cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/42263587
Of the desktop environments i’ve tried, i prefer Cinnamon overall. But i find that i’d rather use the KDE or Mate versions of some programs. I don’t need Nemo when i’d rather use Thunar, or Gnome Characters when i prefer mate-character-map or kcharselect.
Is there any reason i can’t start with nothing that’s specific to any one DE, then install whatever i need to have Cinnamon applets with the Mate and KDE programs i want? I don’t expect this to be easier than picking one DE and sticking with that, but is it so much harder that it’s not worth the trouble to have my computer so customized? How common is it to use a custom blend like this?
This was sparked when, while cleaning up my system that still has similar programs from several DEs, i accidentally broke Cinnamon and had to reinstall it, complete with everything i’d removed in favor of some other DE’s version of a program.
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What window managers are recommended for situations like this? I’ve always used whatever comes with my DE, without really being aware of the window manager. How does that affect what display manager i need?
sure
Yes. I run Debian with a bunch of Gnome and KDE applications on XFCE4. UI looks weird sometimes, but it works as well as I expect.
Yeah it’s fine.
Unless the programs in question rely on conflicting core dependencies that actually have to have hooks into the system, like KWallet and other credential managers, and other similarly “system” level tools, you’ll be totally fine. Worst case while avoiding those, you might have to install some hefty frameworks (eg: KDE’s dependencies are >1gb), but that’s about it.
If they need to integrate with specific core utilities, it can get weird. Though as long as you check for conflicting stuff before actually installing, you’ll be fine.
I’ve used different Linux OSs for 20 years and switched DEs without a thought and without a big install and never had a problem. Seems like one of the advantages, but maybe I am not using the programs you are.
Certainly. I’ve had setups with FVWM as a pure window manager while using XFCE’s
xfce4-terminal, MATE’s Caja file browser, and GNOME’s Evolution mail client. Some utilities will pull a few extra dependencies from their native DE, but they won’t get in the way either.Display manager won’t matter too much, most should be configurable to point at your WM of choice. LightDM integrates nicely with GTK themes, SDDM for Qt, and GDM for GNOME.
The biggest pain point from my experience was configuring power management and lid close actions manually, if using a laptop, since those often are only done for you if you install an entire DE at once.
Also grab a copy of qt5ct if you’re interested in making your Qt packages look more integrated next to GTK packages.
Aside from specific dependencies that may want some installed packages even if you don’t use them, yes, it’s fine.
I have used Debian for 15 years, with Gnome 2 then MATE, and now I’m using Cinnamon, while mixing with any GTK apps I can find.
