# Enabling Desktop Environment

A desktop/graphical interface can be enabled on any kind of systems (regardless of puppet role).

## Full Desktop Configuration

A full desktop configuration with Gnome, office software and printing is enabled for the Puppet roles `role::workstation` and `role::console` or, independent of the role, in Hiera with

```
base::is_workstation: true
```

## Customized Desktop Configuration

But desktop features can also be individually be switched on or off.
For printing check out the [respective guide](printing).

The availability of the desktop is controlled with

```yaml
base::enable_desktop: true
```
By default this will install and enable Gnome as desktop and gdm as Display Manager. Without below options do not have any effect!

The desktop configuration can be further refined and/or adapted by following keys:

```yaml
desktop::display_manager: gdm  # available options: gdm (default), lightdm

# this will set the default session manager aka desktop
desktop::session_manager: gnome-xorg # availale options: gnome-xorg (default on RHEL8), gnome-wayland (default on RHEL9), gnome-classic, xfce, ...
```

Individual desktops can be enabled/disabled via:
```yaml
desktop::enable_gnome: true # true (default)
desktop::enable_xfce: true # false (default)
desktop::enable_icewm: true # false (default)
```

The installation of office applications can be enforced with

```yaml
desktop::enable_office_apps: true
```

Further refinements can be done as documented in the other guides in this section.


Finally here a rough overview of the destopprofile structure:

![Structure desktop profile](_static/desktop_profile.svg)
[Structure desktop_profile](_static/desktop_profile.excalidraw)