How to switch from gnome to xfce?

Desktops & Window Managers
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#1

Hi everyone,
I hope I didn’t miss a similar forum entry that would help my problem without bothering you.
I’m currently using GNOME 3.36.4 on my laptop, but have experienced crashes and regular freezes since a friend helped me install Manjaro about a year ago. The issue it seems is that gnome is too much for my laptop, a DELL Inspiron 13 7000 with 8go of ram.

So I’m thinking of switching to xfce, which would correspond more to my hardware it seems. But I’m quite unsure about how to do it without messing things up.
Is simply removing gnome with pacman or the terminal and then install xfce going to work ? Should I remove also other packages or dependencies along with gnome ? And how can I erase it from my computer so it doesn’t take too much space ? Installing xfce seems fine with online documentation, but being a newbie I’m afraid I might break things up with a bad switch from one desktop env. to the other.

Thank you all in advance ! :blush:

1 Like
#2

Remove with

pacman -Runs gnome

Info what it does from the man page:

REMOVE OPTIONS (APPLY TO -R)
-c, --cascade
Remove all target packages, as well as all packages that depend on one or more target packages. This operation is
recursive and must be used with care, since it can remove many potentially needed packages.

   -n, --nosave
       Instructs pacman to ignore file backup designations. Normally, when a file is removed from the system, the database is
       checked to see if the file should be renamed with a .pacsave extension.

   -s, --recursive
       Remove each target specified including all of their dependencies, provided that (A) they are not required by other
       packages; and (B) they were not explicitly installed by the user. This operation is recursive and analogous to a
       backwards --sync operation, and it helps keep a clean system without orphans. If you want to omit condition (B), pass
       this option twice.

   -u, --unneeded
       Removes targets that are not required by any other packages. This is mostly useful when removing a group without using
       the -c option, to avoid breaking any dependencies.

remove the gnome related config files (check .local and .config) if you want.

install xfce

#3

Thank you for your answer and your help !
I’ve just done that, but I still have the same old looking desktop (But the logging screen has changed). Also, I still have a lot of gnome related packages. Like for exemple, I still have the gnome tweaks. Are they suppose to work now that I have xfce ? Looks like they do, but it seems bizarre to me, is there something I miss ?

#4

Hi, it’s much safer to create a new user for switching to Xfce as completely removing one DE for another can be tricky/potentially problematic for a rolling distro like Manjaro (though the transition from Gnome <-> Xfce is theoretically better as they are both based on GTK instead of KDE Plasma which is based on Qt). You can read more in the wiki here: Install Desktop Environments - Manjaro Linux

#5

That is because you have gnome en gnome-extra

So in that case “sudo pacman -Runs gnome gnome-extra” should do the trick.

THere is no need to create a new user. You can remove on DE and install a new one without problems. Just make sure you dont use the -c option unless you know what your doing.

#6

Well since you have already done that you could make sure you have removed those packages that were intended to be installed in that wiki :stuck_out_tongue:
Also you need to click that cogwheel at the lower right bottom and choose Xfce to see the new DE!

#7

Thank you all for your answer, it does indeed work !

A potentially unrelated question : I’ve remarked abode flash player doesn’t work anymore. Could it be link with xfce ?