As title says. Obviously I could setup different virtual machines or spend the time and install all the DEs in one VM if it is even possible without breaking the OS. I’m wondering if there is an already made iso or something that installs all the maintained DEs for trying.
Nixos would do the trick. Just swap the DE in your config and BAM, magic.
This OS seems to have fixed all the things, based on what I constantly hear about it. Is Nix really all it’s cracked up to be?
Yes and if you like lisp or FSDG compliance have a look at Guix
This is a selling point I don’t often see people discussing but it has killed my need to swap distros… Possibly forever. I’ve been using it for a year now and have such a clean well organised config file. Version controlled, broken up into modules, with separate configurations for desktop laptop and server. Unlike any other distro, at any moment I can just hard reset to what that config describes. If I swap DEs, or python versions, or whatever else, the system no longer slowly builds up clutter and random arcane bugs and bloat. It feels like today my system is better, newer, and cleaner than when I started with it. And at any moment I can install my exact system down to every little detail on a new device. Nix is legendary for long term system maintenance.
That’s what I love about it, among all the other good things everyone talks about.
Even better it’s the first time I’ve actually felt the desire to learn to package apps that aren’t available, because the nix language makes it so easy.
Of course there is definitely a learning curve, compared to other distros. Going from… at the time arch/fedora to nix felt like just as big a change as going from Windows to Linux in the first place, such a big shift in how I did everything. But definitely worth it.
Yes it is an absolute luxury to use
Have to use Ubuntu for work servers and apt is such a faff to work with compared to nix
Yes… Unless you are using stuff that’s not packaged and don’t know what you’re doing hacking nix derivations 😹 heck of a way to learn though.
Yeah but there’s a learning curve for sure
NixOS. You can change DE by editing a couple lines in your config, running sudo nixos-rebuild boot and rebooting
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Just be a little careful here. There are distro live images that Ventoy does not support. They are rare but they do exist.
All modern distros let you install them all and just select which one you wish to use from the login screen. You don’t need NixOS or anything specifically to do this, in fact it’s easier on other distros because usually nothing more than installing the packages is required, no config editing, rebuilding or even rebooting.
The better approach is to grab the most popular distros that have different DE. See how the made their DE and what is possible. Also, think about what your goals are with a DE because if you are researching it then that means you have a desire in mind or want to know what a DE could do for you.
I’m running Ubuntu on my laptop and it has a dropdown list on the login screen to select DE
Nope. Either create a ton of live usb’s or a ton of vm’s
