Re: changing desktop manager from gnome to xfce in debian
On Sun, 03 Nov, 2019 at 12:41:51 -0800, Dan Hitt wrote:
> Hi,
> I recently switched from using debian 9 (stretch) to debian 10
> (buster). I did this on a new partition of my disk so i think it
> should be a clean install, and it seems to be.
> The desktop manager looks different: i think it is gnome, but i'd like
> it to be xfce.
> What i did was to install the xfce4 package, then ran
> sudo update-alternatives --config x-window-manager
> switching from (iirc) mutter to lightdm. Then i rebooted.
> But everything looks the same, so i imagine that my update-alternatives
> was not the right move, and/or i didn't understand the page i was
> reading.
> So my questions are:
> (1) How can i identify which desktop manager i have? Ideally i'd like
> to do that with some command line move, like running 'which-desktop' or
> something like that.
> (2) Having identified it, how do i change it?
> TIA for any info!
> dan
Assuming you're using gdm (the standard display manager): when logging
in, click the gear icon next to the 'Sign In' button, and choose Xfce
from the menu. Once chosen, Xfce will be the default session when you
log in again.
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