Re: Proposal: switch default desktop to xfce
Andy Cater wrote:
>On Fri, Oct 25, 2013 at 01:41:42AM +0100, Steve McIntyre wrote:
>>
>> I guess not everybody understands the reasons for Debian choosing a
>> default desktop, so I'll explain/expand them here.
>>
>> 1. We have several types of installation media (netboot, netinst, DVD,
>> BD) where we can happily install any desktop - they either contain
>> *all* of the bits needed for any of the desktops, or *none*. The
>> choice was made years ago to *not* ask users which desktop they
>> prefer during the tasksel phase, to reduce the number of questions
>> that new users would have to answer. Hence, we chose a
>> default. Since that point, we've added options in the boot menus on
>> these generic media (where possible, via isolinux or grub) to make
>> it easier to make a desktop choice, but to the best of my knowledge
>> most people just take the default option. We *could* revisit the
>> tasksel design choice to not list all the desktops if people want -
>> that's another discussion to have, maybe.
>>
>
>I think it would be a good idea to have the netinst have an
>additional option to select desktop easily including the option for
>"command line only, no graphical desktop" as default.
We already have that option right now - in fact, you can deselect the
"graphical desktop" task readily tasksel from any of the installation
media and just get a simple command line system. Or are you
specifically asking for such an option directly on the isolinux/grub
installer boot screen?
<snip>
>Can DVD #1 install multiple desktops in and of itself? For machines that can boot
>from USB, I now routinely dd the image of DVD1 straight onto a 4GB stick and
>go from there.
Yes, it can. It should contain enough of the packages needed to be
able to support all 4 of the recognised DEs. However, at current rates
it won't take long for them to outgrow the 4GB of space available!
--
Steve McIntyre, Cambridge, UK. steve@einval.com
Support the Campaign for Audiovisual Free Expression: http://www.eff.org/cafe/
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