A very partial list of available desktop applications, which means the required dependencies are also functional. Most Debian and Ubuntu repository software works without issue. Thousands of packages are, therefore, potentially available from standard repositories. As dCore is very extensible, additional repositories, including backports, PPAs (Ubuntu-based dCore flavours) and even individual Debian (*.deb) files from outside the standard repositories can be imported.
Review the official and unofficial Window Managers and Desktop Environment wiki sections to review these applications. Additional non-graphic applications are discussed in the dCore Server and Networking section. Some applications have specific READMEs, run readme.sh to review (see the dCore readme.sh Command). Report any software issues in the dCore forum as startup scripts, additional configuration or dependencies are sometimes required.
Numerous Linux friendly web browsers are available in the Debian and Ubuntu repositories. All browsers tested thus far appear to work quite well, within the scope of their own features and limitations.
Arora is a QT5 graphic browser that performed well in dCore-jessie using an SSE2
processor and poorly in dCore-xenial using an SSE only processor. This appears related to a QT5 bug for old hardware that will not likely be fixed. Run cat /proc/cpuinfo | grep flags to determine if the system supports SSE2 or only SSE. The export JavaScriptCoreUseJIT=0 workaround noted in some other browsers below was not effective with the Arora release from Ubuntu Xenial.
Dillo is a lightweight, FLTK graphic browser that provides limited https but no JavaScript support. Although fast, it does not render many websites properly. Tested well in dCore-jessie, dCore-wily and dCore-xenial.
Dooble is a QT4 WebKit graphic browser that tested well in dCore-xenial. It is not available in dCore-jessie. The executable is Dooble (capital 'D'). Placing Dooble in OnDemand requires manual modifcation of /etc/sysconfig/tcedir/ondemand/dooble to properly launch:
#!/bin/sh #ondemand -e dooble.sce ondemand -e dooble.sce && Dooble &
ELinks is a lightweight text-based browser, it tested well in dCore-jessie.
Firefox is a full featured GTK2/GTK3 graphic browser, it runs well in dCore.
GNU IceCat is the GNU version of the Firefox browser, focused on free software and privacy protection. Not available in Debian/Ubuntu repositories, it can be manually installed by following the same steps described in the dCore SeaMonkey guide, including libgtk2.0-0 and libdbus-glib-1-2 dependencies. The test version used was icecat-38.8.0.en-US.linux-i686.tar.bz2 from http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/gnuzilla/38.8.0-gnu2/ on dCore-jessie. It can be installed alongside SeaMonkey and Firefox, as it creates it's own ~/.mozilla/icecat/ configuration directory upon first run.
Links2 is a lightweight, intuitive text-based browser, it tested well in dCore-wily and dCore-jessie.
Lynx is a lightweight text-based browser, apparently the oldest browser currently in general use and development (started 1992), it tested well in dCore-jessie.
Midori is a fast, extensible GTK2 WebKit graphic browser, it tested well in dCore-jessie and dCore-xenial. Review README-midori.txt for installation information. There is a known JavaScript bug that was observed to crash Midori on older non-SSE2 hardware. Run cat /proc/cpuinfo | grep flags to determine if the system supports SSE2 or only SSE. If SSE only add the following entry into /home/$USER/.ashrc and reboot to set a global environment:
export JavaScriptCoreUseJIT=0
NetSurf is a lightweight GTK2 graphic browser with limited JavaScript support. It does not render some pages correctly, otherwise tested well in dCore-jessie, import via package netsurf-gtk.
Otter Browser is a QT5 graphic browser that tested well in dCore-xenial running old (non-SSE2) hardware. It is available as a PPA for Ubuntu-based dCore only. The PPA entry is ppa:otter-browser/release and more information is available at the Otter Browser Launchpad site. Review the dCore sce-ppa-add Command for more information. Note the import search and browser executable is otter-browser. Although not specifically tested, on older hardware it may require the same export JavaScriptCoreUseJIT=0 workaround noted in the Midori and QupZilla browser notes.
QupZilla is a fast, extensible QtWebKit graphic browser, it tested well in dCore-jessie. There is a known JavaScript bug that was observed to crash QupZilla on older non-SSE2 hardware. Run cat /proc/cpuinfo | grep flags to determine if the system supports SSE2 or only SSE. If SSE only add the following entry into /home/$USER/.ashrc and reboot to set a global environment and reboot:
export JavaScriptCoreUseJIT=0
SeaMonkey is a full-featured GTK3 graphic internet application suite. It is conservative, stable and extensible. Although not available in the default Debian and Ubuntu repositories, there are at least two options to install SeaMonkey in dCore.
Import dCore-seamonkey-installer from dCore's prebuilt repository, load it, and launch it, preferably with the --help option:
sce-import dCore-seamonkey-installer sce-load dCore-seamonkey-installer dCore-seamonkey-installer --help
Follow the instructions. dCore-seamonkey-installer will create seamonkey.sce for you which you can use optionally onboot or ondemand. Do not try to remove dCore-seamonkey-installer.sce since it is a dependency of seamonkey.sce.
The Ubuntuzilla project hosts an APT repository with .deb repacks of the latest official release versions of Mozilla Firefox, Firefox ESR, Mozilla SeaMonkey, and Mozilla Thunderbird. This repository should work on any APT-based distribution, including Ubuntu descendants, and Debian descendants. The project was born on Ubuntu forums, but despite the name is not really specific to Ubuntu.
Create a new extra repository file in /opt/debextra/ and copy the address of the repository into it. The address is
http://downloads.sourceforge.net/project/ubuntuzilla/mozilla/apt all main
You can find it here
Now you can import SeaMonkey under the name “seamonkey-mozilla-build”.
Both Option 1 and Option 2 have been tested in dCore-stretch.
Following information has become outdated and will possibly archived or removed from the wiki later:
SeaMonkey can be installed in Ubuntu-based dCore as a PPA from Ubuntuzilla (untested). Alternatively it can be set up manually from either a Debian or Ubuntu-based dCore installation. Review the dCore SeaMonkey Guide for manual installation instructions (tested in dCore-jessie).
Surf is a GTK2 graphic browser, tested well in dCore-jessie.
uzbl is a minimalist GTK2 graphic web browser, tested well in dCore-xenial.
w3m is a text-based browser that appeared to work well in dCore-xenial.
Web (Epiphany) tested well in dCore-jessie with an SSE2 equipped processor and poorly with a non-SSE2 processor (c. 2001 hardware). To determine system's processor capabilities run cat /proc/cpuinfo | grep flags. The Web package in Debian is named epiphany-browser.
xombrero is a GTK3 WebKit graphic browser that runs well in dCore-jessie and dCore-xenial. Although not specifically tested, on older hardware it may require the same export JavaScriptCoreUseJIT=0 workaround noted in the Midori and QupZilla browser notes.
All compile tools available in the Debian and Ubuntu repositories are essentially available to dCore users. The Debian and Ubuntu repositories contain thousands of development packages required to compile most software. Perform a broad search with sce-import -c dev or narrow the search as needed. Review the software provider's compile instructions.
Build Essential is available in the Debian and Ubuntu repositories and runs well in dCore. It contains essential tools needed to compile software, such as automake, bash, g++ and gcc. See README-gcc.txt for installation information. Non-SSE2 systems may be unable to utilize newer versions of GCC, such as GCC version 6 in dCore-stretch, providing failed output such as 'checking whether the C compiler works… no' or an inability to successfully compile a simple, error free C or C++ program. If these problems are experienced run cat /proc/cpuinfo | grep flags in a terminal to determine whether the system's CPU provides 'sse' support only or 'sse2' and greater. Review this dCore forum post on importing and setting up an older version of gcc and g++, if available in the Debian/Ubuntu repository of the dCore flavour being used.
Flash is slowly being phased out, although still required by some websites. There are several methods to install and update Flash and create persistence. Older systems require Flash 10.
If using newer hardware (<10 years old) with an SSE2 processor, a getFlash11 script is available from the dCore repository. Load and re-run getFlash11 whenever a Flash update becomes available.
sce-import -o getFlash11 # import getFlash11 script sce-load getFlash11 # load getFlash11 script getFlash11 # run in terminal to create a flash11.sce
On Ubuntu-based dCores, adobe-flashplugin may be imported from the Canonical Partner repository. For example, create a file in /opt/debextra/ named 'trusty_partner' containing the line 'http://archive.canonical.com/ubuntu trusty partner'. This repository will then be accessible via the dCore sce-import Command to search and install the desired software. See the additional repositories section for more information. As the adobe-flashplugin package receives updates, sce-update will detect new Flash versions as they become available.
Important: A /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/ directory must be manually created before loading adobe-flashplugin. To make the new directory persistent add the line mkdir /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/ to /opt/bootlocal.sh. Note this process works on dCore-trusty. The package flashplugin-installer does not, however, work.
Manual Flash installation is simple but there is no automatic update. Repeat the process when updates are released.
tar -xzvf *.tar.gzmkdir -p /usr/lib/mozilla/pluginssudo cp libflashplayer.so /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/Add “usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/libflashplayer.so” to /opt/.filetool.lst (no preceding slash) for persistence. As libflashplayer.so is large, it will add several megabytes to the 'mydata.tgz' backup file.
To keep 'mydata.tgz' small, systems with persistent /home/ or /opt/ or an extra data partion may alternatively copy libflashplayer.so to another location and create a symlink from /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/ or even ~/.mozilla/firefox/profile_name.default/plugins/ (create plugins directory). If using a /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/ directory, add it to /opt/.filetool.lst for persistence.
An unofficial dCore Flash 10 SCE Creation Script is available for systems using older processors. Future update checks not required, as Adobe no longer supports Flash 10.
Flash is proprietary and security issues are well documented. From a security perspective it is recommended Flash only be used as a last resort. Numerous alternatives are available:
If Flash is utilized recommend:
Numerous file managers are available in the Debian and Ubuntu repositories.
Caja file manager tested well in dCore-wily running the MATE desktop and standalone in dCore-jessie and dCore-xenial. Behaviour and setup varies between distributions. The following may be required to fully run standalone, which can be performed manually or with a custom menu, ~/.X.d and/or /opt/bootlocal.sh entry.
The gnome-icon-theme option is simple and requires less steps. MATE purists will prefer the mate-icon-theme option or simply install the entire MATE desktop (see README-mate.txt):
To enable missing icons, either: Install gnome-icon-theme Run caja or dbus-launch caja or Install mate-icon-theme Install mate-settings-daemon Run sudo /usr/local/postinst/libglib2.0-0 Run sudo mate-settings-daemon Run caja or dbus-launch caja
On dCore-jessie but not dCore-xenial, launching the caja command auto-mounts all partitions and dbus-launch caja avoids auto-mount. The dbus-launch caja command enables Network → Browse Network functionality, which relies on built-in Samba libraries to browse local network shares.
If /etc/fstab partitions do not display in the Caja side panel, append the desired /etc/fstab line(s) with x-gvfs-show and ensure /etc/fstab is added to /opt/.filetool.lst. This should allow simple click mount/umount of desired partitions with user read/write capability. Example:
/dev/sda1 /mnt/sda1 ntfs-3g noauto,users,exec,x-gvfs-show 0 0 # Added by TC
emelFM is lightweight and configurable two-pane GTK file manager, available from the dCore pre-built repository.
emelFM2 is a lightweight and configurable two-pane GTK2 file manager, available from the dCore pre-built repository.
Enlightenment File Manager tested well in dCore-xenial running the Enlightenment DE. Cannot be used without enlightenment DE. Sometimes crashes when copying large files. Also drag and drop is not working well. For install see README-enlightenment.txt.
Fluff is a lightweight FLTK file manager programmed specifically for Tiny Core, tested well in dCore.
Nemo runs well on dCore-xenial. It does, however, take over the desktop background, turning it all black without any obvious option of either turning this feature off or choosing the background image. The turning-off can only be achieved via gsettings which introduces additional complexity.
As a work-around it is possible, however, to launch nemo with the option –no-desktop.
Loading Nemo by the following Ondemand script replaces the executable by a tiny shell script which calls the executable with the option mentioned above.
#!/bin/sh sce-load nemo if [ ! -e /usr/bin/nemo.orig ] then echo "YES" sudo mv /usr/bin/nemo /usr/bin/nemo.orig sudo dd of=/usr/bin/nemo << EOF #!/bin/sh nemo.orig --no-desktop & EOF sudo chmod +x /usr/bin/nemo fi nemo &
NB make sure that the lines are indented as shown above, especially the one reading “EOF”! (Prize question: why? Correct answers are rewarded by the small Bash medal in silver.)
PCManFM tested well in dCore-wily and dCore-jessie. Although the built-in 'Trash Can' and Go → Network functionality may work with a full installation, such as the LXDE desktop or using the sce-import -R (recommended) option, to enable these items in a minimal install import and load the additional packages outlined below. This should provide access to local network Samba shares as well as CIFS-based shared router storage. Consider using sce-import -l pcmanfm, a list import to bring all desired dependencies into a single PCManFM SCE.
sce-import dbus-x11 sce-import gvfs-backends sce-import smbnetfs sce-load dbus-x11 gvfs-backends smbnetfs
Launch PCManFM with the dbus-launch command:
dbus-launch pcmanfm
Thunar tested well in dCore-wily but did not initially display icons in dCore-jessie or -xenial, run readme.sh thunar to review icon configuration options.
OwnCloud runs well on dCore-trusty and -xenial. A file under '/opt/debextra/' with the following content allows to import an extension consisting of the packages owncloud-client and, optionally, owncloud-client-l10n. For connecting via HTTPS, the package ca-certificates must be included as well.
http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/isv:/ownCloud:/desktop/Ubuntu_16.04/ /
After loading the extension, the client is started by the command owncloud.
Numerous games are available in the Debian and Ubuntu repositories. Run sce-import -c games (contains games) to search for various games.
Ace of Penguins solitaire games run well in dCore.
FLTK games (fltk1.1-games and fltk1.3-games) tested well in dCore-jessie.
Project: Starfighter is a 2D space shooter that tested well in dCore-jessie, even on older hardware.
Rogue from bsdgames-nonfree runs well in dCore. Although not formally tested, most roguelike and terminal based games should run well, including angband, bsdgames, nethack, moria and omega-rpg.
Warzone 2100 appeared to function well in dCore-jessie, although the test hardware was inadequate to provide decent frame rates.
Numerous image viewers and graphic manipulation programs are available in the Debian and Ubuntu repositories.
Eye of MATE image viewer tested well in dCore-jessie, it can be imported standalone or as part of the MATE Desktop Environment (see README-mate.txt). To get full icon functionality when imported standalone, add Eye of MATE to sceboot.list and mate-settings-daemon to /opt/bootlocal.sh. Alternatively, after boot the command sudo mate-settings-daemon can also be run to manually start the daemon before launching Eye of MATE.
GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program) tested well in dCore-wily.
GQview tested well in dCore-wily, available from the dCore prebuilt repository.
ImageMagick tested well in dCore-stretch, useful for handling image files, converting images to PDF, etc.
Mirage is a fast and simple GTK+ image viewer, depending only on PyGTK. It supports SVG and sports rotating, zooming, flipping, resizing and cropping images. Notice that development seems to have stopped since 2011. However it runs well on dCore-xenial and does well what it should.
Tux Paint tested well in dCore-jessie.
XPaint tested well in dCore-jessie.
JRE 8 (Java Runtime Environment) can be installed from Oracle using the dCore-java-installer Command.
Applications not classified elsewhere.
Bash shell works well in dCore. By default dCore uses the Almquist (Ash) shell, import Bash if required to run specific scripts or programs.
Engrampa archive manager (File Roller fork) tested well in dCore-jessie, it can be imported standalone or as part of the MATE Desktop Environment (see README-mate.txt).
galculator tested well in dCore-jessie.
lm-sensors tested well in dCore-stretch, import lm-sensors package, useful commands sensors and sensors-detect.
GtkPerf tested well in dCore-jessie.
mesa-utils tested well in dCore-jessie, it provides several basic GL utilities built by Mesa, including glxinfo and glxgears.
nvidia-detect tested well in dCore-jessie. Import and load Bash (sce-import bash) before running the nvidia-detect command.
Numerous multimedia applications are available in the Debian and Ubuntu repositories.
Audacity audio editor tested well in dCore-jessie. On lower RAM systems, recommend modifying ~/.audacity-data/audacity.cfg → TempDir=/tmp to a hard drive partition. For example, extracting a 61 MB audio .mp3 required 1.3 GB of temporary drive space, which initially caused a cryptic error message after exhausting available RAM.
mpv media player tested well in dCore-jessie.
Perl Audio Converter (pacpl) is a feature rich command line audio converter that tested well in dCore-jessie. Run pacpl -f to determine which encoder/decoder applications are required for the desired file format(s). For example, converting mp4 files to mp3 required loading SMPlayer plus lame.
SMPlayer is a full-featured media player that provides very good video performance, even on older hardware, and built-in YouTube streaming.
SMTube YouTube browser tested well in dCore-xenial and dCore-stretch, but did not work in dCore-jessie. In conjunction with SMPlayer, it provides an efficient way to search, browse and play YouTube videos. An SMTube popup now indicates 'Due to changes in YouTube, the old SMTube doesn't work anymore. This is a new version of SMTube, written from scratch. Some functionality is not available yet.'
SoX (Sound eXchange), the Swiss Army knife of sound processing, tested well in dCore-Jessie. To play music from command line, just run play music_file. Use sce-import to obtain additional libsox-fmt-* packages to support various sound file formats.
VLC Media Player is a full-featured media player that tested well in dCore-jessie.
XMMS also available in the dCore pre-built repository (see 'sce-searchprebuilt' and 'sce-import' commands). A decent basic media player primarily for music playback.
Many supported Window Managers, such as Fluxbox, IceWM, JWM, and all Desktop Environments have their own built-in 'panels', see the dCore X Window System page. Most panels and launchers work well and numerous alternatives are available in the Debian and Ubuntu repositories.
The dmenu launcher tested well in dCore-wily in various graphic enviroments.
In dCore-wily lxpanel right-click crashing was noted, internet search indicates common problem. Configuring a new panel may improve stability, otherwise import an alternative.
tint2 tested well in dCore-wily and has a nice built-in configuration GUI.
A dCorePlus installation includes the wbar launcher, also available from the dCore prebuilt repository.
Numerous PDF viewers are available in the Debian and Ubuntu repositories.
Atril document viewer tested well in dCore-jessie, it can be imported standalone or as part of the MATE Desktop Environment (see README-mate.txt).
Evince is the standard PDF viewer for Gnome (Gnome desktop not required), installed through the package evince. Tested well in dCore-jessie.
ePDFview had been an often mentioned choice of light-weight PDF-viewer. However, it seems unmaintained and is not available from the recent Ubuntu repositories anymore.
MuPDF is a lightweight PDF viewer that tested well in dCore-Wily and dCore-jessie.
qpdfview is a tabbed PDF viewer, said to be as lightweight as ePDFview with more features, depending only on the Qt libraries. Tested to run well in dCore-jessie. Copying text to clipboard is not ideal and should be performed by selecting Edit → Copy to clipboard (or Ctrl-C) → left click and drag over text → Copy text.
It works out of the box on dCore-xenial, opening files in new tabs when selected from a file manager or when instructed via “Open in new tab…” from the file menu. The following was required (presumably on dCore-jessie) to enable proper tabbed PDF functionality: Ensure dbus-x11 is installed and loaded prior to running qpdfview. Launch qpdfview with 'qpdfview –unique', which ensures subsequent PDFs are opened as new tabs in the the same qpdfview window. If launching qpdfview from ondemand, modify /tce/ondemand/qpdfview as follows:
#!/bin/sh #ondemand -e qpdfview.sce sce-load qpdfview && qpdfview --unique
Run busybox in terminal to review the system monitoring tools available in dCore base, such as dmesg, df, du, free, hostname, ifconfig, last, lsmod, mount, ping, ps aux, top, uname, uptime, who and whoami. Numerous system monitors are available in the Debian and Ubuntu repositories.
Conky has been tested to run well in dCore-jessie. Once installed copy /etc/conky/conky.conf to /home/tc. Rename conky.conf to .conkyrc and modify as desired. To automatically run at boot, ensure conky is listed in sceboot.lst, create a plain text file named 'startups' for example in /home/tc/.X.d./ and add 'conky &' to the file contents.
Conky-cli is a lightweight conky alternative that tested well in dCore-wily running dwm (basic conky-cli tutorial).
pstree displays running processes as a tree. In dCore-jessie it is available in the package psmisc.
The find command is part of built-in BusyBox. Numerous search software is available in the Debian and Ubuntu repositories.
gtkfind is available in the dCore prebuilt repository. There was an issue running it in dCore-jessie, report any issues to the forum.
locate tested well in dCore-jessie, save the database file for persistence across reboots.
Recoll is a desktop search utility that finds keywords in file names and file contents. It is based on the Xapian search engine, is configurable and natively indexes the contents of numerous file types. A dCore-jessie installation example is outlined below, which indexes text, html and pdf files.
The X terminal emulators xterm and uxterm (xterm with Unicode support) are included in the xorg-* extensions. The Xprogs extension provides aterm. These will, therefore, be available to dCore users running Xorg/graphics. Numerous terminal emulators are available in the Debian and Ubuntu repositories.
LXTerminal tested well in dCore-jessie.
MATE Terminal tested well in dCore-jessie, it can be imported standalone or as part of the MATE Desktop Environment (see README-mate.txt).
Terminator tested well in dCore-jessie.
Terminology is a feature rich terminal emulator. Although developed by the Enlightenment development team, it does not require the Enlightenment Window Manager and tested well in dCore-jessie, trusty, wily & xenial. See README-enlightenment.txt.
Text editors in dCore base include vi (CLI) and fltk-editor (GUI). Numerous additional text editors and office suites are available, within the Debian and Ubuntu repositories and externally.
Abiword is a middleweight text editor with numerous features. It tested well in dCore-jessie but failed to launch when tested on the same hardware in dCore-wily. Numerous alternatives are available, including LibreOffice noted below.
Beaver is a lightweight tabbed text editor available in the dCore pre-built repository.
Geany is a lightweight tabbed text editor and IDE (integrated development environment) that tested well in dCore-jessie.
gedit tested well in dCore-jessie.
The LibreOffice 5 office suite tested well in dCore-jessie and dCore-wily (see README-libreoffice.txt). For localisation, import the respective 'l10n'-package (e.g. 'libreoffice-l10n-de' for German) and, if desired, the respective help texts (e.g. 'libreoffice-help-de').
nano text editor is a user friendly vi alternative.
The Apache OpenOffice office suite tested well in dCore-jessie. It does not appear present in Debian/Ubuntu repositories or PPA. Review the dCore OpenOffice Guide for manual installation instructions.
Pluma text editor tested well in dCore-jessie, it can be imported standalone or as part of the MATE Desktop Environment (see README-mate.txt).
The StarOffice 7 legacy office suite can be downloaded from this link, during preliminary testing installed and ran well in dCore-jessie. Installs Sun Microsystem's pre-compiled StarOffice 7 suite (c2003) for Linux, including: text document, HTML document, spreadsheet, presentation, drawing, etc. Installation notes:
soffice soft-link in ~/.local/bin/.soffice command.Cherrytree is a very versatile note taking application, storing its data as one single SQLite-database or as individual XML-files. Its node can be of type rich-text, simple text or code with syntax highlighting.
The current version is available from a PPA maintained by the devoloper himself. The repo can be added by issueing
sce-ppa-add ppa:giuspen/ppa