Installing KDE on Ubuntu

Ever felt like trying out the KDE desktop interface, but didn’t fancy downloading Kubuntu and installing from scratch? Good news! You can easily install KDE from your current Gnome-based Ubuntu install and it’s dead simple.

Open up Synaptic Package Manager and search for “kubuntu” in the quick search, in the list of results select kubuntu-desktop and then click apply. Synaptic will then download and install all the files for KDE.

However, how do you switch to KDE from Gnome once it’s installed? Simply log out and then click your username as usual, at the bottom of your screen click Session and select KDE and then log in as normal. This time, instead of Gnome you’ll get the KDE desktop interface. If you want to switch back to Gnome just log out and select Gnome under session.

Now you can try out a new desktop interface without going through a lot of hassle.