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I have Ubuntu 19.10 and I would like to change it to Kubuntu 19.10, I tried to create a bootable disk like when I installed Ubuntu, or any other distro. But there is no option to upgrade to it like on Ubuntu (you can upgrade from yy.mm to yy2.mm2).

Note: I have really bad experience with just installing KDE, due to double config files, double apps etc.

How can I change from Ubuntu to Kubuntu, is there any other way?

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    If you want kubuntu, the the best way is full install over ubuntu. This will most likely delete any and all data or be safer and dual boot. If you just want KDE then see answer provided below by K7AAY.
    – crip659
    Dec 13, 2019 at 23:23

3 Answers 3

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I'd likely add the kubuntu-desktop to your existing Ubuntu desktop, and select which you use at login, acknowledging that this causes bloat, can be confusing if not familiar with the programs etc (ie. costs involved). Most of my boxes have multiple desktops installed so I have no problem with this

Otherwise I'd suggest a re-install using "Something else" (using the ubiquity installer used by Kubuntu, it's called "Manual Partitioning" with calamares installer used by modern Lubuntu) and select your existing partitions but ensure you have format un-ticked.

This will cause

  • your additional packages (programs) to be noted
  • system directories to be erased
  • system installed
  • additional packages you had, re-installed (if available)
  • no USER files are touched unless you selected format

This can be used to change releases (same release, skipping an upgrade, or to change desktop). Depending on what changes you had made the results are usually pretty good. (An example of an issue is if you caused a package of the prior desktop to be apt install -reinstall and thus flagged that package as user installed (not as part of desktop); it will be remain present, but that change was user made..)

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Changing from one Desktop Environment to another (like KDE) isn't an upgrade; it's like changing from a Ford to a Chevy, it's just different. and often just a matter of personal preference. (The obvious analogy of Lubuntu with its very lightweight LXQt desktop to a Type 1 VW I shall leave to others).

Duplicate items? If you don't remove GNOME first, that's what you will get. Do

sudo apt autoremove gdm3 lightdm gnome-shell-extension-tool ubuntu-gnome-desktop gnome-shell && sudo apt install plasma* sddm kde* qml-module-org-kde* libkf5kdelibs4support* libkf5libkdepim* software-properties-kde xdg-desktop-portal-kde libkde* konsole

after you've read these articles so you understand why:

Upgrade from KUbuntu-16.04 to Ubuntu-18.04

What is gdm3, kdm, lightdm? How to install and remove them?

How can I remove Gnome Desktop Environment without messing Unity DE? (Ubuntu 16.04)

Another perfectly good method is to

  1. back up /home
  2. verify the backup is good
  3. make a list of every app you now have with find /usr/share/applications -maxdepth 1 -type f -exec basename {} .desktop \; | sort > ~/Desktop/applications.txt
  4. decide if you want to keep each of them or replace them with the KDE version
  5. edit the list of apps ~/Desktop/applications.txt to remove those you don't want and save that list so you can use it later
  6. install Kubuntu directly, overwriting Ubuntu
  7. pour your data from /home back into the newly installed Kubuntu, leaving out the configurations you no longer need, so you can keep your browser settings and data
  8. reinstall the apps you decided to keep using sudo apt install < applications.txt
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  • Thank you for the useful reading list. The sudo command in your answer should be given in some desktop-unrelated shell, I imagine? (I mean not in gnome-terminal for example?)
    – pglpm
    Jul 25, 2022 at 5:35
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Open the terminal and type the following commands:

 sudo apt install kubuntu-desktop

Wait for it to install. Then type:

sudo apt remove ubuntu-desktop

This will switch you from GNOME to KDE

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