“It can’t be that easy, right?” (a Linux desktop environment appreciation post)
I daily drive Pop!_OS, which uses the GNOME desktop environment. I know that DEs are a hotly contested space among Linux users, and my use of GNOME wasn’t so much a choice as it was a default: it’s what came with my distro.
I like GNOME. I don’t really understand the hate it often gets, but I also don’t really have the legacy understanding of Linux that a lot of people do, and it seems like a lot of distaste lies there. I’m as casual a user as they come — Linux for me is like a Chromebook: it “just works” in that I pretty much need it to get me online and manage some documents. (I do also play games on it, for which Steam and Proton have been a huge boon.)
I also have a Steam Deck, and it uses KDE’s Plasma on the desktop side, so I got to see what that was like. I also like KDE. It’s very different from GNOME, but I can see the appeal. It feels more like Windows but also has a lot of little nice touches and additions. Also, no ads.
This got me thinking: what if I tried using KDE instead of GNOME on my laptop?
I assumed that this would be a big deal. Like, I would have to completely gut my distribution, or reinstall it fresh. Multiple hours of work. Lots of preparation. Looking up myriad terminal commands I don’t understand and hoping they do what they’re supposed to, because if they don’t I’m really screwed — as soon as something goes wrong “under the hood” I’m dead in the water when it comes to fixing it.
But I was looking on System76’s support site and they made it seem super simple. A single terminal command to install the whole DE?
It can’t be that easy, right?
I am astonished to say that it WAS.
I ran the command, had to select between gdm3 and sddm (a choice which I didn’t understand at all so I searched around a bit before just going with the default: gdm3), and then rebooted.
I can now select between GNOME and KDE on the login screen, and both work flawlessly. It was so easy.
I don’t know who to credit for this. Did System76 do a great job of making this easy on their distro? Did the KDE team work hard to make their DE effortlessly plug-and-play? Is this just a general product of the way Linux handles its different components?
I don’t know but I’m willing to spread the love around to anyone and everyone who contributes to Linux and all of its facets. It’s wild to me that I can so easily reskin my entire operating system in the same way that I used to do with Winamp back in the day. I keep waiting for something to go wrong, but after a few days of this, I’ve realized that everything still “just works,” automagically.
A big thanks here to anyone who has a hand in open-source software and making computing better for people like me, who have (mostly) no idea what they’re doing.
Generally speaking, the DE switch between KDE and GNOME is a pretty painless process nowadays no matter the distro, so long as you're using SDDM (the default login for KDE) or GDM3 (default for GNOME). It probably defaulted to GDM3 because thats what you were already using.
It is mostly due to how Linux is designed, and the fact that QT and GTK can be used on both DE.
System76 made a good job packaging the components (on some distros, like Arch, there are multiple different "kde" package groups which sometimes leads to confusion). But this is generally just how Linux works.
A desktop environment is basically just a window manager + a set of apps that integrate with it. This "set of apps" is nothing special - it can be installed just like any other app. The window manager is also basically just an app, it just has to be the first thing that starts in your graphical session (this technically works a bit differently, and depends on whether you use X11 or Wayland, but that's not something that impacts a regular user).
The display manager (gdm3 in your case) is the thing that handles this. There is a specification for defining a "desktop entry", and all desktop environments have one. Desktop entries are actually the same thing that's used by regular apps to have icons in the app launcher. Those entries are recognized by the display manager and contain instructions about what programs to start when the graphical session starts.
So, here's what happens on your system:
/usr/share/xsessionsdirectoryI tried it for a bit, but moved away from pop to Debian and xfce.
If you want to see how mine looks, check out https://github.com/sassanix/Debian12Nirvana
Just curious of what your reasons were for moving away fro Pop to Debian?
I've been running my setup on a Thinkpad T430, primarily to troubleshoot my Nvidia drivers. I enjoy the challenge of tailoring my operating system to suit my preferences, and while Pop OS might cater to some, I prefer a minimalist approach.
Using Pop OS felt like conforming to someone else’s vision of an ideal system, which led me to choose a lean Debian installation with XFCE—it’s light on resources and gives me the flexibility I need.
I’ve tweaked the laptop to optimize fan control, battery usage, and more, enhancing its performance significantly. Debian not only excels on servers—it's a stalwart on my mini PC where I manage various services. So naturally, it seemed like a fitting choice for my Thinkpad as well. It’s been impressively stable; I haven’t experienced any crashes or freezes.
Thanks! I appreciate your very detailed reply! With Windows 10 hitting EoL and Windows 11 being an absolutely not, I know I will need to switch to Linux full time in the coming months so this helps a ton as I have usually only used Ubuntu or Pop OS for secondary mess around installs.
Ubuntu and Pop!_OS both stem from Debian, making it a solid choice if you're seeking stability without needing any overly complex features. For me, it’s crucial that I can just boot up my machines and get to work or play exactly how I like.
Depending on your specific requirements, there’s a wealth of options out there. For instance, if you’re after the latest Nvidia drivers, I’d point you towards Fedora or Arch. Gamers are increasingly gravitating towards variants of these, such as Cachy OS and Nobara.
Switching from Windows to Linux/GNU can seem daunting, but it’s definitely rewarding. You’ll gain a lot of knowledge and, if you enjoy tinkering as I do, you’ll find plenty of fun in the process.
You're welcome, and good luck!
The hard part is to remove KDE again to save space. I did not find a nice, won't-break-random-things way of doing this in a distro
Have you tried NixOS?
I confess I haven't. I'll give it a spin in VirtualBox.
You can usually get rid of most of it by removing a base level package, which is typically named something like kde-common. Doing so will remove any package that depends on it.
Obviously YMMV depending on the distro.
Or just don't! Storage is cheap these days and the whole KDE installation would take up, what, 1-2GB?
The last time I tried this was maybe a year ago, on OpenSUSE Tumbleweed. Installing KDE while I was on Gnome caused the Gnome theme to get messed up. Uninstalling KDE (space was limited on my laptop) caused further problems, it took me a little while to manually track down packages and reinstall Gnome to my satisfaction. Hopefully things are better now.
I tried again in a VM, and no, installing KDE is easy via a pattern. Uninstalling it is pretty much impossible and most people say don't bother etc. Disappointing to say the least, because you are saddled with all this extra junk on the desktop just because you tried something.
e.g. https://forums.opensuse.org/t/can-i-remove-kde/166162
I desperately hope that's a thing only on OpenSUSE. I want to try this on a Debian VM and see what happens.
I had the same issues with Ubuntu, I think it's just an issue with them overlapping in functionality. I tried it myself trying to pin down what was ultimately a compositor setting GNOME hides. I was able to fix the theme quick enough with hitting defaults in gnome tweaks and some cleaning got done with removing the base minimal package I used, but there's still stuff scattered around.
I don't think I've ever switched between Gnome and KDE (or maybe just once many years ago). However, it sort of makes sense that it shouldn't be too hard, because the main applications you use (browser, office, etc.) will keep their own settings and things independently of the DE you are using. You should be able to just open your browser in one DE or the other, and just get going, just with different window decorations, etc. And: your data (documents, music files, etc.) are independent of the DE, too.
The difference you might feel is stuff like default behaviour, look, and feel of things like your file explorer, contact manager, and of course, the desktop UI itself (task bar, system tray, start button, etc.)
Anyway, I'm glad to hear you had a smooth experience with Linux in this case.
Thanks for this post. I followed this link and guide and you're right. it got KDE installed pretty smoothly on Pop OS. One problem: it's now missing Pop OS's built-in ability to change between dedicated and integrated graphics on an Nvidia laptop.
EDIT: Looks like getting it added into KDE is not gonna be easy from all I can find. But maybe I can get used to just switching desktops when I feel like gaming...
PopOS's tweaked version of GNOME seems normal to me. You still end up using the windows key to then type the name of the application you want to open, but I was using MacOS before and that's kind or the workflow there as well. They also have the extension that adds the thing at the bottom that's just like the MacOS dock so most apps I use get pinned there anyways.
Edit: and of course you can put stuff on the desktop. Why GNOME, why do you do that.
If you want a Chromebook experience try Fedora Atomic Desktops. I've been using Aurora (Fedora KDE, with Bluefin's QOL additions/tweaks) and only had an upstream Linux kernel driver issue. DE swaps take 20 minutes to download the new image and reboot, plus some local config cleanup that just comes with the territory. Also, Universal Blue has a sister project called "Blue Build" that allows firther customization via your own github repo/automation that is generated by their form.
The only issue I had swapping desktops was using a tightly integrated experience like Ubuntu amd wanting to use XFCE only, so I would reinstall Xubuntu. If you settle for less than the Ubuntu flavours offer it's easy.
Debian is easier to swap around than Ubuntu, but OpenSuSE and Fedora seem to lrovide robust mechanisms for this process with their package groups. At one point I went from Fedora Workstation to KDE and managed to do it all in one shot.