What are the different desktops?

[MASONTX]

As a newbie, I took the simple approach and installed the gnome desktop, but I have read about KDE and Xfce and am curious. There may be a lot more that I just haven't heard about yet too. So the question is: Without doing a reinstall and messing up the downloads and settings I have now, how do I try a new desktop like Xfce or Kde? Also, what are the basic differences between the desktops?

[oz]

You can read about most of them here:

Window Managers for X

Be sure to use your default package tool for removing or installing software on your computer whenever possible because it will usually simplify things for you.

[MASONTX]

Thanks for the link. I went to the link, and while I'm so green the windows managers quickly overwhelmed me, the desktop portion was just what I was looking for. It showed screen shots of what the desktops looked like.

When I get a little more experience, I will probably try out the KDE on my Ubuntu 10.04 computer.

[oz]

While I'm not personally a fan of doing so, some users will often put a mix of the various DEs and WMs on their computers. For me it's always a fresh install for any new DE or WM, and I keep system images (backups) of each system on hand so that it's easy and quick to switch back if the new system doesn't please me. Best of luck to you, whichever route you should pursue.

[jayd512]

Something that you could do is setup a dual-boot computer.
Make it where you have just a small partition for something like Ubuntu (say around 10 GB).
Use that second install as a test bed for different desktops and WM's. You'll have a chance to try out things like Xfce, BlackBox and, my favorite, IceWM.

[Cobalt60]

Since I use Debian, I use the Synaptic package manager. I use Gnome, butIf I wanted to try out XFCE (for example), I would just use Synaptic, search for "XFCE", select the main XFCE package and install it. After its installed, I would log out of Gnome, and then GDM (Gnome Desktop Manager) will launch. GDM is a login screen, and I can choose any of my desktop environments to log into. If I decide I dont like XFCE, I just uninstall it using Synaptic.

So, in Debian anyway, its extremely easy to try multiple DEs. At one point on my Ultra2 Sparc machine, I had like 7 DEs installed and multiple WMs. When I decided I didnt like some of them, I simply removed them using Synaptic.

Even though the Ultra2 is very slow (dual 200MHz CPUs, 512MB RAM), I found XFCE to be only slightly faster than Gnome. LXDE is similar to XFCE, but is a little harder to configure. I found most of the lighter DEs to be too difficult to configure at the moment, however, Enlightenment I found to be very interesting.

So, currently, on the slow Ultra2 I have, I have installed Gnome, XFCE, LXDE, and Enlightenment, though I use XFCE primarily on that machine.

[MASONTX]

thanks for the good suggestions, I'll try them out and see which desktop I prefef.

[sixdrift]

Another thought, download an iso for a Linux distro with the DE you want to try out, then run that in a VM of some sort. That way, you can just give them a try without full install.

I personally like (in this order): GNOME, LXDE, xfce

[Koshie]

Since I'm using GNU/Linux I'd GNOME, but since the bêta 2 of Lucid Lynx I've deeper test KDE and now I love it, I'm on KDE and I think is the better DE. But is my opinion, test and you have your opinion about DE.

You can install the kubuntu-desktop package in Ubuntu and choose your display manager (GDM in Ubuntu and KDM for Kubuntu) and after choose on what DE you want to boot.

A little advice, when you have GNOME and KDE on the same installation you probably need to clear the menu by editing it. Right click and edit, because you will have a lot of software useless for the concerned desktop environment.

Koshiarlly

[MASONTX]

Finally had time to dig deeper into the desktops, and played around with xubuntu, and kbuntu, mepis, and opensuse kdesktops. I liked the kde a little better than gnome, especially the suse and mepis implementation. Since I am already semi-familiar with gnome I may keep it and ubuntu 10.4 for the time being, but Kde, especially the Mepis and Suse distro's, looks like a way I might be able to sneak my wife into linux. When I get a chance, I'll check out Mint.