Is there a oficial way to switch Manjaro editions without lose any file?

i have manjaro xfc4 i do want to switch to the gnome version is a official way to do it ?
or should i just re install the full os ?

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Reinstall will be you the least problems.

Alternatively,

  1. back up your files
  2. boot any manjaro iso
  3. open manjaro-architect
  4. mount your root partition without formatting it
  5. in chroot, disable lightdm
  6. install gnome desktop
  7. remove xfce group
  8. boot you installation
  9. create a new user account and migrqre your files there, taking care to fix the ownership.

Note that this is much more error prone and involved process.

maybe I am not getting the point here, but is Manjaro different than other distros (newbie on Manjaro) wher eyou can basically install any DE you want and then switch to the DE of choice on the login screen?

Wouldn’t that kinda resolve your problem (leaving you with the old xfce4 DE as a “fallback”)?

UPDATE : and any specific software from another edition can be also installed via pamac… so maybe not the easiest approach, but sounds more safe and hassle free than the other method…

I think you didn’t understand the answer… YES< it’s possible. But it’s never simple (on ANY distro).

I was running Linux Mint.
I had Timeshift running, so I changed the settings to include everything and did an On Demand snapshot to my hard drive on /mnt/T3.

Later I installed Manjaro Cinnamon, and later I installed KDE.

Basically you can browse the timeshift folders and drag folders to copy them to your /home directory (selectively move . dot files/configs or whatever you like).

I keep the iso on there too, use etcher to make a bootable USB. Then an install takes maybe 6 minutes, and then I start up Timeshift and select my /mnt/T3 and start snapshots again, and see even my old Mint snapshot which I could try to restore… or I can simply copy back any themes or other bits that I might want to keep (like .bashrc or .zshrc and conky configs etc).

So really, a fresh install is probably faster in the end. Clears the ghosts from the machine.

There might be issues - for example, using KDE I wouldn’t want shortcuts or mouse gestures to overlap with the ones I set for another desktop with other shortcut schemas… though I did import stuff, I renamed the folders and carefully compared and melded my ‘easystroke’ configs, and opened my .bashrc to see what I wanted to copy/paste into my newer .zshrc setup.

Remember, even after an install, you can restore a snapshot… so I could install KDE, then snapshot it, then restore my old Cinnamon desktop (the complete system).

As long as you have a good snapshot, you can easily install more than one DE, but that’s potentially buggy - maybe Thunar will open instead of Dolphin, for example… but it never worked out so well for me in other distros, so I don’t bother with it now. If I want to play with GNOME< I do an on-demand snapshot, then boot the iso and do a fresh install of GNOME and maybe import some settings.

It’s not many minutes to do snapshot/restore, but the system is complicated. Although some folks can get away with it, they’ll always say it’s often better to KISS>
Keep It Simple Stupid!!!