Marrying Kde to Xfce in MX-16

[TenderFoot]

With MX-14/15, we kinda parted ways because of the difficulties marrying Compiz to Xfce which in all other distros had been a breeze. In particular the problem was window decorations even if resorting to Emerald. It was all very clumsy and not reliably successful. Not withstanding the topic viewtopic.php?f=93&t=41508 above (to which this may be considered a partial response) I added testrepo to MX-16 and noted that Compiz was again available via that route.

However, on one of the MX-14/15 installs (since lost) decided to try adding kde-minimal (can't remember its exact name) and set this as the WM for Xfce and it worked wonderfully by restoring the desktop effects that I craved!

Now I have installed the kde-plasma-desktop meta package which promises a minimal install. Unfortunately I can't discover the appropriate kd??? --replace command nor is kde available in logon menu?

Should I have installed task-kde-desktop instead?

As a supplemental question, would the Fusion Icon still work without Compiz itself being installed?

[v3g4n]

I don't quite understand what you are trying to do, are you trying to use Kwin (kde's window manager) in XFCE or change DE from XFCE to KDE?

[Jerry3904]

May be some help here:

https://mxlinux.org/wiki/system/kde-on-mx-linux

[TenderFoot]

Thanks for the swift replies.

I don't quite understand what you are trying to do, are you trying to use Kwin (kde's window manager) in XFCE or change DE from XFCE to KDE?

Yes and yes! Though not "change" but be available to choose at logon. Anyway, inadvertently or otherwise, you gave me one of the answers - it's kwin --replace & - which enables me to experiment a little but so far it does give me kde effects within xfce which was the first objective. Unfortunately, at the moment, the terminal window has to stay open!

Jerry, I'll browse through Joany's wiki article and see what I can glean.

[v3g4n]

Try Hitting alt+f2 and then enter kwin --replace. So KDE is not an option for you in the upper right corner of the login screen?

Also richb put together a great video on how to create a launcher.
viewtopic.php?p=402694#p402694
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnuCyQ ... cVOJFS5oIw

[TenderFoot]

Try Hitting alt+f2 and then enter kwin --replace.

Just found Ctrl+C in terminal does the trick!

So KDE is not an option for you in the upper right corner of the login screen?

Never saw it as the top bar is so insignificant! But yes it works.

Now I've got this far some further experimentation. Unfortunately Kde "Get New Window Decorations" just sticks at initializing (which happened latterly with Mepis too).

EDIT Kde had issue with screen artifacts and logout from menu unresponsive (so had to add plasma widget and use that) whilst coming back to xfce, wallpaper reverted to default and screenlets gone. Back to the drawing board...

[Stevo]

I think that the "Get New Stuff Online" functions are broken upstream for all Debian KDE users since kde-apps and -look underwent their convulsions. If you have a home folder somewhere that already has a lot of those already in it, you can bring those over into your new install-- much of my home folder dates back to M11, I think.

[Jerry3904]

Never saw it as the top bar is so insignificant!

Here I go again: there is a great big picture of the login page in the Users Manual along with a bright red arrow pointing to the icons on the top bar and an explanation of their functions. Just sayin'

[TenderFoot]

I'll probably try the .kde folder from a (surviving) M11 install. Although multiple DEs work well in Mint and PCLos generally stick to Xfce and Kde respectively. In MX I will be satisfied with xfce combined with kwin - unless someone can assure me that windows decorations now work properly in Compiz without the need for Emerald?

EDIT

Here I go again: there is a great big picture of the login page in the Users Manual along with a bright red arrow pointing to the icons on the top bar and an explanation of their functions. Just sayin'

But sad if we have to RTFM for the login screen functionality !

[anticapitalista]

But sad if we have to RTFM for the login screen functionality !

Clearly we don't, but you do.