Re: Debian/Debian Gnome

[David Wright <deblis@lionunicorn.co.uk>]

On Tue 04 Nov 2025 at 10:31:00 (-0500), Greg Wooledge wrote:
> On Tue, Nov 04, 2025 at 13:46:12 -0000, Bigsy Bohr wrote:
> > On 2025-11-04, Greg Wooledge <greg@wooledge.org> wrote:
> > > If "Debian Desktop" is selected, then the installer will choose a Desktop
> > > Environment *for* you.  If the installer is the standard one, it will
> > > choose GNOME.  In theory, this selection could change some day, but
> > > it has been GNOME for a very long time.
> > 
> > No, I believe I ticked Desktop Environment (?) and LXDE in the
> > installer. How this differs from only ticking LXDE, I don't know. But I
> > know I'm not running Gnome.
> 
> *Sigh*
> 
> Apparently I wasn't verbose enough.
> 
> If "Debian Desktop" is selected AND NONE OF THE OTHER DESKTOPS ARE
> SELECTED, then the installer will choose a Desktop Environment *for* you.
> If the installer is the standard one, it will choose GNOME.  In theory,
> this selection could change some day, but it has been GNOME for a very
> long time.
> 
> Again, this part of the installer is confusing as hell, and I truly
> do not know why they designed it this way, though I suspect it has
> something to do with supporting the "Live" installer.  Unfortunately,
> none of us are in a position to do anything about it.

And to set Bigsy's mind at rest: on my system, which has none of
this desktop stuff installed, the list of packages that would need
to be installed by APT is identical when you use any of:

  apt-get install task-lxde-desktop
  apt-get install task-lxde-desktop task-desktop
  apt-get install task-desktop task-lxde-desktop

for LXDE (~260 new packages to add), or else either of:

  apt-get install task-desktop
  apt-get install task-gnome-desktop

for GNOME (~525 new packages).

So '[*] Debian desktop environment' has no effect in itself when
any of the ... "sub"-collections below it are selected.

Cheers,
David.