Hi,
I tried this procedure to switch between GNOME to KDE and it didn’t work. I’m guessing this is probably not up to date anymore, especially that it is based on DNF4. I have tried using DNF4 to see if it would work but it doesn’t work.
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You need to provide more details.
Are you saying that a command that guide told you to use did not work?
If so which one?
What I’m saying is if I follow the entire procedure, the end result is for some reason even if it did download what appears to be KDE packages, when I try to switch, it just doesn’t work. I did notice that when I use DNF4, in the list of available desktop (if I remove parameter “-v”), KDE is not in the list. With DNF4, it was.
But lets take it from the top for a second…
As you can see with the image above, DNF5 doesn’t recognize parameter “-v”, dnf group list -v --available | grep desktop. Also, DNF5 doesn’t know what groupinstall means, dnf groupinstall “KDE Plasma Workspaces”. As a result I used DNF4 by replacing DNF with dnf4 to execute these steps.
Once I was done with that, going to the logini screen, this never showed up
I tried to logout and even reboot.
Last but not least using “switchdesk” (GUI or CLI) will not switch.
Let me know if you need more details than this or if there is anything specific that you need.
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I see a number of changes to commands in dnf5, so the doc will need to be updated:
https://dnf5.readthedocs.io/en/latest/changes_from_dnf4.7.html
So, that’s the first issue here.
We’ll then have to see if “switchdesk” is still up to date—there may have been changes with the way default desktop environments are to be set that switchdesk has not incorporated.
Edit: I’ve filed an issue here: Issue #770: [main] Doc issue in file modules/ROOT/pages/switching-desktop-environments.adoc: needs updating for dnf5 (Fedora 41) - quick-docs - Pagure.io
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switchdesk seems to be from before systemd and the way things were done in the past.
Most display manager (login manger if you like) have a way to select the desktop environment, for example gdm has the cogweel where you can select not only various gnome flavours, but also other installed desktop environment.
To switch display manager you can use systemctl enable --force lightdm to swich from the current display manager to lightdm. Similar systemctl enable --force gdm to switch to the gnome display manager.
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Any modern display manager offers desktop selection and storing current selection by merging /usr/share/wayland-sessions and /usr/share/xsessions.
You can go back to a year <2000 system by installing x11-xorg-xdm and setting xdm as display manager. This does not provide desktop selection, but this can be done at user level with switchdesk(-gui).
It works on F41, but only X11 with selected desktops. In my case, it only offers xfce and system default, not the installed MATE desktop.
If you use gdm and wayland, it will not work.
With a proper setup in ~/.vnc/xstartup, it might be useful if you setup a VNC server, I’ve not tried this yet.
Tried to add Mate, but selection is hardcoded in a python script so needs modification of system file, not just adding a file.
Have you tried these steps?
- List hidden groups:
sudo dnf group list --hidden
- Find out the group ID of the desktop enviropment:
ID Name Installed
miraclewm-desktop Miracle Window Manager Desktop no
- If you do not have a package conflict problem, here is the code you will use:
sudo dnf5 group install miraclewm-desktop
- Package Conflict (sddm-wayland-plasma vs sddm-wayland-miraclewm):
The conflict occurs because sddm-wayland-plasma and sddm-wayland-miraclewm both provide the sddm-greeter-displayserver package. To proceed:Use the --allowerasing option to allow dnf to uninstall conflicting packages that might be required for the new environment:
sudo dnf5 group install miraclewm-desktop --allowerasing
Alternatively, you can try --skip-broken to ignore and skip any packages that cannot be installed due to conflicts:
sudo dnf5 group install miraclewm-desktop --skip-broken
- If these options do not resolve the conflicts, try manually uninstalling sddm-wayland-plasma before installing miraclewm:
sudo dnf5 remove sddm-wayland-plasma
Note: The problem for me is that I installed the kde-mobile group, so the sddm-wayland-miraclewm and sddm-wayland-plasma packages are conflicting.
sddm-wayland-miraclewm noarch 0~git.20241021.1.cece62d-1.fc41 fedora 34.5 KiB
sddm-wayland-plasma noarch 6.2.2-1.fc41 updates 225.0 B
I have tried to add the tags but the tag box is greyed out.
I have not tried the steps you proposed, I followed the guide entirely. I have since then reinstalled Fedora 41 with KDE. I may try this procedure again going from KDE to GNOME.
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