Talk:Desktop environment

Touchscreen recomendations

Latest comment: 30 July 20181 comment1 person in discussion

I am missing some touchscreen recommendations, perhaps it would also be a good idea to have a similar link on Touchscreen page?

So far the deepin seems like a good option, however only for fast systems

TODO add experiences from Lenovo Yoga 300

XFCE with some settings might be usable

Gnome?

etc?

--—This unsigned comment is by Pulec (talk) 02:27, 30 July 2018‎. Please sign your posts with ~~~~!

GNOME is widely regarded to be good with touchscreens. Anyway a touchscreen recommendation section would need to be objective. Desktop environment specific settings belong in the respective article. Touchscreen isn't linked because it's not directly related and we have a functioning search. --Larivact (talk) 03:24, 30 July 2018 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Changing Desktop Environment

Latest comment: 4 March2 comments2 people in discussion

So I was trying to change my desktop environment from gnome to cutefish just to try it out. I was not able to get it to work for a while and just kept installing and uninstalling packages like gnome and xorg, disabling and enabling gdm, and trying to configure x for diffrerent monitors to get it to start with command startx. I finally figured out that the desktop environment can simply be changed with the little settings button in the bottom corner.

This feels super obvious now, but I did not realize that that the window manager itself takes up monitor 0 and is always active, which is why the command startx would give an error message saying that display 0 was in use.

Would this make sense to add as a seperate sub-section for this page or Xorg for example? This information feels like it would be super useful to newer users (such as myself) who not only want to try out different things but are also just learning how building a system works.

--Nati (talk) 12:59, 10 February 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Hi there! Welcome to Linux.

I was not able to get it to work for a while and just kept installing and uninstalling packages like gnome and xorg, disabling and enabling gdm, and trying to configure x for diffrerent monitors to get it to start with command startx

I believe it should have been possible to do this without touching or thinking about startx; that program is more for power users who do not use a display manager. The process for switching DEs should be to install the new DE packages, and uninstall as many of the old DE packages as possible. Since the new DE packages are installed, pacman would not let you remove things that are necessary, such as the Xorg display server.

the window manager itself takes up monitor 0 and is always active, which is why the command startx would give an error message saying that display 0 was in use.

I'm not sure if this is right. When you boot your computer and the display manager (not window manager) starts, via the systemd service that you enabled, Xorg is started then and there. The Xorg instance is what is taking up the first display.

The window manager is a separate process which complements Xorg, and wouldn't cause that kind of conflict, I don't think.

Would this make sense to add as a seperate sub-section for this page or Xorg for example?

I am not really sure what needs to be conveyed other than "install one and uninstall the other". The only non-obvious thing I see right away, is that you may or may not be using the same display manager. In your case, Cutefish seems to recommend you use SDDM rather than GDM, so you might run into issues if you have both of those installed and enabled. However, that's a base that I would have expected to be cleared by you trying to uninstall GDM as a part of the process of uninstalling GNOME - again, if it's needed by Cutefish, then Pacman will stop you from uninstalling it. -- CodingKoopa (talk) 18:36, 4 March 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]