I am running a Kubuntu laptop with a 39 gig HDD. I have no other distros installed, but I want to set up a dual boot system with Ubuntu Christian Edition. Any tutorials or help would be AWESOME. Thank you!

Are you sure? As I understand it, the only difference between the *Ubuntu's is what packages are installed. IE, KUbuntu is just Ubuntu with KDE installed. Just take your existing Ubuntu and try to add the KUbuntu repositories. Then you can install the KUbuntu packages, and when you boot up you can just decide what window manager to use. Seems much easier than dual booting.

But I heard that doing that can be rather slow...

Do you mean that it will make your computer run slowly, or that it will take longer to install? It probably will take longer to install, but you should get a performance increase by doing this. When you go the dual-boot route, you have to duplicate as much as a couple gigs of files. This could cause your file-systems to fill up quicker. Admittedly, it takes a bit longer to install all the apps you want, but not a big problem with KUbuntu. Just open up Synaptic, pick the packages you want, click install and accept any dependencies.

No--When you login, you select which GUI to use--Gnome or KDE. Once running, neither one will know that the other is there.

You might be thinking of a virtual machine situation in which there are actually two OSes running at the same time. That DOES slow things down.

So I just install things for Gnome and then it'll let me log in with Gnome? Odd... So how to I log in with Gnome?

No, I was thinking of setting up a dual boot so that I can boot up with one OS or the other. But PatrickNew's idea sounds better...

Typically, the login manager gives you a choice of what desktop to use. If you use the Ubuntu package manager to install Gnome, then I think it will all get set up automatically.

I am not at a Ubuntu-like machine at the moment, but the menu is in one of the buttons that appears in the log-in dialog when you start up.

You don't "install things for Gnome"--just install Gnome--the package manager takes care of the details.

Ubuntu and Kubuntu packages are in the same repositories. You don't need to change which repos you are using.

If you have installed Ubuntu, just "sudo aptitude kubuntu-desktop". This will install KDE, and all the other packages needed for Kubuntu. When you get the login screen, click "Session" and then choose KDE or Gnome. You can make this choice default, or just for this session.

If you choose KDE, you will get the KDE desktop just like Kubuntu.

If you want to try Xubuntu, just "sudo aptitude install xubuntu-desktop" and you will be able to choose KDE, Gnome or XFCE on login.

--Ian

Does this work the other way around? I have Kubuntu already installed as dual boot with XP on my workstation (only because the kubuntu iso download finished before the ubuntu download) but would like to also work with Gnome/Ubuntu. Is there a "sudo aptitude ubuntu-desktop" for Kubuntu, which will install Gnome for Ubuntu? And will it allow me to choose Gnome vs KDE at login?

The alternative (yet long) way around would obviously be to install Ubuntu over my Kubuntu install, which I would rather not do.

It would be better not to jump into a thread that is 1 year old, but this fits OK.....

Once you have installed any *buntu, you can get the other desktop environments using the package manager. When to re-start the X-server (or log in with a different user name), you will have a choice of which session type to use.

In principle, you could create multiple sessions with the same username, but different environments (KDE, Gnome, XFCE, etc.) NOT recommended, however.

Hi pixellany, and thank you for the response. I did find the answer at ubuntuforums, and performed sudo apt-get install ubuntu-desktop.

Regarding your recommendation about NOT creating multiple sessions with the same username but different environments: Would you recommend a dual-boot Kubuntu/Ubuntu setup instead? I guess there really is no need to do this, but I figured the only way I can get my feet wet with Linux is to dive head first into it. I chose Kubuntu and Ubuntu only because they seem to be the two top/popular distros of Linux. Currently, I have Kubuntu and XP Pro installed on my workstation. Any suggestions would be truly welcomed and appreciated.

And I did hesitate to post on this old thread, so I really appreciate your reply.

There's no need to dual-boot. You can restart X (ctrl-alt-backspace) and login to different a environment. You can also login to each environment with a different user name. Then you can switch with ctrl-alt-F7, F8, F9, etc.

With totally different OSes, then you need dual-boot or a virtual machine.

Ordinarily, I would never have the guts to disagree with pixellany on the boards, but this time I feel like I should jump in. Now when you say that one shouldn't create a single session with the same username but multiple desktop environments, I think there are a few ways that the op could interpret this, and I disagree with one of them.

First, it could be taken to mean what an X "session" most technically correctly means - the thing that a session manager handles. That is, it lets you log out and back in to find your applications where you left them. This one is probably a bad idea, because at worst if you log out from KDE and into Gnome, gnome-panel and kicker will duke it out for who gets to be on the bottom. In the best-case scenario, you'd have to load the Gnome *and* KDE libs since you have KDE apps open. This one I agree with.

Second, it could be taken to mean that no one user should have both Gnome and KDE available to them. This one I disagree with. It is perfectly possible for one user to have both Gnome and KDE available. I have Gnome, KDE, and fluxbox all available to user 'patrick', and it's never once caused me a headache. If you leave an app running in KDE and log out, it'll be there the next time you log into KDE, but not in Gnome.

Now, granted pixellany is technically correct here, but I think that the full technical meaning of an "X session" may go a bit over the head of the poster. What it boils down to is this: you shouldn't put them on the same session, true. However, if you're asking this question, then I doubt you know *how* to put them on the same session.

[EDIT: I realized after writing this, that this last sentence came across insulting, as if I meant to call you dumb. This is not what is meant at all. I only mean that customizing session managers is something obscure that Gnome and KDE handle very well automatically, so most people (myself included) never bother to learn their guts. My apologies if that came across rude.]

If you let Ubuntu do it for you, Ubuntu will do it the right way, and the same user can have both Gnome and KDE.

And to reiterate the answer to the underlying question of the thread - Ubuntu, KUbuntu, XUbuntu and all other *buntus are NOT separate distributions. That's nothing but an unfortunate naming scheme. They are all Ubuntu. One of them has Gnome installed, one of them has KDE installed. The packages for the desktops are:
gnome-desktop-environment
kde
xfce4
You can "apt-get install" any of these from any of the *buntus to get that environment.

I am by no means an expert with Linux, nor anywhere near that status, which is why I have been posting on these forums asking for help. And I didn't take your comment as an insult, because at the time of posting it is true that I didn't know how to install KDE and Gnome on the same session. However, after posting, I did some research regarding installing the Ubuntu-desktop on Kubuntu (my initial post), and was quite successful with it (ie. fully functional system that can switch between Gnome and KDE, and "dual-boot" with XP). It was quite a learning experience, btw.

Having said that, the learning curve for Linux was increasing exponentially, having made incremental changes (samba file sharing, cups printer sharing, etc.). However, when I tried to make my dual-monitor system working, I failed miserably (hee-haw!!!). It was bound to happen. Now, I don't have a working (X)ubuntu anything. I decided to install Ubuntu this time (instead of Kubuntu), and will be installing the KDE-desktop from here.

If any of you would like to continue to help me, not with the dual-boot setup, but with getting an NVIDIA Quadro FX 540 to work as dual monitor setup, you are more than welcome.

(Or, maybe I should start a new thread for this?)