I wish to replace plasma with gnome, will doing so leave behind some leftover/rubbish/bloat?

General system Newbie
1

What’s the best way to go about this?

2

Clear your file index cache, obviously other files will be left but they are small.
If you are going to start fresh with a new user, you can delete the old user.

3

I’m keeping the old user.

How do I clear the file index cache?

And as for replacing KDE, would the right way to go about it be pacman -Rs plasma kde-applications ?

I would install gnome before and uninstall once in gnome, would that be ok? How do I make sure that the login is handled by gnome?

4

Replace sddm by gdm. Needs to be installed then started. Can also be done in welcome app.

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/GDM

Another read

https://discovery.endeavouros.com/desktop-environments/removing-a-desktop-environment/2021/03/

1 Like
5

and using package selection we provide on ISO there is:

[joe@linux-t60 ~]$ eos-packagelist --help
usage: eos-packagelist [-h] [--list] [--arch ARCH] [--install]
                       [profile ...]

The EndeavourOS package list handler gets package information from
the current installer files and allows you to optionally install
them

positional arguments:
  profile      The name of the profile you want to see packages for

options:
  -h, --help   show this help message and exit
  --list       Lists the available options
  --arch ARCH  Only include packages available on ARM
  --install    Install the packages on the list using pacman
               instead of just listing them

example: eos-packagelist "Awesome Edition"

But to use the same user you will need to remove a lot of configs plasma is watering into your home directory… not that easy to give instructions on what exactly remove :wink:

1 Like
6

Will having those config files be an issue?

7

I think you need to be realistic with your expectations.

If the question is, “can I replace plasma with gnome?”, the answer is “Yes”.

If the question is “Is there an easy to to remove every trace of plasma from my machine?”, the answer is “No”.

If some leftover stuff is a huge problem for you, reinstall. If it isn’t, go ahead and make the switch.

I will echo what others have already stated, creating a new clean user account after you finish removing plasma is the cleanest approach.

1 Like
8

I don’t mind having some leftover config files, I meant packages, that’s what I’d like to remove efficiently, and even when it comes to removing non necessary stuff I just like to do it the most efficient way possible.

If after the switch I have some stuff I don’t need left, I’ll take it, but I just want to uninstall as much as possible.

9

I would use: pacman -Rc plasma kde-applications and then remove orphans afterwards. That should get rid of all the packages.

10

Thanks dalto, I appreciate it.

1 Like
11

Start plasma, open System Settings, disable file indexing, apply. Settings should ask if you want to delete cache, allow it and apply if necessary.