Hello!I installed the Gnome version on Manjaro and I want to install the KDE Plasma version as well!
How can I install it?
Please clarify what you want to do. Do you want to:
- multiboot two versions of Manjaro; one with Gnome, and the other with KDE? or;
- have one instance of Manjaro installed, but two separate Display Environments, namely Gnome and KDE?
This is definitely a recipe for disaster. Plasma and GNOME are fire and ice — they will fight each other all the way. Using Plasma in combination with something like XFCE would work, but definitely not with GNOME.
If the OP really needs any help with that, then Manjaro is not the right distribution for him. 
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I want the second choice!
Gnome and Plasma isn’t about second choice - it is either or …
In case you absolutely must something like
sudo pacman -Syu plasma
is likely to get you started - but please don’t complain about the incompatibility issues you will face.
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I see. While it is possible to have some DE’s coexist with mixed success, installing Gnome and KDE this way is likely to give you much more complication than you anticipate.
I certainly don’t recommend it.
However, if you really must do this, then you’re free to break your machine any way you see fit.
The only thing I’ll add is that you absolutely must create a separate user for each DE; and I note for the record that gdm and sddm should be considered mutually incompatible.
Good luck.
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There are more than 1000 ways to skin a cat - I’ve been saying this a lot lately.
The last option would be to boot up KDE and sudo apt-get gnome. I remember Ubuntu threads where people were told to install new environments like this, they then come back saying their file manager, their display managers, and many other things were messed up.
The first/best option would be to have a spare SSD to install a nice, clean KDE install and then import various folders/settings for software from your backups. Wait a minute - you DO have backups and snapshots, right?
The second/mediocre option is to create a new user and install your gnome there - but realise there are still likely artifacts from the separate set of system tools.
Mostly, if you’re not an engineer, don’t try putting rocket fuel in your diesel car or Jet fuel in your 3.0L turbo.
You’re an unusual specimen.
On the one hand, you seem to have this unlikely affinity for rabbits; but then, you demonstrate a certain streak of cruelty towards cats. What’s the story? 
Time for lunch, sorry.
Hello, I did it multiple times. It’s not true gnome and KDE are incompatible. There’s this thread about it with its proper solution. Gnome settings interfere with KDE themes - #11 by sapo
Just install KDE as always and modify the /etc/environment file as in the thread…
I feel there are many more issues than just themes TBH.
Nothing wrong with giving it a whirl though, as long as decent backups/snapshots are available to roll back…
It’s been a long time since I did this kind of thing - I remember many issues with SDDM, GDM and LDM as well as issues with file managers.
You will learn more by doing it… but I would certainly recommend, once you settle on a ‘winner’ that you do a fresh install and rather than restore, you build it fresh 'n clean by copying back relevant configs and clean installing stuff as and when you need it.
Whether it’s possible or not is not the issue.
Simply put, it’s not recommended to install both Gnome and KDE in that way; and especially not now, with so many changes happening as KDE prepares to transition to Qt6; not to mention Gnome 45 no longer supporting previous themes, widgets, etc.
As I previously suggested, this would introduce more complication that the OP is likely not expecting. Even the thread you referenced indicates just a few of the issues faced with theming; but theming is only the tip of the iceberg.
What you offer as a ‘proper solution’ is grossly inadequate. Let’s not lead the OP down a rabbit hole they might not know how to escape from.
I would put it the other way around: it generally (>50% of the times) works, but in some cases (<50% of the times) the OP will get some issue. Of these, I think about 50% are about GTK vs QT (that was the issue linked above, it’s not about “theming”). Other problems may come regarding weird strategies adopted by Gnome for overriding the system suspend/hibernate policies. Not sure of what else can generate issues, if the graphical environment and the audio servers are the same. Gnome and KDE are enough good to handle a bunch of different situations. The only thing may be the bluetooth device, but it shouldn’t be an issue between Gnome and KDE.
More info here:
We could argue semantics until the cows come home (an ancient colloquialism), and I won’t be drawn into that unsubstantiated percentage war. Thanks.
There are already several opinions above that concur with the general recommendation not to use KDE and Gnome in this fashion; unless one knows what they are doing.
As already stated, it’s not a question of whether or not it’s possible, but whether the OP should be blindly lead to an assumption that it will be trouble-free.
Otherwise, this is not a debate. Thanks for your input.
If you read the above quotation one after the other, you see that without my intervention, the OP would have understood that it was completely impossible. Instead:
- one of the commenters doesn’t try this thing since a long time (so why warning against it?)
- another commenter agreed that the thing is possible
- the official Manjaro wiki already contains the proper warning
- most of the “theming” issues are fixed with the trick I linked
I don’t know how Gnome and Plasma will develop in the future, but as of now, keeping the two in the same system is far from being impossible. The only sentence in this thread I agree with is:
Fair points all around, but let’s not disguise caution as impossibility—for the adventurous, the journey is as worthwhile as the destination.
Wow. If you’re trying to prove you have the bigger ego. Congratulations. 
At the risk of repeating myself, the point was never that it couldn’t be done, or indeed that it was impossible. I’ve stated my case; others have stated theirs; and you have stated yours.
Continued discussion on the merits of any one particular point of view is inconsequential, at best. Let’s wait for the OPs opinion, if they haven’t already been deterred by all this asinine banter.
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My 2c:
No ofense meant @sapo, but it’s OP’s choice whether he/she/it wants to listen to the advice of someone on the forum with 1 solution, or rather take the advice of someone with 37, 785 or 1111 solutions, all of then advising against it…
According to me, that’s a no-brainer.
Just because you could doesn’t mean you should.
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Oh, I was hoping that the OP would chime in with the actual reasult of the thread.
I’m hoping OP has now attempted this and can report that it worked well, or it needed rolling back and go with the alternative solution (e.g. separate account, or separate install).
My 3 ha’pence worth. Why even bother?
You can run your Gnome Apps on KDE and your KDE apps on Gnome. In other words you get the run time environments for each on the other.
If you really really want to try both, do it with with a USB drive, or install them to separate Partitions.
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Or… [enter the concept of Virtual Machines] use VirtualBox to play with the [preferably] lighter of the two.
Should that be 3 ha’pence or ha’penny? – I recall my mother referring to the latter in her living years.
Since then, she’s been rather quiet on the topic.
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