Arch Linux

milasch

Member

From: Toronto, ON

Registered: 2009-05-21

Posts: 100

Coexistence of KDE4.3 and Gnome 2.28

Hello,

I've tried KDE4 and liked it because of its looks. It pleases the eye. However I find dolphin very bogus and slow compared to nautilus. I've always used gnome as my desktop environment.

My linux experience is low-medium and I mostly follow the wiki pages as a cake recipe, not doing much out of its  scope, unless it fails, than it is a whole different story.

I want to have both desktop environments installed in my arch linux box and I'm afraid I'll break the installation if I do so by following the wiki pages only.

From your more advanced experience, although I know it is totally possible to do that, is there anything I should worry about before I issue a pacman -Sy gnome gnome-extra gnome-system tools? Or I should just expect full and happy coexistence from both?

Please share!

n0dix

Member

Registered: 2009-09-22

Posts: 956

Re: Coexistence of KDE4.3 and Gnome 2.28

I don't think you have a problem if install gnome and kde. I did once without problems. I recommend first install gnome/kde and look it works well, then install the other.

With the wiki page, you go in good way.

JezdziecBezNicka

Member

From: Cracow, Poland

Registered: 2009-12-03

Posts: 89

Re: Coexistence of KDE4.3 and Gnome 2.28

From my own experience, trying out DE's in Arch is painless. I've tried xfce, lxde, gnome and kde and never had any trouble with them.

There is one thing: devicekit disks (used by gnome) may cause problems while automounting an external hard drive in kde4 (as far as I can remember).

PS.
Imo, kde 4.3 is as fast as gnome, and it's way more configurable. But that's my opinion :)

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milasch

Member

From: Toronto, ON

Registered: 2009-05-21

Posts: 100

Re: Coexistence of KDE4.3 and Gnome 2.28

Imo, kde 4.3 is as fast as gnome, and it's way more configurable. But that's my opinion

But don't you think gnome is way more stable than KDE? Don't you have small irritating issues like Dolphin crashing, extremely slow navigation between photo directories when in Preview mode?

I'm really enjoying KDE 4.3 experience, however these tiny irritating instability problems make me want a more stable DE for day to day use. And I don't know how much focus KDE developers are giving on fixing bugs vs releasing new features for the upcoming version of KDE (4.4). So I thought maybe I'll stick with gnome until I try 4.4 out and see if it is more stable.

I can't remember what else bugs me in KDE but i still feel like i'm standing in shaking ground when I'm using it. It will be very disappointing if 4.4 is still this bogus.

milasch

Member

From: Toronto, ON

Registered: 2009-05-21

Posts: 100

Re: Coexistence of KDE4.3 and Gnome 2.28

From my own experience, trying out DE's in Arch is painless. I've tried xfce, lxde, gnome and kde and never had any trouble with them.

There is one thing: devicekit disks (used by gnome) may cause problems while automounting an external hard drive in kde4 (as far as I can remember).

PS.
Imo, kde 4.3 is as fast as gnome, and it's way more configurable. But that's my opinion

BTW, nice signature!!! lol

n0dix

Member

Registered: 2009-09-22

Posts: 956

Re: Coexistence of KDE4.3 and Gnome 2.28

Imo, kde 4.3 is as fast as gnome, and it's way more configurable. But that's my opinion

But don't you think gnome is way more stable than KDE? Don't you have small irritating issues like Dolphin crashing, extremely slow navigation between photo directories when in Preview mode?

I'm really enjoying KDE 4.3 experience, however these tiny irritating instability problems make me want a more stable DE for day to day use. And I don't know how much focus KDE developers are giving on fixing bugs vs releasing new features for the upcoming version of KDE (4.4). So I thought maybe I'll stick with gnome until I try 4.4 out and see if it is more stable.

I can't remember what else bugs me in KDE but i still feel like i'm standing in shaking ground when I'm using it. It will be very disappointing if 4.4 is still this bogus.

Why you don't try openbox or a tiling wm?

jac

Member

From: /home/jac

Registered: 2009-05-19

Posts: 431

Website

Re: Coexistence of KDE4.3 and Gnome 2.28

I have them both installed, everything works fine for me. I don't use automounting, though. Also, please do a search about "pacman -Sy" it really isn't that great of an idea for somebody that just follows instructions directly. Long story short: do "pacman -Syu" then just "pacman -S"

milasch

Member

From: Toronto, ON

Registered: 2009-05-21

Posts: 100

Re: Coexistence of KDE4.3 and Gnome 2.28

Why you don't try openbox or a tiling wm?

I have a nice desktop hardware where I have arch linux installed on. I don't believe openbox or tiling wm projects are a way to go when people are looking for eye candy, but perhaps they're good for some target hardwares. Also, I'm not sure about the supported software. It is pointless to have openbox if I need qt4 and gtk installed to run my apps. Same to tiling wm. Reason which I'm not looking forward to installing and learning another bunch of new stuff...

Forgive me if I'm being too stupid on the subject.

milasch

Member

From: Toronto, ON

Registered: 2009-05-21

Posts: 100

Re: Coexistence of KDE4.3 and Gnome 2.28

I have them both installed, everything works fine for me. I don't use automounting, though. Also, please do a search about "pacman -Sy" it really isn't that great of an idea for somebody that just follows instructions directly. Long story short: do "pacman -Syu" then just "pacman -S"

Oh yeah, thanks for the tip. Thankfully I'm a level above refreshing package list and updating packages.

JezdziecBezNicka

Member

From: Cracow, Poland

Registered: 2009-12-03

Posts: 89

Re: Coexistence of KDE4.3 and Gnome 2.28

don't you think gnome is way more stable than KDE?

Yes, gnome tends to be more stable (not much more though). But there's a huge release ahead of it: they're planning to release a major version, which means... major bugs:)

Kde 4.2 was unstable as hell (imo). I've used Kde 4.3 as my main working environment for about 2 months now and got used to its shortcomings;) I don't find them very annoying.

Kde's slogan is "be free" and I really felt kinda free when I moved from gnome (i've used it for a long time). Kde allows far more configuration than gnome and has better tools (compare gedit to kate, or anjuta to kdevelop).

I've got a configured a minimalist Openbox desktop (I need it sometimes) but I agree with milasch: a full-featured DE is what I really need (even though I own a netbook).

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This is my signature. If you want to read it, first you need to agree to the EULA.

n0dix

Member

Registered: 2009-09-22

Posts: 956

Re: Coexistence of KDE4.3 and Gnome 2.28

Why you don't try openbox or a tiling wm?

I have a nice desktop hardware where I have arch linux installed on. I don't believe openbox or tiling wm projects are a way to go when people are looking for eye candy, but perhaps they're good for some target hardwares. Also, I'm not sure about the supported software. It is pointless to have openbox if I need qt4 and gtk installed to run my apps. Same to tiling wm. Reason which I'm not looking forward to installing and learning another bunch of new stuff...

Forgive me if I'm being too stupid on the subject.

I have Dwm as my main window manager, and i like to mount the disk and others things manually. No because the openbox doesn't automount the devices, but i like in that way. I see that you have a functional (automount ,etc) DE, well, lately i have problems in gnome to automount devices i think because an update i made. It is only my case, i don't know the rest. The trully thing is that you should not have a problem if install gnome and kde together.