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Why cant you run Gnome, KDE, LXDE etc from the same distro?

Posted: Mon Jun 18, 2012 10:42 am
by ElectricRider
I have been away from Mint for a while and see Mint 13 is out. I was thinking about trying it again But...

I like KDE over Gnome anyday but i also use LXDE and Xfce as the mood strikes me - from the same distro.

I'm using PC-BSD Isotope 9.0. It has a feature that I have come to love and believe I cannot live without. The ability to hot switch between desktop environments simply by logging off and starting another session. At the logon screen, it asks you which DE you want to use. You can choose between all DE's installed on your system.

Out of all distros out there, I like PC-BSD the most even though its not really Linux but "the other fork of Unix" based on the BSD system. You can install and run any app made for Linux in PC-BSD. The problem with it is development is slow and my reason for retrying mint is because it has a faster more complete development track record. Mint would then be my second choice for an open source operating system. Also, no matter which DE your currently using, all the components for all DE's are still available to you to use.

A lot may have changed since I last tried Mint.. is there are way to switch quickly between DE's with Mint like I can with PC-BSD?

If not, I wonder if this would be a feature Mint users would like.. perhaps this should be considered by the Mint dev team??

Re: Why cant you run Gnome, KDE, LXDE etc from the same dist

Posted: Mon Jun 18, 2012 11:10 am
by srs5694
ElectricRider wrote:is there are way to switch quickly between DE's with Mint like I can with PC-BSD?
Yes. You need to install the desktop environment(s) you like. Thereafter, they'll appear as options at the login screen. (You may need to click a button to see them; options depend on which login manager you're using.) This has been a feature of most, if not all, Linux distributions for a long time. Unfortunately, many people seem to be unaware of it.

Re: Why cant you run Gnome, KDE, LXDE etc from the same dist

Posted: Mon Jun 18, 2012 11:31 am
by abnvolk
I once had Gnome Shell, Cinnamon, KDE, LXDE, Xfce and Enlightenment installed in Mint 12.
But be careful, because you can get lots of applications which do the same job.

Re: Why cant you run Gnome, KDE, LXDE etc from the same dist

Posted: Mon Jun 18, 2012 11:53 am
by remoulder
ElectricRider wrote:perhaps this should be considered by the Mint dev team?
No, mint has different releases for different desktops, this is the way most distros operate. As has been pointed out you can install another DE if you wish to but having different DE's on the same machine has been known to cause problems.

Re: Why cant you run Gnome, KDE, LXDE etc from the same dist

Posted: Mon Jun 18, 2012 12:12 pm
by ElectricRider
remoulder wrote:
ElectricRider wrote:perhaps this should be considered by the Mint dev team?
No, mint has different releases for different desktops, this is the way most distros operate. As has been pointed out you can install another DE if you wish to but having different DE's on the same machine has been known to cause problems.
See.. that's interesting. I haven't used Linux in a while.. perhaps I knew you could have multiple DE's and forgot.. but PC-BSD's full version always comes with all the major DE's pre-installed. It seems they have worked out the bugs or the system operates in such a way where it doesn't have the conflicts that having multiple DE's have in Linux.

The question popped in my head because I notice the latest version has Mate and Cinnamon and doesn't even have a KDE version ready let alone a flavor it seems with LXDE FXCE and the others pre-unstalled - I thought this was very odd when i'm so used to always having them there.

Thanks for the replies folks.