Board:   [DoveNet] Unix/Linux
Subject: KDE Plasma desktop vs. Ci
From:    The Wanderer
Date:    Sun Feb 01, 2026 12:47

Subject: KDE Plasma desktop vs. Cinnamon (KUbuntu vs. Linux Mint)
@VIA: YAKKING
  Re: KDE Plasma desktop vs. Cinnamon (KUbuntu vs. Linux Mint)
  By: Nightfox to Mortar on Sun Feb 01 2026 08:21 am

 Ni> I remember it used to be that in Linux, you could setthe 'runlevel' to
 Ni> determine whether it automatically started in the desktop environment or
 Ni> not (I think runlevel 3 was to start up at the console, and runlevel 5 was
 Ni> to start up in the desktop environment; specifically, to launch XFree86 on
 Ni> startup).  And I remember being able to exit out of XFree86, and also
 Ni> running 'startx' to run XFree86 again.  Is thatnot the case anymore?

It's certainly do-able, but via different means these days, as I don't know that it's really ever controlled out of init any longer. In Gentoo's OpenRC, you have an init script that fires up a gui login manager, such as sddm, which then can fire up a desktop environment of your choice. Under systemd there's a service that would be fired up. These items couldcertainly be enabled/disable on the system to enable or prevent a graphic environment from occurring.

I don't know what Wayland's "startx" equivalent is, to be honest. But I see on my system I have /usr/bin/startplasma-wayland - not something I've ever played around with yet, to be honest.

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