Arch Linux

RAH

Member

Registered: 2008-06-20

Posts: 205

Testing Multiple Desktop Environments + Increasing Productivity

Hello,

I've been using Arch Linux with Gnome for some time now and I'm interested in testing out other desktop environments.  Particularily Xfce and FluxBox.  I'm not really interested in KDE as from past experience I've found it rather bloated.  I do however like how you can run Quanta Plus on it (although I've heard this can be done via Gnome with the KDE files etc).

I recently used Ubuntu with Gnome and was impressed with its ability to have completely seperate work spaces (seperate icons,wallpapers, taskbar and processes).  I'm interested in methods of doing this and saving/restoring entire workspace sessions.  The idea is to have two completely seperate work spaces, one for personal use and the other for work.

Is it possible to have multiple DE's installed at the same time on Arch and ability to switch between them easily and also remove them if necessary?

Basically I'm interested in increasing productivity.

I'm interested in your thoughts on this.

Thanks.

moljac024

Member

From: Serbia

Registered: 2008-01-29

Posts: 2,676

Re: Testing Multiple Desktop Environments + Increasing Productivity

You can have multiple WMs and DEs installed.
As for the productivity that really is kind of subjective and depends on your needs/habits.
Just try out the multitude of WMs out there for yourself, it sure is fun, if nothing else

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Inxsible

Forum Fellow

From: Chicago

Registered: 2008-06-09

Posts: 9,183

Re: Testing Multiple Desktop Environments + Increasing Productivity

Well if you are developing applications that need testing on multiple Desktop enviroments, then yes installing them would help increasing your productivity.

But if your developed apps are platform independent, installing multiple DEs - in one way - is nothing but bloat and will get in the way because now you will have to rbr different shortcuts/application names for different DEs. That in my opinion leads to decreased productivity. Separate wallpapers on different virtual desktops and apps like those take up lot of memory and are a waste of resources, IMHO

If  however, you want to just try out different WMs/DEs to find the right one for you, then yes...as moljac mentioned install them and find out which ones you like.

and yes its easy to install and remove them.

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