this post was submitted on 09 Sep 2023
92 points (97.9% liked)

Linux

48397 readers
1128 users here now

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

Rules

Related Communities

Community icon by Alpár-Etele Méder, licensed under CC BY 3.0

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
 

I have read many conflicting things, like always. Just wondering if there's a safe way to use several DE's on one distro without messing up my damn computer lol I've tried it several times and it always messed things up. I'm currently brand new to fedora workstation 38 too btw. Thanks alot

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I have kind of messed some things up by installing KDE on my Fedora that already has Gnome. This was almost a year ago, now. I would not advise doing this. It is a bigger hassle than it was worth, and I'm just looking forward to a free moment when I can wipe and clean install.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Thanks, but how does one utilize or even explore other DEs within a distro without messing things up? is it just not possible or am I going about it wrong?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I've seen advice before that creating a new user account and using that to log into multiple DEs is an option.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Tried that but didn't work. Maybethere's specific tweaks I have to make first?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

That's a bit vague. What did you try, and what didn't work?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I'm curious what things were "messed up". I tend to not install more than one on my machine, but at the very least it seems like it should be a typical usecase for multiple users on the same machine to prefer different DEs when they log in. If that breaks somehow, it sounds like someone has a bug.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Some aspects of theming are messed up, like the spacers on my GTK4 drop menus are just flat gray rectangles (they look like placeholder assets). Also launching some programs after a fresh boot now take an inexplicable long time, but only the first time. So for example, if I reboot and launch Firefox or Nautilus it will take an extra 5-6 seconds. Every subsequent time any slow launching program will be fast so long as one of the slow launching programs has been started.

Finally, not a messed up thing, but there is just needless clutter of stuff in my config files, now, since I've got KDE, Gnome, and actually a couple other DE things laying around, now. Mind you, this is all after I've already uninstalled KDE.

Edit: I thought about what I wrote and it occurred to me some of that stuff might be because of bad gtk4 config files. So I deleted them and rebooted. The theming is correct again as far as I can tell, but the slow launch stuff persists.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

You probably have xdg-desktop-portal-kde installed and enabled. Try installing xdg-desktop-gnome and remove the KDE one and see if it makes a difference in launch times.

Edit: I'd also reboot afterwards

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

YOU ARE A GENIUS!

Thank you! xdg-desktop-portal-gnome was already installed but removing xdg-desktop-portal-kde did the trick!

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

I'm glad I could help.