Installing gnome after initial KDE setup leaves system with missing packages

Desktop Environments Gnome
1

Hi! I’m using endeavouros since ~march 2025, loving it! I’ve used both gnome and KDE with it, but always performing clean installs.
Last week I decided to live more dangerously and installed gnome alongside KDE in my day-use desktop. I was used to deal with multiple DEs, but mostly when using debian, ubuntu etc.
I believe I might be missing some packages or post-install scripts, because I’m now facing some undesired issues:

  • When I unlock system (using gdm, the dm that came along with kde didn’t open gnome at all), I loose audio conectivity, sometimes ethernet also stops working. Easiest solution is to just reboot.
  • System dialogs like “are u sure you want to save this file?” are still kde-styled
  • This one is just funny: The gnome settings top left icon is missing, so a red circle shows up instead. Makes me wonder what else did I missed in my post-install install.

I followed these steps to install gnome: https://discovery.endeavouros.com/desktop-environments/how-to-install-desktop-environments-next-to-your-existing-ones/2021/03/

I ran endeavour os with gnome and also with kde in this same hardware, this same year, just never installing a DE after initial setup.

Is there any more comprehensive install path available? Can I still try to amend this setup?

2

Regardless of some peeps to the contrary one should never install a secondary DE.

4 Likes
3

As it has been said, this is more or less asking a load of problems. Although this was on old Ubuntu long time ago, I wanted to try KDE and installed it alongside (or over, I don’t recall anymore) and I had unoperable system on my hands.

So my personal experience is that you should have only one DE installed. But of course there may be ways to circumvent these issues I faced.

3 Likes
4

The DM coming with KDE is sddm, the one coming with Gnome is gdm. Both of them should be able to start KDE and/or Gnome.

What command did you use to install gnome?

If I had to chose between sddm and gdm, I would personally prefer sddm.

I would suggest to install the gnome meta package once again, as a first step, after refreshing the repos.

5

Using separate user accounts for each DE will go some way to minimize the things getting messed up big times.

3 Likes
6

Hello!

Endeavour’s blog recommended to use:
sudo pacman -S gnome
sudo pacman -S gnome-extra

And that’s all. Sddm didn’t boot gnome after rebooting, so I changed default to gdm using an eos script, if I remind correctly.

7

Can you post a screenshot of your gnome desktop? From what you’re describing it seems, if there are packages missing. But I’m not exactly sure about this. Did you exclude packages by accident?

8

You clearly missed this part

“ I’ve already told you how to install a group, in this section I’m going to give you the specific commands you need to enter to install a specific Desktop Environment and also remove an installed Desktop Environment.”

9

Thanks! I ran `eos-packagelist --install “GNOME-Desktop”` and got a few missing packages:

image
image1165×622 138 KB

I’ll reboot and test the system for a while =)

10

gdm is very important to gnome these days. I haven’t used sddm in a while but I’d assume that’s also true.

One thing you can do to have a better experience and to keep configs getting messed up is creating a second user for the second DE.

It can still come with consequences of having both. Completly removing one and installing the next usually is a better option.

2 Likes
11

When restoring from lockscreen today I got like 2min to turn the screens on again, keyboard unresponsive for a while, then no sound from displayports and no working ethernet. Had to reboot to not be fighting each issue.

I’ll backup my containers and perform a clean install, guess it’s the best path to go now.

12

And a good lesson :smiling_face_with_sunglasses:

2 Likes