My experiences - George.

On Wednesday, 25-09-2024 at 12:37 Max Nikulin wrote:

On 25/09/2024 04:52, George at Clug wrote:

An other example would be to boot Debian Gnome, Debian KDE, and Debian Mate, Debian XFCE.

What issues you have faced trying to install multiple desktop
environment to the same Debian installation?

Grub did not find other existing Linux distributions. Found Windows, but not other linux distributions.

I did not try hard to determine the reason. I decided if it did not work, don't pursue the issue.

Display managers allow to
select session type before login (but some can not remember per-user preferences).

Using a different display manager is not the same as using a different installation.

I do not expect serious issues with multiple Linux flavors. Perhaps installer should be switched to expert mode to adjust some defaults.

I do use expert mode when installing Debian.

If you still prefer to have independent Debian installations then in the case of UEFI and shim-signed+grub-efi-amd64 (for Secure Boot) on the
same ESP partition see <https://lists.debian.org/msgid-search/[email protected]>
[SUMMARY] Re: UEFI multiboot. Sat, 14 Sep 2024 10:59:29 +0700

When ever possible, I do not use Secure Boot. Though in my attempt to have multiple Linux installations, I did try (once).

You need grub 2.12 from bookworm-backports and custom GRUB_DISTRIBUTOR
in /etc/default/grub.

Despite in that thread I was trying to concentrate on selecting OS from
UEFI firmware menu, Felix Miata repeatedly insisted on using grub menu
for this purpose. In your case grub menu may be easier to maintain.
Perhaps Felix may provide more details now to do it conveniently.

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On Thu, 26 Sep 2024 07:19:26 +1000
George at Clug <[email protected]> wrote:

My experiences - George.

On Wednesday, 25-09-2024 at 12:37 Max Nikulin wrote:

On 25/09/2024 04:52, George at Clug wrote:

An other example would be to boot Debian Gnome, Debian KDE, and
Debian Mate, Debian XFCE.

<snip>

Display managers allow to
select session type before login (but some can not remember
per-user preferences).

Using a different display manager is not the same as using a
different installation.

No, for that you need multi-boot.

But to compare Gnome, KDE etc. you would be staying within one
installation and using the display manager to switch between desktop environments, which is what these things are. You could also compare
with other environments such as window managers, but generally only
heavy professional users find it convenient to eliminate the desktop environments, such as you mention (also LXDE and Cinnamon).

If you look around your login screen, it may not be obvious, but there
should be a way to select different types of session. Even with a
default Debian installation you should find a session control widget in
the top right corner of the screen while the login box is shown, though
it will only contain the desktop you selected on installation. But you
can install others, and they will appear on this session menu.

There are also multiple display managers you can try, and again can
install several and select between them.

https://wiki.debian.org/DisplayManager

Some further notes:

https://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php?t=154871

Mostly different DMs just give you different login dialogs, they all do
the same things in terms of starting an X session. They don't make any difference to the environment once the session has started.

--
Joe

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Hi,

I decided I should again test setting up 'multi boot linux installations' on a single PC with multiple disk drives, to verify my previous failures at doing this.

The result of this test? It seems that Grub does a great job of booting from multiple linux installations.

For testing I created a KVM VM using Virt-Manager. I added up to five virtual disk drives to the VM (later I hope to add more).

So far I have installed three separate Debian Bookworm installations, each with a different Desktop Environment (Gnome, XFCE, KDE).

In each case (e.g. installation) I installed grub to the installation's own virtual disk drive (i.e. if I was installing to vdc then I installed grub to vdc.

This means I can take out the drive and put it into another computer (e.g. in my test case a different VM). When I put a drive into its own computer, Grub will complain that the other drives are not available, but grub config can be edited to remove the
non existent drives.

While installing each of the installations, each installation discovered the previous installations and configure grub to boot from them. Hence only the last installed Linux installation's grub contained all other installations.

To get the earlier installations to discover the later installed installations, I ran grub-mkconfig as per the below web site's instructions. This worked very well. Later on I want to try this on a physical PC that I wanted to use the ability of grub.

# grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg https://averagelinuxuser.com/dual-boot-arch-linux-with-linux/

Thanks to all who replied to this query, you encouraged me to do a bit more research, and all I can say is I am embarrassed how easy it was to set up.

George.




On Thursday, 26-09-2024 at 07:19 George at Clug wrote:

My experiences - George.

On Wednesday, 25-09-2024 at 12:37 Max Nikulin wrote:

On 25/09/2024 04:52, George at Clug wrote:

An other example would be to boot Debian Gnome, Debian KDE, and Debian Mate, Debian XFCE.

What issues you have faced trying to install multiple desktop
environment to the same Debian installation?

Grub did not find other existing Linux distributions. Found Windows, but not other linux distributions.

I did not try hard to determine the reason. I decided if it did not work, don't pursue the issue.

Display managers allow to
select session type before login (but some can not remember per-user preferences).

Using a different display manager is not the same as using a different installation.

I do not expect serious issues with multiple Linux flavors. Perhaps installer should be switched to expert mode to adjust some defaults.

I do use expert mode when installing Debian.

If you still prefer to have independent Debian installations then in the case of UEFI and shim-signed+grub-efi-amd64 (for Secure Boot) on the
same ESP partition see <https://lists.debian.org/msgid-search/[email protected]> [SUMMARY] Re: UEFI multiboot. Sat, 14 Sep 2024 10:59:29 +0700

When ever possible, I do not use Secure Boot. Though in my attempt to have multiple Linux installations, I did try (once).

You need grub 2.12 from bookworm-backports and custom GRUB_DISTRIBUTOR
in /etc/default/grub.

Despite in that thread I was trying to concentrate on selecting OS from UEFI firmware menu, Felix Miata repeatedly insisted on using grub menu
for this purpose. In your case grub menu may be easier to maintain. Perhaps Felix may provide more details now to do it conveniently.

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Hi,

Thanks for your report!

Le 29/09/2024, George at Clug <[email protected]> a écrit:

# grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg https://averagelinuxuser.com/dual-boot-arch-linux-with-linux/

Alternatively, you could have used a simple 'update-grub' because:

$ cat $(which update-grub)
#!/bin/sh
set -e
exec grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg "$@"
$

(This use of 'set -e' is funny.)

Regards

--
Florent

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On Thu 26 Sep 2024 at 09:52:18 (+0100), Joe wrote:

On Thu, 26 Sep 2024 07:19:26 +1000 George at Clug wrote:

On Wednesday, 25-09-2024 at 12:37 Max Nikulin wrote:

On 25/09/2024 04:52, George at Clug wrote:

An other example would be to boot Debian Gnome, Debian KDE, and
Debian Mate, Debian XFCE.

<snip>

Display managers allow to
select session type before login (but some can not remember
per-user preferences).

Using a different display manager is not the same as using a
different installation.

No, for that you need multi-boot.

But to compare Gnome, KDE etc. you would be staying within one
installation and using the display manager to switch between desktop environments, which is what these things are. You could also compare
with other environments such as window managers, but generally only
heavy professional users find it convenient to eliminate the desktop environments, such as you mention (also LXDE and Cinnamon).

If you look around your login screen, it may not be obvious, but there
should be a way to select different types of session. Even with a
default Debian installation you should find a session control widget in
the top right corner of the screen while the login box is shown, though
it will only contain the desktop you selected on installation. But you
can install others, and they will appear on this session menu.

Is it safe to assume that the environment a sole DE gives you is the
same as the environment when you've switched to that DE from running
several others, or even when other DEs are installed on the system? Particularly (but sticking with Debian) in the context of:

For example if I could do this I would be able to test
various GUIs or distributions for applications/games
using the same hardware and gauge performance.

Also, do DEs ever disagree over how they use their dotfiles?

Cheers,
David.

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On Friday, 27-09-2024 at 12:40 David Wright wrote:

On Thu 26 Sep 2024 at 09:52:18 (+0100), Joe wrote:

On Thu, 26 Sep 2024 07:19:26 +1000 George at Clug wrote:

On Wednesday, 25-09-2024 at 12:37 Max Nikulin wrote:

On 25/09/2024 04:52, George at Clug wrote:

An other example would be to boot Debian Gnome, Debian KDE, and Debian Mate, Debian XFCE.

<snip>

Display managers allow to
select session type before login (but some can not remember
per-user preferences).

Using a different display manager is not the same as using a
different installation.

No, for that you need multi-boot.

But to compare Gnome, KDE etc. you would be staying within one
installation and using the display manager to switch between desktop environments, which is what these things are. You could also compare
with other environments such as window managers, but generally only
heavy professional users find it convenient to eliminate the desktop environments, such as you mention (also LXDE and Cinnamon).

If you look around your login screen, it may not be obvious, but there should be a way to select different types of session. Even with a
default Debian installation you should find a session control widget in
the top right corner of the screen while the login box is shown, though
it will only contain the desktop you selected on installation. But you
can install others, and they will appear on this session menu.

Is it safe to assume that the environment a sole DE gives you is the
same as the environment when you've switched to that DE from running
several others, or even when other DEs are installed on the system?

See issues I raised below. The main issue with installing multiple DEs, is that you get a very different installation to that of a single DE installation.

For example, when I install XFCE (my favourite DE) I often also install Cinnamon and/or Mate, but only ever log into XFCE. Installing in this manner installs many other programs that I like, e.g. gedit, System Monitor to be installed which I would
otherwise have to install separately and later after the initial OS installation.

One thing I find annoying about XFCE, if I only install XFCE, Thunar is unable to connect to SAMBA shares, but if I also install Cinnamon, then when logging into XFCE, Thunar can connect to SAMBA shares.

There are packages I can install to get Thunar in an XFCE only installation to connect to SAMBA shares, but it is so much easier just to install both XFCE and Cinnamon when initially installing Debian.

Particularly (but sticking with Debian) in the context of:

For example if I could do this I would be able to test
various GUIs or distributions for applications/games
using the same hardware and gauge performance.

Also, do DEs ever disagree over how they use their dotfiles?

You have raised a good point.

When trying to use a single Linux installation for multiple DEs (GUIs), I have had these concerns:

1) If you install multiple DEs you get many files/programs installed that are extra to a specific DE. This alters greatly the DE experience such that it become meaningless in trying/testing the given DE.

2) I have had issues with /home/[user].config files being corrupted as each DE alters various config files in their own way, causing conflicts with other DEs.

3) I am not confident that constant switching between display manager, e.g. LightDM, SLiM, XDM, GDM, SDDM, KDM, Ly will not cause issues. Besides the frustration of changing the configuration each time you want to jump into another DE.

4) Logging into different DEs does not provide for Windows/Arch Linux/Ubuntu/Linux Mint/Manjaro multiboot scenario.

Booting into completely different installations on different disk drives works very well, if you can select which drive you are booting from. And allows for comparison of distributions on the same hardware.

George.

Cheers,
David.

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On Thu, 26 Sep 2024 21:40:30 -0500
David Wright <[email protected]> wrote:

Is it safe to assume that the environment a sole DE gives you is the
same as the environment when you've switched to that DE from running
several others, or even when other DEs are installed on the system?

No, the second link I gave has some cautions to that effect.

Also, do DEs ever disagree over how they use their dotfiles?

No idea, but if there are significant configuration differences in the applications they use, which are all obviously the same code within one installation, maybe. It's why I suggested that although it's possible
to use a shared home between distributions, it may not be wise. That
may also possibly be the case with different DEs, though as far as I
know, Debian does not issue cautions on that subject. With things like
the Mozilla applications, it is possible to use separate profiles for
different DEs.

In any case, I would not have thought the need to compare DEs would, to
begin with, go into fine detail, enough to warrant separate
installations. That may be worth doing if the OP has come down to a
choice between two or three, and wants to make detailed benchmark
assessments or similar.

--
Joe

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