How to install Cutefish Desktop in Ubuntu?

Question

Cutefish is a new desktop environment that resembles the Mac OS UI. It was recently featured in OMG! Ubuntu!.

^{image source: The OMG! Ubuntu! article}

Cutefish OS is Debian based, so the desktop environment may be installed in Ubuntu without too much hassle.

How to install the Cutefish DE in Ubuntu, let's say in the latest Ubuntu 21.04?

Solution

It is still too early. Currently they do not provide any PPA. However, there is a new Ubuntu based spin-off.

Possible way to install is to use sources from https://github.com/cutefishos or adapt ArchLinux PKGBUILD files for building CuteFish components.

Draft of the installation process ontop of Ubuntu 21.04 is shown below:

sudo apt install -y git devscripts build-essential cmake ninja-build
sudo apt install -y qtbase5-dev qtquickcontrols2-5-dev libkf5networkmanagerqt-dev modemmanager-qt-dev debhelper extra-cmake-modules libkf5kio-dev libkf5screen-dev libqt5sensors5-dev qtdeclarative5-dev qttools5-dev qttools5-dev-tools libxcb-icccm4-dev qtbase5-private-dev kwin-dev libkdecorations2-dev libqt5xdg-dev libdbusmenu-qt5-dev libxcb-ewmh-dev libicu-dev libxcb-randr0-dev libsm-dev libxcb-xfixes0-dev libxcb-damage0-dev libxcb-composite0-dev libxcb-shm0-dev libxcb-util-dev libxcb-image0-dev libxtst-dev libpulse-dev libpolkit-qt5-1-dev libpolkit-agent-1-dev libqt5x11extras5-dev qml-module-qtquick2 qml-module-qtquick-controls2 libkf5bluezqt-dev libkf5bluezqt-dev libqt5opengl5-dev libxcursor-dev

mkdir -p ~/Downloads/cutefish
cd ~/Downloads/cutefish

git clone https://github.com/cutefishos/libcutefish --branch=0.2
cd libcutefish
dpkg-buildpackage -uc -us -b

cd ~/Downloads/cutefish
git clone https://github.com/cutefishos/fishui --branch=0.3
cd fishui
dpkg-buildpackage -uc -us -b

cd ~/Downloads/cutefish
git clone https://github.com/cutefishos/kwin-plugins --branch=0.3
cd kwin-plugins
dpkg-buildpackage -uc -us -b

cd ~/Downloads/cutefish
git clone https://github.com/cutefishos/launcher --branch=0.3
cd launcher
dpkg-buildpackage -uc -us -b

cd ~/Downloads/cutefish
git clone https://github.com/cutefishos/qt-plugins --branch=0.3
cd qt-plugins
dpkg-buildpackage -uc -us -b

cd ~/Downloads/cutefish
git clone https://github.com/cutefishos/wallpapers --branch=0.2
cd wallpapers
dpkg-buildpackage -uc -us -b

cd ~/Downloads/cutefish
sudo apt-get install -y ./*.deb

cd ~/Downloads/cutefish
git clone https://github.com/cutefishos/dock --branch=0.3
cd dock
dpkg-buildpackage -uc -us -b

cd ~/Downloads/cutefish
git clone https://github.com/cutefishos/filemanager --branch=0.3
cd filemanager
dpkg-buildpackage -uc -us -b

cd ~/Downloads/cutefish
git clone https://github.com/cutefishos/settings --branch=0.3
cd settings
dpkg-buildpackage -uc -us -b

cd ~/Downloads/cutefish
git clone https://github.com/cutefishos/statusbar --branch=0.3
cd statusbar
dpkg-buildpackage -uc -us -b

cd ~/Downloads/cutefish
git clone https://github.com/cutefishos/core --branch=0.3
cd core
dpkg-buildpackage -uc -us -b

cd ~/Downloads/cutefish
sudo apt-get install -y ./*.deb

## no debian directory
cd ~/Downloads/cutefish
git clone https://github.com/cutefishos/calculator --branch=0.3
cd calculator
mkdir build
cd build
cmake ..
make
sudo make install

## no debian directory
cd ~/Downloads/cutefish
git clone https://github.com/cutefishos/icons --branch=0.3
cd icons
mkdir build
cd build
cmake ..
make
sudo make install

Then reboot and login to Catfish Desktop

to test it

Note: I prefer to run such experiments on-top of mini.iso. So the above was tested today by getting 20.04 LTS mini.iso, upgrading it to 21.04 and then following above guide.

Non-Ubuntu method for testing CuteFish desktop environment is to download ISO from manjaro-cutefish GitHub repository.

Comments

[Archisman Panigrahi]

Just noticed that the sources on GitHub have a debian directory. One can easily set up Launchpad to mirror the GitHub repo and build daily. I can try that. But I am unsure whether I should register projects for Cutefish from my Launchpad account, as then I would be the administrator of that Launchpad project, and the developers may not be happy with that. The other option is to compile all the source packages locally before uploading to a PPA, which is a much more time consuming job.

[N0rbert]

This is what I tried to do last minutes. Draft version is in the answer above.

[Archisman Panigrahi]

I tried this in a Xubuntu 20.04 VM. It installed a full KDE Plasma Session, and Cutefish still does not show up in lightdm. Thanks for the effort, though.

[N0rbert]

@ArchismanPanigrahi I got success on 21.04, see edited answer above. Currently building of master branch leads to black screen, so I decided to use highest possible releases.

[Archisman Panigrahi]

New versions have been released, and these branches are very old. It may be a good idea to build the master branch instead. Is there a way to download the latest tag?

[N0rbert]

Probably we can find some script for GitHub or write our own. Or parse AUR table... Really I'm not interested in CuteFish. You are welcome to edit above answer.

[Archisman Panigrahi]

Sure. I will see how to do this. 👍