I wouldn't suggest using more than one DE in the same account rather make a new user and use a your new DE for that specific profile, as having multiple DE in the same account sometimes causes a lot of inconsistencies between apps and themes
@@MichaelNROH yeah, when i was new to linux daily driving i wanted to try out multiple DE to see what fits my needs, i thought it wasnt possible for a single user to have multiple DE, i searched online and found out that indeed a lot of people have experienced a lot of incosistencies between apps like some apps will like Gnome Set theme and some would like Kde or other themes, this mess was created due to multiple GTK versions
It is better to use one desktop at a time unless you are using one that comes with that desktop. For example LXDE comes with Openbox which you cannot remove. And Gnome also comes with Gnome Classic if you have installed Gnome Shell Extensions. But yes you can change the desktop environment. I have done this myself when I first installed Linux Mint Xfce and I wanted KDE. I just installed KDE desktop then once I logged into KDE just removed Xfce. But only do this once you have logged into your new desktop to avoid problems. Yes it can be done and is easy to do.
Only thing I'd change is to explain how to do a soft restart instead of rebooting. Use a VT to change run levels and close the DM, then change run levels back to login from the DM. I don't know if Fedora makes provisions in its installer to install multiple WM/DE's, but Slackware does, and for a first time user I'd recommend installing multiple WM/DE's that way if you're new to Linux. In fact, if you're new to Linux and haven't already installed it, I'd recommend installing every package that the installer makes available to you.
Just use rpm-ostree aka Fedora Atomic. I just do an rpm-ostree rebase to another DE image, and while config files from old DE is still there, in terms of package and avoiding breakage, it's a super clean process, especially with the Universal Blue images.
I had installed the Fedora 39 i3 spin back in November and found that I actually had to install desktops just to get some basic functionality like network and sound selection. I had installed GNOME, KDE, MATE, Cinnamon, Xfce, etc. I ended up defaulting to Cinnamon after a while as it seemed the least bloated while also offering the features I wanted. I love i3 but setting up multimonitor and especially refresh rates despite both being 144 Hz is a pain since my external monitor always defaults to 60 Hz on login but the laptop screen always defaults to 144 as desired. In my experience, actual DEs seem better at remembering settings than tiling WMs.
Another usecase would be the gamescope-session to get HDR to somehow work under Linux (maybe with KDE 6 it's not needed anymore but whatever). The other usecase said in the video is what I'm using this for atm. Just a bit of testing Hyprland here and there
I feel like for this particular use case the fedora atomic desktops are much more suitable and also don't have to deal with the drawbacks of doing this on traditional linux distro. One command line and now you're using KDE and reverting back to gnome is just a restart away. It takes care of a lotta things and also doesn't mess up your old DE. I've been testing this out on a VM because between gnome and KDE I can't choose, so my next installation will probably be using this. Another good point in terms of Fedora is to combine this with ublue images to not have to deal with the NVIDIA drivers and multimedia codecs headache that the traditional Fedora desktop is always having.
I remember around the time of Ubuntu 8.04 or so when I had Gnome 2.3x and KDE3.x installed side by side. Fun times, especially since I could use whatever desktop I preferred that day. It's nice we have the option to do so under Linux.
I do have multiple DE's installed, I wanted to try out a tiling window manager. Hyprland for me, but still have my plasma session as its set up like i wanted and to have a fallback x11 sesion.
Very nice video! Learned something new like the theme issues only occuring initially, and the lockes apps. On Fedora Atomic everything is a lot easier :D
Good job, Michael. This is first videos that I have seen which covers this. Glad you showed us how to do this. Again, I'm newer to Linux, but I am trying to learn from Mentors like you.
Hey man, your videos have been really helpful for migrating to Linux. The video where you tried to do important things without the terminal was quite interesting and important, because new users can use it to find out how they can make certain changes even if they're not comfortable with the terminal. However, I'm yet to find out how to move my /home// folder to a new drive without using the terminal. While copying the files to the new drive is easy, all the guides/tutorials I found end up mounting it to the distro's /home/ using the terminal. Plenty of distros allow you to select a separate drive for /home during installation, but what about people who bought a new drive and want to move it? I don't expect my elder family members to remember commands to mount it, or properly execute a script to do that. I think that video needs another part as I feel like there's plenty of other tasks that still need to be done through the terminal only. Hopefully you see this and make another video.
Do you mean like a redirect? I guess since many distros use subvolumes nowadays (e.g. Fedora with BTRFS) it makes it a bit more difficult. Technically speaking, you can still change the /etc/fstab file via the GUI and change the UUID of the home directory to your new drive. Not practical, but possible
@@MichaelNROH I replied to your comment when I saw your reply, but it seems like it has been removed because I put a link in it. I'll post it again but edit the link so that it doesn't become a link. I have installed Linux on drive A and plan to get a drive B later. Currently the entire file-system is on drive A, but I want to move the /home folder to drive B. If, by redirect, you meant a link or a symlink, then no, that's not what I'm looking for. I want to make it so that the drive B is directly accessed when reading/writing /home folder. While it's true that we can edit the /etc/fstab using the text editor, is it really the best solution for an average user? Can we expect an average user to remember the format of the file and find the UUID of the drive? I think the best solution would be something like the accepted answer for the post linked below. But I can't find it in my distro, maybe it's because the answer is for Ubuntu, while I'm using Fedora-based Nobara. askubuntu[dot]com/questions/21321/move-home-folder-to-second-drive
I recommend doing all this using snapshots of the Btrfs file system and Snapper. By taking a snapshot of / and home and then installing the second desktop environment. If you don't like something, roll back both / and home, and everything is super clean. However, there may be folders on your home partition that you should not take snapshots of, such as a folder .cache, .steam, Downloads. To exclude them, you need to create a nested snapshot on the path of the directory with the same name, before that you need to move everything from ~/.cache to ~/.cache-tmp, delete ~/.cache, create create a nested snapshot ~/.cache and move back the files from ~/.cache-tmp to ~/.cache
So I once made Linux Mint with KDE Plasma. Overall it worked well, but it took some time to clean up all the dependencies of its native DEs and applications.
I just kept everything and removed the desktop shortcut files. So all the MATE Stuff was still there but I was on plasma. Now I just use Cinnamon though, simplified a lot for me.
I didn't run it for long, but installing Gnome on top of Cinnamon (in Debian) was pretty painless. Just one command to install the Gnome stuff, and then picking which one to use when logging in.
KDE is just awful on Linux Mint. I had it installed for all of about 3 minutes before I went back to Cinnamon. Google Chrome wouldn't even open up. It would "load" and then disappear.
Nixos is super great in this case. Just edit the configuration file and specify the new Desktop environment. And rebuild and switch to that version. Reboot and you are good. No dependency issues
Never installing KDE again... a hell of dependencies and apps...I'd rather have bare OpenBox, FluxBox, XFCE and/or MATE coexisting with my beloved Cinnamon.
I agree that Plasma generally comes with a lot of bloat, but it can be reduced by downloading a meta package instead of the full blown mega Plasma package.
There where attempts to make a minimal KDE. But it is not very reasonable I think. Take LXQt, its very outdated. Fedora Kinoite for example has a pretty minimal set, and it goes way more minimal
Installing many DEs on the same OS is for more experienced users. I did it and was able to remove one DE, without breaking another, but that requires some planning and know-how about how the distro and DEs work. There are too many small issues that one has to work around when two DEs are installed. Of course, there are DEs that don't conflict with each other at all. Plasma and LXQT work together nicely, because they can share many things and you can use kwin in LXQT, remembering that any kwin settings are in Plasma settings, not LXQT ones. Also, any big DE like Plasma or Gnome will likely work well with tiling manager DE. However, having Gnome and Plasma can be problematic, but doable when one knows the structure of configs.
I'm a windows user. I bought a mini PC for office work and decided to set up both win 11 and Linux fedora. I'm a little confused why I cannot change the desktop background to a solid black color with a couple of clicks? it covers my en screen and I can only select between pre determined options. I googled and it said i need to install something to change my desktop background. if that's true I think that's insanity
Thinking of switching from Ubuntu Mate to Linux Mint with the Ubuntu Mate desktop, since I've had trouble replacing snaps with flatpaks and like UMate's desktop layout options
@@tubeDude48 You just need: "sudo apt search kde-plasma" This returns the "kde-plasma-desktop" package, which can then be installed with "sudo apt install kde-plasma-desktop" wiki.debian.org/KDE
Is there a way to manage the updates after installing the additional DE? In other words, if I don't want to update to Plasma 6 as soon as the stable is released, is there a way to prevent it or will it go automatically with the sudo apt/dnf update? As always, thanks for the video, Michael!
There is, but some setup is necessary. You can solve this by adding third party repos and prioritize them (don't know how, without looking it up atm), or you need to update packages individually via the CLI. There you can set version numbers as well, but its not really recommended as Distributions often ship with newer packages which would need to be downgraded as well
Apart from what Michael said, if you use an inmutable distro you can rebase to a different image that uses another DE. That way both DEs don't get mixed together, avoiding situations like the one at 2:18
The problem isn't KDE Wallet, but the abscence or locking of the Gnome one. Theoretically speaking, as long as its just a browser, you could either sync it by connecting your account (e.g. Chrome), or by using inbuilt browser sync settings (like Brave). Otherwise, like mentioned, there are ways to automatically unlock the gnome-keyring, but its better to search for a text based tutorial
Can you add a SECOND desktop or workspace environment using Garuda Linux? For example, if you have the plasma KDE (Zen, or Gaming) desktop - is it possible to add the Gnome desktop so that you have a choice between the two, in one particular Linux distro?
Workspaces or as a matter effect everything remotely related to graphics is managed by Desktop Environments only. I'm not familiar with what Garuda usually comes with, but you should be able to install Gnome either way. Garuda is not the least popular distro so someone probably maintains it
nixos can switch multiple separate desktop environments pretty painlessly, i've even completely switched between plasma and gnome while the system was still running (uninstalling plasma and installing/loading gnome with a single nixos-rebuild switch), the os itself isn't easy to get into tho
Fedora immutable spins, Silverblue, Kinoite etc do this. For even more choices look up the U-blue project. They have versions catering for different use cases as well. Bazitte for gaming for instance.
I want to install Gnome Kali side by side with Ubuntu using the guide in the video but I am not winning. I entered "sudo apt install gnome-kali-desktop and it said unable to locate package. Please help
I have used KDE for years- and considered it PERFECT-- but the recent up date f...d it up BIG TIME. its a jumbled mess of useless junk now-- they tried to make it gnome which was stupid..
I don't think Plasma 6 is bad, but there isn't a single distro yet that implemented it properly. KDE Neon is a mess at the moment and Arch is well, Arch. You need to do a lot more configuring yourself there. I'll wait for a truly stable release and take a look then
@@matthiasbendewald1803 I mean linux is way too hard to download anything. I have Chromebook. I have downloaded 2 apps. And they don't quite work. Is the chromebook that is the fail, but I don't think it is new chrombook or linux or I have downloaded fail apps.
