On Tuesday 18 January 2022 16:36:34 Mike Bird wrote:
Hi Chris and welcome to the TDE mailing list.
On Tue January 18 2022 16:15:54 c. marlow wrote:
I am currently on Debian 11, and I am thinking about trying TDE for the very first time.
I would like to know, what is the difference between TDE 14.x and TDE 3.5.x and which one is the best?
TDE 14.x is newer and better and supports Debian 11 Bullseye. There are also TDE versions similar to Debian Testing and Debian Unstable but I recommend you start with 14.x.
And also, what would be the repo's be that I need to add via the command line to get TDE?
You should add the 4 lines shown here with bullseye as distro release name: https://wiki.trinitydesktop.org/Debian_Trinity_Repository_Installation_Inst ructions#Configure_the_package_manager
In addition to the main repo those builddeps lines provide a few support libraries.
That page also explains how to import the signing key and install Trinity.
And.. Do I need to install KDE first, and then TDE?
TDE is designed to work alongside KDE if required but you'll probably find it less confusing at first if you do NOT install KDE.
--Mike
Unless you already are a regular KDE user and depend on it, I would avoid it if possible, as it tends to mess up or conflict with TDE now and then. The newer KDE 4/5 does not play well with others.
However ... when I first installed TDE on Debian, I did install KDE5 and go all through it getting it to work as well as possible (e.g., not to connect to the Internet automatically, to get my settings functional). I had used an Debian installation disc with non-free packages, and KDE Plasma was the default desktop. Since I was new to Debian, and wasn't quite up to installing from a shell and using only TDE, this did make my transition (from Kubuntu to Debian) a little smoother.
Nowadays, if I must use another desktop for the installation, then I would say that either the XFCE slim desktop or the MATE desktop are preferable, as they seem to interfere less than KDE. But after that, I use only TDE. Felix Miata has his own method of installing TDE only by a shell, but that takes some dedication and work; I will move in that direction when I can have two working machines in the same location, wherever I am living then. For now, with only one machine, I always just want to get my machine back up and running, and get back to my own work.
I hope this helps you to frame your own situation, so that you can decide how to approach installation. After I had done it a few times, though, I could do a fresh installation in my sleep.
Bill
Bill