MX Linux KDE vs XFCE plus KDE-desktop?

[MXRobo]

And when the tree falleth, whether it be toward the South or North, in what place soever it fall, there it lieth. Ecclesiastes/11/3
I'm probably pushing it.

[CharlesV]

@DukeComposed Excellent! and I am going to use that many times :-) Thank you for that one!!

[joejac]

Originally MX-Linux was XFCE only, I love the stability of MX-Linux but not the appearance of XFCE, some one did a spin of KDE, I switched to KDE and I never looked back, I love KDE and all its convenience apps.

I would suggest o create a 50GB partition for the OS and the rest of your disk for your home partition, so you can Install anything you want to try without compromising your data, and so change the OS and desktop at any time. And of course before installing in the disk make quick tests in Virtualbox, so you will see performance and appearance .

Hope this helps, and by the way @DukeComposed, today I was able to touch a huge white bull, about 800 kilograms, in the middle of the horns, 3 times! :)
Regards

[CatManDan]

I installed the KDE packages to my XFCE installation, switched from lightdm to sddm, and as for now, I'm using KDE (Wayland), and VLC plays every movie under the sun (it did crash under XFCE when I wanted to play some of my collection). Also, it allows me more customization that also can be handed through to GTK applications

I mean, it's the magic of Linux that you can install multiple desktop environments side by side, without having to install Linux onto a completely new partition.

[joejac]

I installed the KDE packages to my XFCE installation, switched from lightdm to sddm, and as for now, I'm using KDE (Wayland), and VLC plays every movie under the sun (it did crash under XFCE when I wanted to play some of my collection). Also, it allows me more customization that also can be handed through to GTK applications

I mean, it's the magic of Linux that you can install multiple desktop environments side by side, without having to install Linux onto a completely new partition.

It might have some advantages to have 2 desktops but I personally do not like to mix desktop environments, it clutters the desktop and it might cause confusion with duplicated applications, 2 file managers and so forth. For me "less is more". For this reason I appreciate a lot that now MX-Linux comes with a KDE official version.
Regards
joejac

[noesnada]

I'm on XFCE and curious to try KDE. I've had a first try on a VM and want to take the next step. So my dilemma is over the better option:

I'm a long time KDE user. I've tried gnome, xfce, mate, cinnamon, but always come back to KDE. I find it better to work in and prefer the way it looks.

When I was using mxlinux xfce for a few months on my laptop I noticed something magical about xfce. It puts all of the xfce config files in one easy to find and backup folder - xfce4. It's such a simple and brilliant idea.

You may get a shock with kde. It sprays config files all over your home folder. It's chaos in comparison with the xfce way of doing it.

[AVLinux]

I'm on XFCE and curious to try KDE. I've had a first try on a VM and want to take the next step. So my dilemma is over the better option:

I'm a long time KDE user. I've tried gnome, xfce, mate, cinnamon, but always come back to KDE. I find it better to work in and prefer the way it looks.

When I was using mxlinux xfce for a few months on my laptop I noticed something magical about xfce. It puts all of the xfce config files in one easy to find and backup folder - xfce4. It's such a simple and brilliant idea.

You may get a shock with kde. It sprays config files all over your home folder. It's chaos in comparison with the xfce way of doing it.

I agree!

I tried KDE installed alongside Enlightenment for a couple of months and like XFCE4, Enlightenment confines every config to a single '.e' folder and KDE was an absolute configuration mess. I ended up uninstalling it and there are multiple folders, configs, and remaining color module terminal errors unlike XFCE4 and Fluxbox which can be uninstalled quite cleanly. I did like KDE's interface but the KDE developers should be ashamed of how Plasma handles config storage and file placement for dozens of modules, it's nowhere near up to the standard of the rest of the D.E. It appears at some point I'm going to need to reinstall on this partition to fully erase KDE and that shouldn't be the case, but hey... you mess with the bull, you get the horns...

[noesnada]

I agree!

I tried KDE installed alongside Enlightenment for a couple of months and like XFCE4, Enlightenment confines every config to a single '.e' folder and KDE was an absolute configuration mess. I ended up uninstalling it and there are multiple folders, configs, and remaining color module terminal errors unlike XFCE4 and Fluxbox which can be uninstalled quite cleanly. I did like KDE's interface but the KDE developers should be ashamed of how Plasma handles config storage and file placement for dozens of modules, it's nowhere near up to the standard of the rest of the D.E. It appears at some point I'm going to need to reinstall on this partition to fully erase KDE and that shouldn't be the case, but hey... you mess with the bull, you get the horns...

Yep. More than once I have had to completely nuke my home folder to get rid of kde config files that were keeping things set a way I no longer wanted them to be. I searched my home folder eternally and did the same online to try to find out how to reverse everything, but failed.

I really like kde, but my god what a mess with the config files.

[m_pav]

@feeling-lucky-punk I will attest to the Xfce and KDE Configs producing some uncharacteristic results between the desktop types.

In Xfce, you can use KDE apps and they mostly look OK, but certainly not always the same. For Example, a KDE app run in Xfce may produce white text on a white background when trying to navigate through a file chooser from an app like Okular PDF Reader. The same goes for pretty much any floating dialogur produced by the KED App when running from Xfce. Dolphin file manage in Xfce can do something similar, in that hovering your mouse pointer over a file or folder will have white text on a white background. We have here a snippet of some of the inconsistencies produced when alternate DE's

Moving in the opposite direction, the full stack of KDE apps to match our official release is not added when installing KDE Plasma from MXPI. On first login, everything looks fine, but on further use, you will find missing pieces.

I have done the exercise you are asking about and it appears KDE Plasma will win outright if it is added after Xfce, in that being the latest thing to be installed, but I have found some missing elements, even when KDE/Plasma is installed through MXPI. These will be easy to find because you will stumble upon them and installing the missing packages will sort them out. There's not many, certainly not enough to cause a bother, but you will find them in your daily use.

The thing I couldn't get on with was the terminal apps, and while the official MX-KDE has enough to satisfy most people, the Xfce Terminal will be terminal will still be there for you. Same goes for text editors, Kate and Kwrite vs Featherpad, they're all good, but it's hard to accept one after having use the other. KDE makes this easy with their mimetype editor in the settings app, so you can mix n match as you like.

As long as you realise the same app configs can be altered by 2 very different DE's, you can learn to live with it. KDE/Plasma do some things nicely and while their configs do come from weird locations, they do a lot of things much more elegantly than Xfce, but that is no reflection on how well we've tamed the beast.

When a new user account is logged into for the first time, it will inherit configs from both /etc/skel and any particular configs related to the Desktop like Themes etc, from the DE it is logged into first. When the same account logs into the other DE, any first run configs that are common between the 2 DE's will liklely be skipped, causing the issues DO and others here have spoken about.

When using KDE Apps in Xfce, floating dialogues will oft produce unreadable white text on a white background and their theme may look like it's been hit with an ugly stick and the same can apply when Xfce apps are run from a KDE/Plasma DE.

[wdscharff]

One of the reasons I used Appimages/Flatpaks when using KDE applications was precisely because they fit more easily into my Fluxbox interface than when using them as *deb . A side effect of course is that you have the latest version.
With KDE it simply annoyed me that installation files and programs were structured differently after each new version, after Gnome “improved” from v2 to v3 I switched to xfce in 2015, which I never regretted.
Whereby Fluxbox now suits me better

Translated with DeepL(free version)