MiDesktop

MiDesktop (formerly MiDE) is a fork of KDE version 1, fixed for modern Linux systems. It’s been ported to the Osiris toolkit, itself a fork of Qt 2.

It’s clean, unassuming, and stupidly fast and lightweight.

MiDesktop is under development, however, to celebrate the New Year, a Development Preview release has been made! You can get packages for Debian 13 and Ubuntu 24.04, or you can also compile from source if your distribution doesn’t have a package. Please note that these are development preview packages, and as such are likely to contain bugs. Please report bugs that you find so we can make it even better.

Installing packages for Linux

Packages for Debian and Ubuntu are available for the amd64 architecture.

Important: If you have previously compiled and installed Osiris and/or MiDesktop, you must completely remove those installations prior to using these packages.

If you have not already, you will need to add the Libranext Pub-Package repository to get the required Osiris toolkit.

For Ubuntu:
Substitute <your distribution here> with your release codename: for Ubuntu, noble is the currently supported release.

sudo bash
echo 'deb https://debpkg.libranext.com/pub/ubuntu <your distribution here> main' > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/libranext-pub.list
exit
wget https://debpkg.libranext.com/pub/ubuntu/pool/main/libranext-debpkg-keyring_2025_all.deb
sudo dpkg -i libranext-debpkg-keyring_2025_all.deb
sudo apt update

For Debian:
Substitute <your distribution here> with your release codename: for Debian, trixie is the currently supported release. As root, run these commands:

echo 'deb https://debpkg.libranext.com/pub/debian <your distribution here> main' > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/libranext-pub.list
wget https://debpkg.libranext.com/pub/debian/pool/main/libranext-debpkg-keyring_2025_all.deb
dpkg -i libranext-debpkg-keyring_2025_all.deb
apt update

Now you can add the development preview repository.

For Ubuntu:
Substitute <your distribution here> with your release codename: for Ubuntu, noble is the currently supported release.

sudo bash
echo 'deb https://debpkg.libranext.com/pub/ubuntu-preview <your distribution here> main' > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/libranext-preview.list
exit
sudo apt update
sudo apt install midesktopbase midesktoplibs midesktopwallpapers midesktopbase-doc midesktoplibs-doc midesktopbase-i18n

For Debian:
Substitute <your distribution here> with your release codename: for Debian, trixie is the currently supported release. As root, run these commands:

echo 'deb https://debpkg.libranext.com/pub/debian-preview <your distribution here> main' > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/libranext-preview.list
apt update
apt install midesktopbase midesktoplibs midesktopwallpapers midesktopbase-doc midesktoplibs-doc midesktopbase-i18n

For all distributions:
After installing the packages in the previous steps, it is strongly recommended that you reboot your computer. Then, at your next login, you can choose the MiDesktop session and log in. Have fun!

In case of any issues, please check here for known issues and some workarounds.

Getting Support/Finding the Community

We have a Discord channel, as well as a Reddit group.

Supporting the Project

There are several ways you can support this project! The first and foremost is simply using MiDesktop, reporting bugs, and spreading the word. Code contributions are always welcome.

Since many have asked to donate, I have also decided to accept donations for the project. They are greatly appreciated, and will go towards helping further develop MiDesktop, including helping me spend more time on it, as well as the occasional hired developer to move things along faster.

You can donate one of two ways right now: Patreon or PayPal. If you wish to use Patreon, you can either subscribe monthly, or you can subscribe and then cancel your subscription right away so you don’t continuously pay. PayPal is available as a convenience for those who wish to use. Any donations are helpful and I am incredibly grateful to anyone wishing to support this project.

Screenshots