Home Orbitiny Orbitiny Desktop: Portable, Modular, and Feature-Rich Linux Desktop Environment

Orbitiny Desktop: Portable, Modular, and Feature-Rich Linux Desktop Environment

By sk
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Are you searching for a new desktop environment for your Linux OS? Perhaps you'd like to give Orbitiny Desktop a try! Orbitiny is a new kind of Linux Desktop Environment, made by someone who wanted something different. It's not like other desktops you might have seen. Orbitiny is designed to be innovative but also feel familiar.

In this tutorial, we’ll take a closer look at the features of Orbitiny Desktop and walk through the steps to install Orbitiny desktop environment on Ubuntu Linux.

What is Orbitiny Desktop?

Orbitiny Desktop is a new Linux desktop environment (DE) built from the ground up using Qt and coded in C++. It aims to be both innovative and familiar, combining unique features with traditional desktop elements.

A key aspect of Orbitiny is its portability, being able to run from a single directory on any distro or live CD, with the option to save settings to $HOME/.config/orbitiny.

Unlike other desktop environments, Orbitiny is new and unique DE. It's not based on any other desktop project. It's built to be modular, meaning each part is like a separate piece. This means that if one part breaks, the rest will keep working.

Orbitiny does not have its own window manager. Instead, it is compatible with a variety of existing window managers, such as XfwmMarco, and KDE’s window manager.

Orbitiny is completely open-source, and its source code is freely available on Codeberg.

Orbitiny Desktop Components

Orbitiny Desktop comes with its own set of utilities and applications.

  • A fully featured and innovative file manager. This file manager has its own built-in search utility, and it also has the ability to search for content inside files as well as search for an additional word on the same line where the match is found.
  • A desktop panel with 18 plugins that has full drag and drop support.
  • A dedicated search utility which has an integrated version in the file manager, and a stand-alone version.
  • A clipboard manager.
  • A device manager that can enable or disable devices without black-listing the kernel module.
  • A comprehensive start menu / application launcher that has full drag and drop support and a designated area for a sidebar.
  • A dashboard window that shows running tasks and installed applications with a search/filter functionality.

What Makes Orbitiny Special?

Orbitiny is built to be portable. This means you can put it on a USB stick and take your whole desktop with you. You can run it on any Linux computer, and it will look and feel the same. This is because it saves all its settings in one place. It can also be installed on your computer in the traditional way.

Here are some of the things that make Orbitiny different:

  • Desktop Gestures: You can draw patterns on your desktop to make things happen, like starting a program. It's like using gestures on a phone, but on your computer screen.
  • Icon Emblems: When you copy or cut a file, a little symbol appears on the icon. This helps you remember what you've done. If a folder has new files, an emblem will also show.
  • File Tricks: Orbitiny lets you do some cool things with files. For example, you can join two text files together, or paste text directly into a file. You can even paste the same content into many folders at once.
  • Custom Menus: When you right-click, the menus that pop up won't get in the way of other shortcuts you are using on the keyboard.
  • Panel Power: The panel at the top or bottom of your screen has lots of features, and you can drag and drop things onto it easily. You don't need a special "edit mode".
  • Run Commands: There's a special box where you can type commands to run programs on your selected files.
  • Multiple Screens: If you have more than one screen, each one can have its own set of icons and wallpaper. It's like having two separate computers.
  • Many Commands: You can set up some panel buttons with two commands, one for a left click and one for a middle click.

Additionally, Orbitiny Desktop has built-in support for WINE and DOSBOX, allowing it to run Windows and DOS applications.

The DE also supports MAFF files, extracting them to the /tmp directory and launching them as if they were HTML files.

Things to Keep in Mind

Orbitiny is still being worked on. It doesn't have a session manager yet. So you can't choose it from the login screen. You have to start it after you've logged in to your normal desktop. It also doesn't have things like a power manager or screensaver, but these are planned for the future.

It currently works with X11 only, and Wayland support is still being developed.

How to Install Orbitiny Desktop on Ubuntu

I tried Orbitiny desktop environment in my Ubuntu 22.04 LTS desktop. It worked without any issues.

Install Qt

First, make sure you have installed Qt on your Ubuntu desktop. To do so, run:

qmake --version

It should return the currently installed Qt version. If not, follow the steps below to install Qt on your Ubuntu system.

Update the package lists:

sudo apt update

Install Qt development packages:

sudo apt install qt6-base-dev qt6-tools-dev qt6-tools-dev-tools

This installs Qt 6 core development tools.

Find where qmake is installed:

find /usr -name qmake 2>/dev/null

You might see output like:

/usr/lib/qt6/bin/qmake

If qmake is in /usr/lib/qt6/bin/qmake, add it to your shell configuration as shown below:

For Bash/Zsh:

echo 'export PATH=/usr/lib/qt6/bin:$PATH' >> ~/.bashrc
source ~/.bashrc

For Fish shell:

set -U fish_user_paths /usr/lib/qt6/bin $fish_user_paths

Now, verify the Qt installation:

qmake --version

It should output something like:

QMake version 3.1
Using Qt version 6.2.4 in /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu

We also need to install Qt platform plugin 'xcb'. To install xcb plugin, run:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install libxcb-xinerama0 libxcb1 libx11-xcb1 libxrender1 libegl1-mesa

Check if xcb Plugin exists by running the command:

find /usr -name "libqxcb.so" 2>/dev/null

Sample Output:

/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/qt6/plugins/platforms/libqxcb.so

Great! We have now Qt 6 installed along with required dependencies for Orbitiny desktop on our Ubuntu system.

Installing Orbitiny

Download Orbitiny from the official Codeberg repository.

wget https://codeberg.org/sasko-usinov/orbitiny-desktop/raw/branch/main/orbitiny-bin-release/orbitiny-release.tar.gz

After downloading, extract the files:

tar -xvf orbitiny-release.tar.gz

Cd into the orbitiny-release directory:

cd orbitiny-release

and run the "start-orbitiny" program:

./start-orbitiny

After a few seconds, a license agreement window will pop-up. Just accept it to continue.

Orbitiny Desktop License Agreement

Start using the newly installed Orbitiny Desktop environment in Ubuntu.

Here's how Orbitiny desktop looks like in Ubuntu:

Orbitiny Desktop Environment Running in Ubuntu 22.04 LTS
Orbitiny Desktop Environment Running in Ubuntu 22.04 LTS

And, here's the File manager:

Qutiny File Manager
Qutiny File Manager

As mentioned earlier, Orbitiny does not include a session manager, nor does it currently have its own window manager (WM).

Orbitiny can be run on top of other desktop environments like GNOME, KDE, or Elementary. It will draw its own full-screen desktop window, covering the existing one.

Exploring Orbitiny Desktop

Portable:

Orbitiny can run in a portable mode which saves all settings in the directory it was extracted to. To run in portable mode, make sure a file named ".portable_mode" exists (without the quotes) in $BASE_DIR/usr/bin.

Non-portable:

If the ".portable_mode" file doesn't exist, Orbitiny will run in non-portable mode, saving settings in $HOME/.config/orbitiny.

Adjusting Content Margins:

To avoid the panel or icons overlapping with other desktop elements, right-click on the desktop, go to "Environment & Workspace Settings", then "Appearance". Here, you can adjust the "Content Margins & Spacing" which sets where the desktop icons start on the screen.

Adjusting Content Margins
Adjusting Content Margins

"Linux System" Icon:

Double-clicking the "Linux System" icon will bring up a "Disks & Partitions" menu. Right-clicking it will give you a menu with a set of system utilities, which you can configure paths for in "Environment & Workspace Settings"->"Applications".

Linux System Icon
Linux System Icon

"Disks & Partitions" Icon:

Double-clicking this icon opens up a different, fancier "Disks & Partitions" menu, and right-clicking it brings the same "Disks & Partitions" menu that you get from double-clicking the "Linux System" icon.

Custom Actions:

You can access the "Custom Actions" menu by right-clicking on the desktop and then going to "Custom Actions"->"Edit Custom Actions" to view the examples.

Force Running in Terminal:

When double-clicking an icon (either on the desktop, in the file manager, or on the panel), holding down the "Alt" key will force the command to run in a terminal window. However, this won't work if your window manager's accessibility key is set to "Alt"; if that's the case, change your window manager's shortcut for accessibilty.

Setting Logout/Reboot/Power Off:

Right-click the "Orbitiny" applications menu on the panel and go to "Commands" to set the log out, reboot, and power off commands. This is because Orbitiny does not have a session manager.

Gestures:

By default, middle-clicking on an empty area of the desktop brings up the "Disk & Partitions" menu. You can change this in "Environment & Workspace Settings"->"Advanced"->"Gestures"->"Middle Button Click". You can also change other gestures here.

Orbitiny Panel Customisation

  • Moving the Panel: You can drag the panel by its handle or edge button to any of the four edges of the screen.
  • Resizing the Panel: Click on a panel handle, then while holding the CTRL key, drag horizontally to resize the panel.
  • Moving the Panel Vertically/Horizontally: While holding SHIFT and dragging vertically moves the panel vertically, and while holding ALT and dragging horizontally moves it horizontally.
  • Moving with Keyboard: While holding CTRL and pressing the Up/Down keys on your keyboard to move the panel vertically and likewise, use the Left/Right keys on your keyboard to move the panel horizontally.
  • Scrolling the Panel: Hover over the panel and use the mouse wheel to scroll its contents (when scrolling is enabled). While holding CTRL, use the mouse wheel to resize the panel.
  • Panel Handle Actions: Double-clicking a panel handle will run a command and middle-clicking a panel handle will expand or collapse the panel. You can edit the double-click command in Preferences.
  • Accessing Panel Preferences: To access the panel's preferences, right-click the panel and select "Preferences" from the popup menu.

Conclusion

Orbitiny offers a new way to use Linux, with lots of unique features and a focus on being portable and modular. It's a good option if you want to try something different Linux desktop environment.

1 comment

Moltke January 30, 2025 - 8:37 pm

It kinda reminds me of Trinity desktop.

Reply

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