Installing Debian with KDE?

[johne53]

A while ago I used WSL to install Debian (at version 10) but I've never been happy with Nautilus. I'd like to try Dolphin but apparently Dolphin requires KDE, rather than Gnome. Yesterday I came across these instructions which allow Debian's desktop environment to be switched to KDE Plasma (even after Debian's already been installed). Unfortunately it doesn't look like it's supported in Debian version 10 so I've a few questions:-

1. If I uninstalled Debian and re-installed it, would I still get version 10 or has it been updated now?
2. Assuming I'd still get v10 and the switchover process isn't compatible with v10, can WSL configure Debian to use KDE at install time?
3. Is KDE Plasma the same thing as KDE or something different?

[starkmarkus]

A few separate points here.

First, if you reinstall the current Microsoft Store Debian app today, you should not get Debian 10 anymore. The Store listing appears to have been updated for Debian 13 / Trixie. You can also check what WSL offers with:

wsl --list --online

and after installing Debian:

cat /etc/debian_version
cat /etc/os-release

Second, WSL itself does not really have an “install Debian with KDE” option in the same way a normal Debian installer ISO does. The WSL Debian app gives you a Debian userspace, and then you install packages inside it with apt.

But if your main goal is to use Dolphin, you probably do not need to switch the whole Debian desktop environment to KDE Plasma. Dolphin is a KDE application, but it can be installed and run as an app:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install dolphin
dolphin

On a current WSL2 + WSLg setup, GUI apps can run without installing a full desktop session.

Third, “KDE” and “KDE Plasma” are related but not exactly the same thing:

• KDE is the broader community/ecosystem.
• KDE Plasma is the desktop environment/shell.
• Dolphin is KDE’s file manager.

So Dolphin is a KDE app, but it does not necessarily require you to run a full KDE Plasma desktop.

If you really want a full Plasma session inside WSL, that is a more advanced setup and may involve systemd, dbus, display/session handling, and extra packages such as kde-plasma-desktop. For normal WSL use, I would first try just installing Dolphin directly. If it works well enough, that avoids a lot of desktop-session complexity.

[johne53]

Thanks @starkmarkus. I do appreciate comprehensive responses and yours is excellent with some fantastic tips!

FWIW I already tried running Dolphin in Debian 10 (i.e. via WSL) but it had some annoying artefacts.. One problem was that while Dolphin technically worked, it couldn't display icons. So I could use it to navigate around my system and it'd display the names of things but that's all. A second problem was that if I resized the Dolphin GUI it'd stop displaying a mouse cursor which pretty much made it unusable.

I'm busy here for a day or two but if I get a chance later this week I'll update to Debian 13 and see how things pan out.

[Edit...] Just before I need to go out... I quickly updated Debian to version 13 and installed both nautilus and dolphin. Both are working fine and you can see from the attached screenshot that dolphin is showing icons now (and the mouse cursor issue is gone too!!)

One problem in both file managers is that when I display them, the LH pane used to show an extra option at the bottom (called something like "Other places"). It used to take me to the root folder and allow me to see contents, such as bin / usr / mnt etc. Is there any way to get that back?

[starkmarkus]

Great, glad Debian 13 fixed the Dolphin icon/cursor issues.

For the missing “Other Places” entry: that is more of a file-manager UI difference than a WSL problem.

In Dolphin you can get to the Linux root filesystem directly by clicking the path/location bar and entering:

/

or by using the editable location bar shortcut and typing /.

Once you are at /, you can add it to the left sidebar / Places panel so it is available like the old “Other Places” shortcut.

In Dolphin, try one of these:

1. open /
2. right-click in the Places sidebar
3. choose Add Entry / Add to Places
4. set the location to /
5. name it Root or File System

If that menu is not visible, you can also try dragging the folder/location into the Places sidebar.

In Nautilus, newer versions changed/removed the old “Other Locations” behavior in some setups. The workaround is similar: use the path/location entry, go to /, then bookmark it if you want it permanently in the sidebar.

So the short answer is: you do not need a special WSL setting for this. Just add / as a bookmark/place in Dolphin or Nautilus.

One extra WSL note: if you want to access Windows drives from inside Debian, those are usually under:

/mnt/c
/mnt/d

and if you want to access the Debian filesystem from Windows Explorer, you can use the WSL network path from Windows rather than editing Linux system files through random mounted paths.

[johne53]

Thanks for helping with this. The main problem I'm seeing now is with dropdown list boxes. I first noticed it in Firefox when I was trying to set my home page to Google (see the attached image). The settings page offered various checkboxes and 4 x list boxes at the RHS. Each list box showed me a dropdown list but none of the options were selectable. Assuming it was a Firefox issue I asked on the Mozilla help forum and they suggested it was most likely an issue with WSL/Debian (and to try some list boxes in other apps).

So I launched Nautilus which has a list box at the top RHS and amazingly Nautilus has exactly the same problem. But Dolphin's path/location bar also has a dropdown list at the RHS and that one isn't affected. Any ideas??

[johne53]

I just thought of something else that might be worth trying...

Before updating to Debian 13 I'd been running Debian ver 10 here but presumably WSL offered ver 11 and ver 12 in the interim? So is there any way I can still try one of those earlier versions to see if they also exhibit this problem? I definitely never saw this with Debian 10.

[Edit...] Some more info... after a bit more experimenting I've discovered that if I run Firefox using sudo the contents of dropdown list boxes then immediately become accessible as expected. And perhaps more revealing, I installed AlmaLinux-9 this morning which exhibits exactly the same issues. So it's kinda looking like this might be an issue with WSL :-(

[johne53]

Woohoo! After a change of direction this morning I'm finally starting to see some light at the end of the tunnel. AlmaLinux-8 seems to be immune to the above problems. Admittedly the UI looks a bit clunky by modern standards but on my system at least, it's the only Linux distro that actually works with WSL-2. The others all had at least one of the following issues:-

1. AlmaLinux-10 wasn't even installable
2. Most other distros installed okay and apps would seemingly install okay but for many distros (Ubuntu / Fedora / OpenSUSE) attempting to launch most apps gave me runtime errors about missing shared libraries
3. Apart from AlmaLinux-8 any distro that could actually launch an app gave me runtime issues when trying to use dropdown list boxes (i.e. with the entries being unselectable)
4. For any distro where Firefox would launch, around 20% of times it launches at minimum size if Google is set as the home page (see the image below)

Another issue I'm seeing consistently with WSL-2 is that if I close all Linux apps, then put Windows into Sleep mode, then wake it up later, any attempt to launch a Linux app (via bash) shows me an icon on my Windows Taskbar but the app's window fails to appear on screen. So far this has happened with all distros and all apps. OTOH when I wake up Windows, I can launch a Linux app from my Windows Start Menu without any problems.

If anyone can reproduce any of the above issues, do please pass them on to the the developers.

[johne53]

Another issue I'm seeing consistently with WSL-2 is that if I close all Linux apps, then put Windows into Sleep mode, then wake it up later, any attempt to launch a Linux app (via bash) shows me an icon on my Windows Taskbar but the app's window fails to appear on screen.

Unofrtunately I can't get a screen grab of the problem but I've just noticed something extra...

Whenever this occurs, if I hover my mouse pointer over the relevant icon (i.e. on the Windows Taskbar) a small view of the window appears with some text at the top saying [WARN:COPY MODE] followed by the name of the app that won't display. Does that give any clue to anyone?