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josephmo
July 7th, 2008, 11:19 AM
How do I know which desktop I have? and how do I switch desktops?

rogier.de.groot
July 7th, 2008, 11:30 AM
What do you mean by desktop? Like Gnome, KDE, XFCE?
It can be hard to tell by just looking at them; try opening a command line and doing "ps aux" (process list), look at the process names.
Alternatively, open synaptic and check which packages are present.

jw5801
July 7th, 2008, 11:48 AM
If you installed base Ubuntu then you have Gnome, if you installed Kubuntu then you have KDE, if you installed Xubuntu then you have Xfce. You can install any of them on top of any of the others through synaptic. Say for example you wanted to install KDE, you could use:
sudo apt-get install kubuntu-desktop

You can then log into KDE by clicking on the sessions button at the login screen.

sayakb
July 7th, 2008, 11:50 AM
Are you talking about virtual desktop? Right click on panel and add the Workspace switcher applet. Press Ctrl+Alt+Left/Right to switch between adjacent desktops.

James Willis
July 28th, 2008, 12:30 AM
I have installed Ubuntu 8.04 with the Gnome desktop and would like to install KDE also. If installed, could I choose which one to use on bootup? If so, how? I do not want to loss the Gnome desktop.
Thanks,
Jim

jw5801
July 28th, 2008, 12:47 AM
Yes, if you install it you can pick which one you want at login (not at bootup, everything is still identical until the graphical interface) by clicking on sessions and choosing which you want to login to.

James Willis
July 28th, 2008, 02:42 PM
I installed the kubuntu-desktop, however, at login I do not have an option to select desktops. It's nice to have the extra programs that KDE provides, but I would like to be able to switch back to the Gnome desktop. How do you activate the feature that allows you to select desktop at login?

Thanks,
Jim
Note: Rebooted and discovered at the bottom left hand corner of screen an options button. Pressed it and was given a number of selections including type of session.

mkclarke
August 1st, 2008, 04:40 AM
I'm running kubuntu and wanted to try out the gnome desktop. However, if I try to request install in the adept manager, it shows "BREAK (Install)" and it won't install because it says the commit may break packages. I also tried sudo apt-get install gnome-desktop, and I get the following errors:

E: Could not get lock /var/lib/dpkg/lock - open (11 Resource temporarily unavailable)
E: Unable to lock the administration directory (/var/lib/dpkg/), is another process using it?

I did install the gdm and set it as default, however I still don't have the gnome desktop installed. Can anyone tell what's wrong from the above errors?

Thanks!

Mikey

mkclarke
August 1st, 2008, 04:46 AM
Oh boy! :lolflag: that's right... I'm a newb. I just realized that I was getting those errors from apt-get because I was already running adept manager. So I closed it and ran sudo apt-get install gnome-desktop again and it just tells me there is no gnome-desktop package. So I'll keep searching for clues.

If you can explain the BREAK (Install) part, though, that would be great.

Thanks again!

Mikey

jw5801
August 1st, 2008, 04:51 AM
That's because there is no gnome-desktop package! If you also want all the applications that Ubuntu installs alongside Gnome, try
sudo apt-get install ubuntu-desktop Otherwise
sudo apt-get install gnome will give you a base gnome install.

Also, installing gdm isn't going to help all that much. gdm is the Gnome Display Manager, it basically handles starting X and giving you a graphical login screen. You already have kdm to do pretty much the same thing.

mkclarke
August 1st, 2008, 05:14 AM
Thanks jw! :KS Right on... I ran sudo apt-get install ubuntu-desktop and I'm now in business.

Much appreciated!

Mikey

rodh
August 17th, 2008, 05:46 AM
I found this thread interesting because I just removed KDE4 and now have to log in in BASH, Although to get my GUI running again is simple enough
Command: "sudo gdm" and the desktop is back, when I try to set it as default I get
Message: Not starting Gnome Display Manager (gdm); it is not the default display manager.
This one sounds right up the right alley, Can you tell me how to reset gdm to default display manager

pparks1
August 17th, 2008, 05:49 AM
The commands for the most popular desktops are;
sudo apt-get install ubuntu-desktop
sudo apt-get install xfce-desktop
sudo apt-get install fluxbox
sudo apt-get install kubuntu-desktop


To pick the desktop, From Logon screen, click on Options, Choose Select Session and pick your desktop environment. When you then logon, it will ask if you want to use the new session 1 time or make it permanent.

jw5801
August 17th, 2008, 12:18 PM
I found this thread interesting because I just removed KDE4 and now have to log in in BASH, Although to get my GUI running again is simple enough
Command: "sudo gdm" and the desktop is back, when I try to set it as default I get
Message: Not starting Gnome Display Manager (gdm); it is not the default display manager.
This one sounds right up the right alley, Can you tell me how to reset gdm to default display manager

Probably removing kdm would be your best route.

sudo apt-get remove kdm kdm-kde4 #I put both as I'm unsure which one you'll have

rodh
August 21st, 2008, 04:13 AM
Thanks, But I managed to fix it before I got back to the thread, I reinstalled gdm. Thanks again.