How can rebasing between desktop enviornments cause issues

General
1

First up, this is an enthusiast question. In the past, I have installed multiple desktop environments (DE) on Ubuntu and paid the price! Multiple programs for the same purpose, icon sets, funky window borders, uninstalling etc. But I thought that rebasing would resolve most of these issues. Yet this practice is still discouraged [1, 2]. In theory, I understand how different DE configs can mess up things. But if I assume no layering performed by the end user, only flatpak or homebrew installs, what are some reproducible examples of such issues that some of you have gone through?

References

[1] Can you install different desktop environments?
[2] Rebase Guide - Bazzite Documentation

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2

The desktop config is in the home folder, and since rebasing doesn’t change the home folder, the same problems persist.

3

So this means there exist common config files that are modified in conflicting ways by different DEs. Is this a universal statement for any two DEs, A and B? Or is the problem particularly acute for certain values such as A=GNOME and B=KDE and not so much for others e.g. A=GNOME and B=COSMIC?

4

And what would you call something that does change the home folder, if it is not rebasing?

5

I would call that something the user :slightly_smiling_face:

Essentially, rebasing changes the operating system. It would be like switching from Windows to macOS, but leaving your home folder untouched.

KDE or Gnome, etc. may make changes to the home folder, but rebasing doesn’t.

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6

Many thanks for your answer!

7

I wrote an article here that helps summarize what happens during rpm-ostree update. The same logic applies for rebase operations.

Please note that /home is a symlink to /var/home so pay attention to the pieces describing /var.

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