Trying to install XFCE on Ubuntu 20.10 using a Raspberry Pi 4B

Note: This was about a failed attempt to install Twister UI in Ubuntu 20.10 on the Raspberry Pi 4B. Don't waste your time reading if you want a working solution.

 

Twister OS is a desktop OS for the Raspberry Pi 4B that allows the user to change between various themes that look like Windows and MacOS. It also comes with BOX86 which allows the Raspberry Pi 4B to run Linux x86 programs on ARM. The easiest way to get it up and running is to download the current release and flash it onto a SD card or USB drive.

However, as of November 1, 2020, Twister OS is still based on 32-bit Raspberry Pi OS. But there are 64-bit OSes for the Raspberry Pi 4B now, like Ubuntu. Ubuntu 20.10 even has a desktop version that works on the Raspberry Pi. At the same time, the creators of Twister OS recently developed Twister UI, which allows the themes of Twister OS to be easily installed on XFCE-based desktops like Linux Mint XFCE and Xubuntu.

So I thought, why not install Ubuntu 20.10 Server, then install XFCE desktop on that, and then try to install Twister UI to see if I can get a 64-bit version of Twister OS?

First, I downloaded Ubuntu 20.10 Server from here and flashed it onto a 128 GB USB flash drive. My Raspberry Pi 4B's EEPROM has already been previously updated to allow USB boot.

Then, I followed the instructions here to log in and install a desktop. For first boot, the username is ubuntu and password is ubuntu, and you will be prompted to change the password after logging in. To install the desktop, first update the system:

sudo apt update

sudo apt upgrade

Then, use the following to install XFCE desktop.

sudo apt install xubuntu-desktop

It will take a while. During the installation, I was asked about display manager, I chose lightdm which is supposed to be the default display manager for xubuntu.

Once the desktop has been installed, I rebooted the system. I was going to follow the instructions on the Twister UI page to install it. Which was to run the following command in a terminal window:

wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/FlameKat53/Twister-UI-Patcher/main/install.sh && chmod +x ./install.sh && ./install.sh && rm install.sh

Instead, I was greeted with a black screen as lightdm failed to start. It seemed I had to follow something here. Basically, delete the file

/usr/share/lightdm/lightdm.conf.d/50-unity-greeter.conf

Then, create a file called

/usr/share/lightdm/lightdm.conf.d/50-xfce-greeter.conf

with the following contents:
[SeatDefaults]
greeter-session=unity-greeter
user-session=xfce

To do this, I had to remove the USB flash drive, plug it into my PC, then use my PC to delete/create the files.

Booting again from the USB flash drive now allowed me to get into the graphical login page and I was able to start the desktop. But it greeted me with a big error window on entering the desktop and asked me if I wanted to report the crash. At this point, I basically decided to stop trying stashed this idea away.

 

Update November 2, 2020: I am going to give it another try again when I have time. The next method would be to install Ubuntu 20.10 Desktop, then use

sudo apt install xubuntu-desktop

to install XFCE.