Is there a safe way to run multiple desktop environments on Ubuntu 22.04?
Is there a safe way to run multiple desktop environments on Ubuntu 22.04?
I have tried it on several distros before and it always causes problems because you get a million more packages intermingled with your already installed packages and sometimes you get conflicts or whatever. But it usually messes up my system. is there a safe way to have several desktops installed? or do you pretty much install a new one then remove the old one? thanks
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15What a mood. Im very guilty of not making backups and ruining setups only to have to start all over.
I'm a fairly new linux user so this is bound to happen again lol.
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Containerization!
Use either Nix (the package manager) or Distrobox.
With Distrobox, you can create a few containers, install the favoured DE in each one separated, and use the "distrobox-export -a your-DE" function.
But I don't know how seamless it will work, you might have to read into it.
9Seconded, Distrobox is the way to go.
Here's how you can actually make it work seamlessly @Macaroni9538@lemmy.ml :
https://github.com/89luca89/distrobox/blob/main/docs/posts/run_latest_gnome_kde_on_distrobox.md5
For me, the only issue I have ever experienced is DEs like to force themes on you, so if I was to log into plasma, it will make the plasma theming default. This means thatvwhen I go bacl to a window manager, I have to change my theme again and oftentimes log out and log back in to ensure my theming is applied.
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5You see, through all my trials I have learned about DE's and display managers but nothing about window managers.... maybe that's my issue haha
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I always find suggestions that this will cause trouble curious I've been hearing this since 2003 when it might have been at least sort of true but didn't have trouble with it then or now. I use i3wm but I like to play with and test different environments. I presently have gnome cinnamon mate plasma sway compiz, and wayfire installed. What do you imagine this is going to somehow screw up.
3In my experiance there can be problems, though mostly when uninstalling where the user can see random needed pieces being deleted causing failure to boot, grub rescue menus, networking or bluetooth to fail, or audio to fail. All I have personally seen or experianced.
I have also seen installing plasma on mint delete most of cinnamon and networkmanager for who knows what reason
In general usage though I've never had an issue using gnome, plasma, and i3 (lately sway) on a system together.
3the issue I've found is that the software that comes with each DE just all gets lumped together with every other installed DE, so there's obviously probably conflicting software/programs. Idk how to keep each DE separate from one another, almost containerized, so when you log into Gnome, you don't have KDE, Mate, Xfce, etc. aspects all intermingling with your Gnome environment. Idk that's how I've been seeing it
1Nemo is the file manager for cinnamon. Dolphin is the file manager for plasma. Although they perform the same task their executables are on different paths as are their files. You could install 10,000 packages and never find a conflicting file save literal forks of the same project which your package manager will tell you about if you install both A an B. An example would be i3 a window manager, and i3-gaps a now depreciated fork of i3 which provides, you guessed it, gaps between windows.
There is no reason to believe installing 17 different environments would conflict let alone 2. There is no need whatsoever to keep anything separate from one another nor is there any reason to believe one would interfere with another.
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In my experiance there can be problems, though mostly when uninstalling where the user can see random needed pieces being deleted causing failure to boot, grub rescue menus, networking or bluetooth to fail, or audio to fail. All I have personally seen or experianced.
I have also seen installing plasma on mint delete most of cinnamon and networkmanager for who knows what reason
In general usage though I've never had an issue using gnome, plasma, and i3 (lately sway) on a system together.
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Install the DEs manually instead of from metapackages so ,out don't end up with their entire software suites being installed. Additionally, probably use Debian instead of Ubuntu if you're gonna be doing stuff like that, less fingers in the pie make for an easier tinkering experience.
3In my experience the main issue are configuration conflicts not package issues. They're usually just annoying issues not breaking issues.
4Have you considered doing stupid shit and used Bedrock Linux?
It's great, but it's still baking
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thanks, I'm currently on Debian 12 and tried the whole tasksel method and it's really neat and all, but it still doesn't separate all the DE's. they are all mish mashed and intermingled with each other's software.
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2Nix has intrigued me, a bit of a learning curve though. maybe i'll dive in further
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I believe you can do this (and more) with Blend OS https://blendos.co/
2I have read a little bit about this interesting distro. Haven't explored it much, though have read a ton of negative and mixed reviews. Isn't Rhino Linux sorta similar?
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How are you installing the DEs? I've consistently had at least 3 DEs on every machine I've had for the past decade and never had any issue with it. The secret is that I installed them through the package manager and don't uninstall parts of it or anything of the sort, they're there for when needed, I have enough disk space that it's a non-issue.
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