This tip is submitted by reader Zacharie:
switchdesk is the command to switch from KDE to GNOME or viceversa. This command provides a simple method of choosing between the various desktop environments available under Fedora Core, Cent OS and Red Hat Enterprise Linux.
If X Windows is running, switchdesk will bring up a dialog box which allows the user to choose between the available desktops installed on the system.
Task: To switch from GNOME to KDE, use the command
$ switchdesk kde
Task: To switch from KDE to GNOME, use the command
$ switchdesk gnome
Please note that file ~/.Xclients, ~/.Xclients-default stores the currently selected desktop.
A note about other distros/BSD
switchdesk is RedHat and friends only command. If you are using different Linux distribution or FreeBSD, open ~/.xinitrc file and type full path to your desktop manager. For example, to use xfce4 desktop:
$ vi .xinitrc
Append following line (your path may be different use, which command to get exact path):
/usr/X11R6/bin/startxfce4
Save and close the file. Enjoy new desktop.
While login you will see option for different desktops (provided that all of them are installed). Usually this is located below Username / password box or lower left button. Just select appropriate desktop (KDE/XFC4 etc).
Load KDE while running Gnome
You can load KDE while running Gnome desktop (thanks to sweta for pointing it out):
Just open your gnome terminal and type the command:
$ startkde &
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the command switchdesk gnome didnt worked correctly what should i do?
really its nice…
i can’t quit kde using de command kdeinit_shutdown. it says: Warning: connect() failed: : No such file or directory
Error: Can’t contact kdeinit!
what should i do?
i have redhat5. how can i install vlc player
@ Homericious
Same thing happening over here.
thank you so much for this article , it helped me a lot in my school work
How to know through command line which GUI i m in linux ..
Like If i am using KDE, it should say it
John Doe: as root, run: yum install switchdesk
Press “Y” when you get asked to install packages…
Then you will have switchdesk 🙂
The problem I have is that Fedora 10 is telling me:
bash: switchdesk: command not found
Thanks! worked perfectly!
you didnt answer all the questions and problems, I also dont have the switchdesk command on my system
Well, I know this is a little late and wrong, but the answer to quitting kde after you start it with the startkde command is:
> kdeinit_shutdown
once using the startkde command, how do I close kde and return to gnome?
also it doesn’t close gnome, as i can still see and use the gnome-panel
also, would it even be possible to have kde on one face of the cube, and gnome on the other?
I’d like to see Gnome and KDE Running at the same time using XGL – imagine ctrl and the desktop swizzles round in all its XGL glory with a different desktops on different faces of the cube. That would be really sweet!
Foul! Doesn’t work! Command isn’t found and can’t be installed via “apt-get”. Not a standard X command!
great tip…but it’s “X Window” isn’t it?
any way this can be used on any of the UBUNTU variants?
excellent tip. I am using fedora core 5 and switch desk is good for swithing desktops