Re: NEWBIE installation report - was [Re: You can have any color you want - as long as it's Gnome?]

[davidson@ling.ohio-state.edu]

On Mon, 7 Oct 2013, Richard Owlett wrote:
> I just did an install from
> [Debian GNU/Linux 7.1.0 "Wheezy" - Official i386 DVD Binary-1 20130615-21:54]
>
> My choices from the the opening set of menus were:
>   Advanced Options
>   Alternative desktop environments
>   Xfce
>   Advanced options
>   Expert install       [ I may not be "Expert" but am "Control Freak" ;]
> Thereafter I usually took default choices except to manual partition.
> At "Software selection" I chose
>   Debian desktop environment
>   Laptop
>   Standard system utilities
> That got me a login with only Xfce available.

fwiw, this afternoon i pretty much replicated richard's experience,
with a slightly different path through the installer.

cpu type: AMD Athlon XP 2800+

i used debian-7.1.0-i386-netinst.iso on a cd-rom.  in case it matters,
i was using a wired internet connection, not wireless.

from the installer boot menu, i picked:

 advanced options > alternative desktop environment > xfce > install

from there on out, i picked utter defaults, except that when i came to
software selection i unselected the print server, leaving me with just
the following items checked:

 [*] debian desktop environment
 [*] standard system utilities

on reboot, i was greeted with lightdm.  the drop down session selector
offered...

 default xsession
 xfce session

...and nothing else.  both items started xfce sessions.

also...

 $ dpkg -l *gnome*|grep '^ii' |wc -l

...yielded 26, confirming that it did not install gnome.  not by a
long shot.

so it looks to me like a new user interested in a minimal desktop can
quite easily install xfce, and just xfce, without installing gnome as
well.

-wes