Install multiple DE to try on free time

i would like to know if there is any way for me to install multiple DE , so that i can get my hands on it at my free time, and yet not conflicting with each other. if i gonna try out 5 DE, i can’t install 5 acc of each acc one Diff DE…

why the DE should conflict with each other,… it should not have to conflict with any DE.
my thinking is that, i should not have able to use other DE on xfce. on xfce i should only able to use xfce stuff… until i opt to change DE.
or maybe the programming part is that difficult to achieve ? lol i am not a programmer… i can talk .lol

Check out this wiki article:

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Installing 5 DEs will 100% cause conflicts.

If you are doing this for fun and you don’t mind troubleshooting, researching and resolving issues then go for it.

If your expectation is that you are going to install a bunch of DEs and everything will “just work”, you are going to be disappointed.

Also, be aware that undoing the mess caused by installing multiple DEs is not always easy so don’t try it unless you are prepared for managing it.

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@andrew_ysk, don’t do it. To be completely blunt, based on the recent 15 or so threads you started, you do not yet have the experience and knowledge necessary to pull that off. Maybe after a year of two of using EndeavourOS daily, you can attempt something like that as an interesting intellectual exercise.

For now, do a clean install with only one DE and stick to it. If you don’t know which one to use, try them out in a VM (if you don’t know how to install in a VM, that’s a million times easier to learn than this, trust me).

Seriously, don’t install more than one, you’re just setting yourself up for a ton of headache.

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you are right. i heard many ppl said that. i was going to do an xfce, but upon sawing the enos installation has option to install multiple, i got greedy… lol wanted to try them all out… thinking they are just like windows theme… can switch from one to another, and at any one time only 1 theme will be running… hence never knew multiple DE is not as “theme” . lol sad. if it can works like windows theme… that would be good, we can just switch to use this and when got tired of it… switch to another DE.

Try as many distros as you want on a VM and get your feet wet. If everyone was to wait for 2 years to try out different distros then Linux would be stuck in the 90s.

The major difficulty is that some of the differing DEs borrow pieces from ‘underneath’ if you will, and the different settings that each uses can easily conflict. Some will work perfectly together - but popping them ALL on increases the headache potential considerably!

VM;s are the way to go - or you can go nuts like I did with some spare drive space, and pop them ALL on metal. (see wiki article about installing ALL of the EnOS choices together:

A rEFInd case study

https://github.com/endeavouros-team/User-contributions/blob/master/Freebird54/wiki-pt2.md

I was using rEFInd to boot them all - but you might see some relevance with a quick read. BTW - I gave each of them more disk space than they needed for just testing purposes - and partition counts are not limited using GPT for this kind of use). I still recommend trying VM’s first though!

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You need to figure out what packages you don’t need . Like you only need one screenshot taking utility , why 5 .

i think you posted this msg in wrong thread.

No I was trying to explain what you should not do when you install multiple DE

I know everyone is discouraging you . So I decided to help you instead .
Things to consider

  1. Don’t install 5 DE right now . Please

  2. Installing XFCE after Plasma , you will get vanilla XFCE . Not the theme shown in EnOS thread .
    So install XFCE first and update mirrors and update system .

Using btrfs file system

Select manual partitioning when installing EnOS . Choose root partition size and select btrfs as filesystem instead of ext4 . If only using on OS you can encrypt the partition . And of couse select mount point / (root) .

Note : you shouldn’t use separate root and home partitions . Needs more work

  1. Install timeshift with the command yay -S timeshift cronie

  2. Enable cronie service , commands
    sudo systemctl enable cronie.service
    sudo systemctl start cronie.service

  3. If you selected btrfs file system for installing Endeavour in the installer then install the package grub-btrfs too . Btrfs will be really helpful for you since you use many DE and things can go wrong as others warned .

Then you can install other DEs .

Notes

Plasma and Gnome will work with XFCE as I did try those out . I haven’t tried out cinnamon or budgie yet .

Read this manjaro wiki first https://wiki.manjaro.org/index.php/Install_Desktop_Environments . This will tell about the risks and how to create another user account and set a password and how to change display manager .

This EndeavourOS wiki https://endeavouros.com/docs/pacman/how-to-install-desktop-environments-offline-install-users/ will tell you how to install other desktop environments.

Using different user accounts :
Consider your first account to be user1
After installing a DE following the 2nd link create another user account ( user2 ) . Change display manager .

Say you installed Plasma and created an account ( user2 )

  1. change display manager to sddm by using the command systemctl enable sddm.service --force . and reboot .
  2. Now select session ‘Plasma’ from login screen and choose user user2 and login giving the password .

If you want to go back to XFCE enable lightdm with command sudo systemctl enable lightdm.service --force . And reboot . Choose session XFCE and user account user1 .

Notes

Enabling display manager will only take effect after reboot . But if you want you can use other DE by switch user option in the menu without reboot ( do it only when necessary )

Like selecting switch option from XFCE and choosing user2 and session Plasma . Always make sure you use the correct session and user account .
The only problem will be you cannot lock the screen in Gnome .

i.e. You can use XFCE with user1 , Plasma with user2 and like that .

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using xfce beside plasma and sddm can perfectly no need from sddm back to lightdm :slight_smile:

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what is sddm

i will reinstall first. and use plasma… since you said plasma is less problematic.
then i will be back to solve other issue if exist. thx

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sddm is like gdm lightdm lxdm ly a displaymanager or better called loginmanager.
gnome uses gdm and kde-plasma uses sddm :slight_smile:

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Read the manjaro wiki link fully , it lists other display managers . And yes you can use sddm for XFCE and gnome . Screen locking can be solved I think . I can’t try right now .

i was about to ask them when i finished plasma installation. but forgot after i logged in.
i still don’t get it. what’s the different ? just login manager ? you mean the password login page when os just boot up ? that login page need to have 4 types ? just for a login page ? ! you must be serious ? :sweat_smile: when can i switch to see the effect ? i want to know my system… hence i will try to know every nook and cranny of this os.
it is only the login page right ? so, i can switch between them with no ill effect of ruin my newly installed system right ?
thx

i have installed plasma… and decided to stick with it. because i felt like it… although still got some unknown stuff that i can’t figure out what they meant… but it felt like at home… windows os world. lol.

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In principle yes, but only if you really know what you’re doing. In reality, you’ll probably make your computer unbootable. I would not recommend attempting.

If you are using Plasma, stick to SDDM (you can customise it to your heart’s desire, there are hundreds of themes for it, you can change the background, etc…).

VMs are your best friend when learning.

Install a base VM, clone it, try new stuff, break it, try and fix it, blow it way, clone it again … you get the cycle.

Go nuts. Install everything.

Your only limitation is disk space.

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Why won’t you stick with windows in the first place?