It’s basically just apt install task-[mate|xfce]-desktop && apt purge task-cinnamon-desktop && apt autoremove if I remember correctly.
I did such a thing some itme ago, it was not that hard at all.
It was an experimental install of LMDE on a very old laptop, but then I ended up installing pure Debian with XFCE, and customized it a bit.
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…and you can have many DEs on your machine. I usually have Hyprland (not a DE but window manager) and Cinnamon. My system boots to tty and after login it starts Hyprland. If I need to use Cinnamon I can go to another tty and write startx to start Cinnamon session.
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Antix comes by default with multiple window managers… I think there are eight of them . I always choose IceWM.
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Yes happy with that to do… But size more the issue as normally go for xfce to reduce the amount of memory needed to run. Not sure if this would help. I’n theory yes as Ubuntu is on top of Debian
If I get some time and older machine to try will give it a go
If you really want to reduce the memory usage, install IceWM. It looks just like a DE .
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In Void LInux you can change DE, but you do it manually by installing the new package and purging the old.
The packages available are … Plasma, Gnome, Xfce, Budgie, Lumina, Enlightenment, Cinnamon, Mate, IceWM, jwm, fvwm, i3,herbstluftwm, and a few others.
In Artix you get to choose at download time. Available isos with builtin DE’s are …
LXDE, XFCE, MATE, Cinnamon and KDE Plasma 5
Some DE’s are available as packages , but not KDE?, so switching is not encouraged.
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Well, I now have a dual-boot machine!
Installing LMDE using manual partitioning was a poor experience, because I mistakenly said to install GRUB on sdd instead of sdd1. The install process came to an end OK, but then wouldn’t boot. Powered off/on, and chose the new LMDE drive for the boot device, and it booted to Windows.
Then I tried the install again, didn’t change any partitioning, and chose to put GRUB on sdd1 as I should have done the 1st time. Still wouldn’t boot to LMDE.
Then I thought I’d start all over and just let the installer do what it wanted, but I couldn’t get my machine to boot from the Ventoy USB stick to get started. This took a fair bit of futzing around, but eventually got it to work.
Now it all seems to be OK. I have tested accessing my documents (which are on a separate NTFS HDD), and this works OK. So I can update my docs from either Windows or LMDE.
Next things are to work on:
- Setting up desktop “shortcuts” for things I do a lot (my Windows desktop has a lot of shortcuts on it. I think I’ll pare that down a bit
) - Migrating my email from MS Outlook 2016 to Thunderbird (maybe), and making sure my MS Access databases work OK in Libre Office. I had a bit of trouble with some macros, but I got that figured out (I had stored them in my user macro location instead of within the database itself).
Onward and upward!
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Congratulations on switching to Linux!
Also for seamless transition of files between MS Office, you can try OnlyOffice. Has almost the same interface and works really well with .pptx, .xlsx, etc
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MX really has some good and powerful tools.
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Well done. All it takes is a bit of patience and a few retries…
Thunderbird is a good choice for a mailer in Linux
Another thing you may want to do is set up printers in Linux.
LMDE probably has a tool for that in its Settings menu… or you can use CUPS via your browser .
A word about dual boots.
LMDE will be in charge of grub… that means LMDE keeps the grub settings in its filesystem. If you update either Windows or LMDE you will need to go into LMDE and do update-grub at the command line. That will ensure that the grub menu reflects any changes made by the updates. ( eg there might be a new kernel in LMDE)
Do a full backup now that you have it all working. That means copy everything from all your disks onto and external (eg usb) disk drive. There are several tools for doing full system backups… I use Clonezilla. … You really need to have something you can restore the whole setup from., just to cover you from having a disk fail or an update go wrong.
I am really impressed with the way you persisted until you had success
Regards
Neville