[Debian 13 Server/DietPi] Do X11-Based Qtile and IceWM Coexist Peacefully on Debian 13?

Software & Web Applications
1

Hello,

I currently have Debian 13 installed with no GUI. It was installed in a headless configuration, so X11 isn’t even installed yet. (This is a Pi 5, so I’m not sure Wayland is even an option?)

I’d like to install IceWM for actual productivity (I want to use this system to do work), and also Qtile (so I can learn to tiling window managers at last). I’m going to install and configure and be using IceWM before I even get to installing Qtile, so all its configuration will already be there when Qtile is installed.

A couple of questions:

  1. I know some desktop environments do not like living together on the same machine. No idea if that’s also a thing for WMs. But: Does anyone know if IceWM and Qtile can coexist peacefully on the same machine without breaking each other’s configs?

  2. I’ll need to install a Session Manager. Is there a specific one I should be looking at for this combination of window managers?

Thanks!

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They wont break each other configs. Thats never an issue. The real problem comes with the default applications bundled with different kinds of desktops. They come with their own file managers, terminals, text editors, stores, browsers, and various other packages that may or may not conflict with each other. You are installing very lightweight desktop environments, so chances for something to happen are really basically none.

1 Like
3

Thanks for the reassurance. :slight_smile:

I have to provide my own file manager with IceWM, so something tells me I’m almost certainly not going to run into those sorts of problems.

I’ve found a guide that installs lightweight window managers alongside XFCE, so I’ll probably go that route. The way DietPi works, there’s a setup wizard for XFCE that should also install LightDM and X11 and configure the Pi’s codecs and GPU RAM and all the little bits that I don’t understand how to do manually yet.

My understanding is that XFCE won’t run anything in the background by default, so it’ll just be there if I need it–including its utility apps if I want them.

The lighter approach would be to install X11 and LightDM. Then I could install whatever window managers I want but would have to build up the apps and features I want from scratch. That’s what I started out actually wanting to do.

I’ve figured out how to create nightly backups that I can roll back to, and have that set up and working, so I might just go ahead and try the second approach first and see if I can get to a working system. Installing XFCE feels like cheating (and I’ve only got a ~100 GB of free space on this system). :stuck_out_tongue:

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If i were you, i would not bother installing xfce and lightdm display manager. Or any other display manager for that matter. You dont need that to start your window manager or desktop environment. Just install xorg and icewm. Create .xinitrc in your home directory with simple exec icewm-sessionline. Once you are logged into your tty, just type startx, and your window manager will start. Or, if you want your icewm session to start as soon as you log into your tty, put this logic into your .bashrc or whatever shell configuration you use:

if [[ ! $DISPLAY && $XDG_VTNR -eq 1 ]]; then exec startx
fi

Simple and clean.