One of the wallpapers has XFCE on it, but I didn’t change my desktop environment. Also of note, when I open the terminal it doesn’t look the same as it used to. Instead of the dark purple window it’s a black window with white text and the window’s icon is a red “X” with a dark blue “T” on it.

This is a headless machine and I connect to it through remote-desktop.

If I go through the applications menu (manually clicking, the super key does nothing and my keyboard does not have a “Fn” key) and go to settings I get the window on the left. Changing the settings in this window does nothing. Right clicking the desktop and clicking “desktop settings” I get the window on the right. This window correctly changes the wallpaper.

When I open the home folder I get Thunar.

My guess is there are two desktop environments competing or something right now? How can I fix this?

Also, weirdly, if I click my name in the upper right I can “lock screen” and “log out…” but I can’t “switch user,” “suspend,” or “shut down.”

Thank you in advance for any help.

  • riquisimoOP
    9•6 months ago

    My primary machine runs Pop!_OS, but I’ve had this machine running for years. Back when I installed Ubuntu on it, Canonical wasn’t widely known as a bad guy. I’ve got various services running that I would need to resetup if I started from scratch.

    I get where you’re coming from, but to migrate everything over would take so much time. For now I would really like it if my desktop just worked correctly. When I get the time I can look into putting mint or debian on it.

    • finleyEnglish
      5•1 month ago

      Removed by mod

    • @over_clox
      3•6 months ago

      I feel your pain from a distance, I really do. ☹️

      The best advice I have in the meantime is to prepare for a full backup of all packages and consider switching to a different Debian based distro…

      https://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php?t=138166

      • riquisimoOP
        1•6 months ago

        That link seems to be filled with ways to clone drives, but if I’m migrating I wouldn’t want to clone ubuntu and take it with me.

        I know that your /home folder can be on a different drive/partition, but can you install files to a different location as well? Like install docker etc. in your /home folder or something and then if you switch distros just bring your /home folder with you and remake the links to the apps or something.

        As user-focused as linux is (at least linux users), I wouldn’t be surprised if there was some tool that made this easy. But idk.

        • @over_clox
          1•6 months ago

          Wanna hear a scary command I’ve used before?

          sudo aptitude reinstall '~i'

          Not for the faint of heart, nor meant for a fresh install, but that literally reinstalls every single registered package in Debian based distro.

          Edit: If you ever dare use that command, you better make 2 pots of coffee and roll 3 joints, cuz it’ll take a good while…