I am looking for an efficient Windows to Linux desktop sharing software that support multiple screen.
As of now my team develops (mustly Scala) code on our local windows machines (laptops).
For various reasons the data we are working on can't usually be copied to our local machines.
Currently we quite frequently need to exports our code/jars to a different environment that is also connected to an Hadoop cluster containing the data.
We are looking for a desktop sharing solution that will enable us to develop and execute code on remote, strong, stable Linux machines, that are connected via broadband connection to our data clusters.
Its crucial for us that the solution above will be able to run remote GUI based developing tools such as IntelliJ on the Linux machines and display them on our local Windows machine multiple screens smoothly.
Any recommendation?
Thanks in advance,
Mishael
One of the options is to use Cygwin - this will allow you to run UI applications from a remote server on your Windows environment
In order to that you should do the following:
A. On Windows side:
Download and install Cygwin/X from : http://x.cygwin.com/
In the Cygwin/X installer make sure the following packages are chosen:
xorg-server (required, the Cygwin/X X Server)
xinit (required, scripts for starting the X server: xinit, startx,
startwin)
X-start-menu-icons (optional, adds icons for X Clients to the Start menu)
xorg-docs (optional, man pages)
font-bh-ttf
font-bitstream-vera-ttf
Setup X Launcher
Create a new shortcut on your desktop which points to the following (assume your cygwin was installed in c:\software):
C:\software\cygwin\bin\run.exe C:\software\cygwin\bin\XWin.exe -multiwindow -clipboard -ac
Double click the shortcut you just created :) this will start small icon on the left side of windows taskbar.
B. On Linux side
login to your remote server for the same windows machine (use any terminal - e.g Putty)
set the DISPLAY parameter your server:
export DISPLAY=<windows-host-name>:0.0
now you can run any application that requires GUI and it will open up on your windows machine
:)

How to use OpenGL without a window manager in Linux?

I've just finished the LFS book and my Linux system is working right now. I want to use OpenGL to display graphics on the screen, while the only installed package right now are those described on http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/lfs/view/stable/chapter03/packages.html.
I don't want to install something like Gnome, KDE or X.org. Instead, I want to use OpenGL directly from my software. Is this possible, and how can I do this? Or is it just as easy (I don't think so :'p) as writing an OpenGL application which runs full screen?
You don't have to install Gnome or KDE. These are used to managed windows, and you can launch graphical applications without having a window manager.
Therefore, you'll have to install a X server. The X server is responsible of drawing things on your screen. Without X server, you can't launch graphical applications.
Once X has been installed, launch it, export your DISPLAY environment variable, and the rest is like writing an OpenGL application which runs full screen :-)
You can use Pygame as well to create custom launch UI. Also try looking at Wayland compositor as it has replaced XServer in verisons like Fedora and Ubuntu.
kmscube DRM example
https://github.com/robclark/kmscube
This is possibly the most popular demo available, it uses OpenGL and EGL.
Unfortunately, the Ubuntu 18.04 package with NVIDIA proprietary drivers it does not work for me after going into Ctrl + Alt + F3:
drmModeGetResources failed: Invalid argument
failed to initialize legacy DRM
bug report: https://github.com/robclark/kmscube/issues/12
But I did get it working on emulator.
It takes over the entire display, and shows a colorful spinning cube.

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