adding kubuntu desktop on top of ubuntu /? ?? or total reinstall

[anne5505]

hi there, ive got a nice completely new thinkpad that is running ubuntu. i much prefer mint xfce but it just wouldnt run on it. ubuntu seems very solid and clean, but i really miss how customizable xfce was.

the friend who helped me install it says i can just add a kubuntu desktop on top of the ubuntu that is already there, and he gave me a few simple commands to do it which i could probably do. (god willing) he said i didnt have to completley reinstall everything and it would be more like mint. i dont totally understand exactly how desktops interchange like that.


can anyone help me understand if this just adding a desktop will actually make enough difference, or should i just completely start over. its working flawlessly as it is, i just miss being able to play around with stuff more.


so will it work to just add a kubuntu desktop on top of the ubuntu i already have, or should i start over fresh? im about to leave the country and wont know anyone who works on linux for a long time, so trying to get it all solid before i go. thanks so much for any advice

[claydoh]

While this is perfectly OK to try, adding a full Kubuntu on top of Ubuntu (or vice versa) is well known to cause minor to less minor niggles, small bugs, and oddities for many. But it should not break anything.

Which specific commands were suggested? One *can* install a bit less of Kubuntu instead of the full-bore kubuntu-desktop meta-package to avoid most, if not all of these.
But note that adding Xfce, or even Cinnamon (Mint's desktop) is iirc much less prone to problems, and are also options to consider. these can be installed alongside Ubuntu's Gnome similarly to adding Kubuntu's KDE.

In my experience, it is better to get the full Kubuntu (Xubuntu, Ubuntu-cinnamon) experience by starting fresh.

I definitely would not suggest doing something so drastic just before traveling. Don't ask me why

Installing kde-plasma-desktop as opposed to kubuntu-desktop will be a much safer choice if you *must* have something to play with.

Another option could be to install Kubuntu to a USB stick instead of the internal drive, just for something to play with, Or using Virtualbox. Or dual-booting Ubuntu-Kubuntu


And also note that there are plenty of us users online, so you don't necessarily need a RL friend to help.

[anne5505]

aw :}} that was nice to say. i'll never stop using linux but im very much still learning it.

hes my go-to guy here for linux stuff, but he got so traumatized trying to get mint onto my macbook (ive never seen him ever fail, but something called a T2 chip actually broke my macbook pro completely when we tried) the thinkpad also reacted terribly to mint, we really dont know why. the thinkpad is brand new.

hes put mint on everything else i own and its always been fine. puting linux on ppls computers is actually his job and its always mint. he prefers cinnamon but i prefer xfce. so we went to ubuntu hoping it would work and it did. its clean, its professional, but, it seems like you cant customize it hardly at all. i miss all the settings and menus of xfce.

id way rather start over from scratch, but i dont know how to make a bootable disk, and my internet isnt great. i used to buy disks online you could install from and know it was a good copy, but im not sure you can do that anymore. id much prefer to reinstall fresh if i had the option. im still just wishing i could have mint xfce, but this computer did not like it. im not sure my friend will ever recover. and hes done tech support so he is used to trauma. these were the suggestions he gave me:


=================================

Hi,

You don’t need to reinstall Ubuntu to switch to the Kubuntu/KDE desktop.

Open a terminal and run:

```bash
sudo apt update
sudo apt full-upgrade -y
sudo apt install kubuntu-desktop
```

During the installation, if it asks which display manager to use, choose:

```text
sddm
```

When the installation finishes, reboot:

```bash
sudo reboot
```

After rebooting, you should get the KDE Plasma/Kubuntu login screen.
If necessary, use the session selector on the login screen and choose
**Plasma**.

I’d recommend leaving the existing Ubuntu/GNOME desktop installed for
now. Once Kubuntu is working properly, the old GNOME packages can be
removed later if you want a cleaner system.

===================

that was his advice. i would just be copying/pasting that and praying real hard. id so much rather start over and try to get it right rather than patching stuff. does this sound like something that would work? thanks so much

[claydoh]

the thinkpad also reacted terribly to mint,

Odd, as Mint quite literally is a mildly modified Ubuntu 24.04, specifically in terms of the OS, drivers, hardware support.


Anyway, if you want to try this, just substitute kde-plasma-desktop for kubuntu-desktop in the script.
You shouldn't even need to pray, really.

You will have less software installed, but not by a lot, but you will still have all the applications Ubuntu came with already.

Down the road, if you want to go further, you can install kubuntu-desktop to finish the job, especially if you do try and remove Gnome down the road.

All I will say about removing all of Gnome, or Plasma for that matter, is very much not always a simple and straightforward task. I will be assuming your friend has not done this themselves.
But if they have, maybe they saved the lists of things to remove that don't break your desktop.

But it *is* doable.

[die.boer]

im about to leave the country and wont know anyone who works on linux for a long time

... well... you know us now ...
you are not alone

[die.boer]

On Linux, the "desktop environment" (GNOME, KDE Plasma, XFCE, etc.) is just a set of programs that run on top of the OS — it's not welded into the operating system itself. Ubuntu, Kubuntu, and Mint are all basically the same underlying system (Debian/Ubuntu base) with different desktop environments and default apps pre-installed. When you install a desktop environment as a package, you're just adding those programs to your existing system. Nothing about your existing Ubuntu install gets torn out or replaced.

At login, a "display manager" (like GDM or SDDM) lets you pick which desktop environment to load for that session. So you'd log in, click a little gear/dropdown icon near the password field, and choose "Plasma" or "XFCE" instead of "GNOME" (Ubuntu's default). Switch back anytime, same login screen.

Kubuntu-desktop vs xubuntu-desktop

Since you specifically miss XFCE (not KDE), you might actually want:

sudo apt install xubuntu-desktop

instead of kubuntu-desktop. This gives you the actual XFCE desktop, which will feel much closer to what you had in Mint XFCE than KDE Plasma would. If your friend suggested kubuntu-desktop specifically, maybe he had a reason (KDE is very customizable too, sometimes people prefer it), but if it's XFCE you're nostalgic for, xubuntu-desktop is the more direct match.

Installing a second desktop environment alongside GNOME is extremely common and well-supported. A few honest caveats:
-It'll download a fair amount of stuff (a few hundred MB to ~1GB), so do it before you're relying on spotty airport wifi.
-Very occasionally, two desktop environments' settings apps can step on each other's toes (rare, minor annoyances, not breakage).
-Worst case, if you ever hated it, you can sudo apt remove xubuntu-desktop (or kubuntu-desktop) and you're back to plain Ubuntu with no lasting damage.

Given you're about to travel: this is a good reason to do it now rather than later, while you still have wifi you trust and time to poke at it without pressure. It's a low-risk change — you're not overwriting your working install, just adding an option to the login menu.


PS: me personally always used to be on XFCE (cause of me crappy lappy) , but now on KDE Plasma ...it's like 100x better , with NO noticeable lag/delays/whatevers...
Kde plasma runs as well as XFCE did

[claydoh]

-Worst case, if you ever hated it, you can sudo apt remove xubuntu-desktop (or kubuntu-desktop) and you're back to plain Ubuntu with no lasting damage.

Not quite true. Uninstalling the meta-package does not necessarily also remove the packages it pulled in, even with autoremove. Keeping the list of the packages that it pulled in would help with that, though.

[anne5505]

thank you guys both so much... that was really educational and helped a ton. i dont see any reason to remove gnome as long as it isnt causing trouble. i dont know if my friend has tried any of this before, he does not usually work with ubuntu. it sounds like removing gnome isnt all that necessary as long as it works with the other things. thanks for explaining what desktops are. that was reassuring.

my friend laughs at me that i have this super high powered computer now and still want xfce, but i think its the most customizable and thats what i like about it. i dont need all the cinnamon pretty stuff. i like to be able to tell the dock exactly how many pixels wide i like it and make the windows do exactly what i want and precisely change everything about the fonts and that type of stuff. i think whether i like kde or xfce will come down to how much i can tweak it. and i like things streamlined. i dont need bells n whistles even on a powerful computer. just maximum tweakability and nothing extra.


maybe i will like plasma better, i do have a much more powerful laptop now. the gnome one is lovely and clean but there just arent enough menus and settings for me :{{

just wanted to say thank you so much, im going to let all this sink into the old brain-bone and sleep on it. it sounds like this is something that isnt goign to necessarily be that horrifying and that is pretty commonly done. theres still some time before im going, thats why im doing all this now.

im going to sleep now and will be back at it tomorrow. thanks so much for the encouragement. really appreciate it so so much. ive got a couple questions i'll be back tomorrow. thanks so much.

[claydoh]

my friend laughs at me that i have this super high powered computer now and still want xfce, but i think

It is not unusual. Many people do like lower resource usage, and 'lean' systems.

still want xfce, but i think its the most customizable and thats what i like about it.

You have not tried customizing Plasma yet
There will very much be more options, though it is not always easy or simple. Just browse Unixporn or any Arch/CachyOS screenshot thread for all the Plasma "ricing".

But in the end, you like what *you* like, and that is all that matters.