Template:RAM Adjusted Desktop Starter

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RAM Adjusted Desktop Starter will not start the desktop environment. The terminal-based Whonix-Gateway™ can be used instead.

By default, Whonix-Gateway VMs are configured with 1280 MB of virtual RAM. This can be reduced on systems with limited available resources.

  • If total VM-accessible RAM is more than 480 MB, the default graphical desktop environment (DE) (LXQt) is started. (Some RAM will be reserved for the virtual hardware, so in practice one must assign more than 512 MB RAM for the desktop to start. 768 MB RAM is the minimum recommended.)
  • If total VM-accessible RAM is 480 MB or less, the DE is not started.

This feature is useful for users with low RAM, as Whonix-Gateway can still function with as little as 512 MB of RAM in a CLI-only environment.

If configuration or troubleshooting is needed, assigning 768 MB of RAM will automatically boot into the graphical desktop environment. Additional settings are available in the /etc/rads.d folder to configure this feature: more RAM can be allocated (while still opting not to start a desktop environment), different display managers can be used, and so on. See the /etc/rads.d/30_default.conf file for configuration examples.

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