Re: Debian/Debian Gnome
On 2025-11-12 07:16:01 -0500, Greg Wooledge wrote:
> On Wed, Nov 12, 2025 at 03:23:55 +0100, Vincent Lefevre wrote:
> > I had the same issue with bookworm. I just wanted the packages
> > common to desktop machines (in particular for the network), but
> > got GNOME without any warning first. FYI, I was just interested
> > in Xorg + FVWM, none of the listed desktop environments (IIRC,
> > this was possible in the past).
>
> I'm not aware of any time in the past where unselecting GNOME/KDE/etc.
> but leaving "Debian Desktop" selected would have done this. If it
> ever happened, it was a *long* time ago.
In my case, it appears that this was lenny in 2009 (so not really
a long time ago). I don't remember how I installed it exactly, but
on https://wiki.debian.org/DebianDesktop/Tasks I can read
Desktop Task
The desktop task (desktop) is the common part of other desktop
tasks. It basically installs X.org, a simple window manager called
twm and common Debian Desktop artwork.
Indeed I can see in a copy of the installed package list just after
the Debian installation that twm got installed (I don't know how it
could have been installed otherwise).
> The correct way to get the setup you want is to uncheck all the Desktop
> options in the installer, and boot to a regular text console. Then
> login, and install xorg, fvwm (or fvwm3 now), and whatever other
> packages you want.
This is not sufficient for a usual desktop (that's why task-desktop
depends on other packages), and this is not documented. Things could
silently break.
I'm also wondering whether this is sufficient for wifi connections
(this is obviously a must for laptops).
--
Vincent Lefèvre <vincent@vinc17.net> - Web: <https://www.vinc17.net/>
100% accessible validated (X)HTML - Blog: <https://www.vinc17.net/blog/>
Work: CR INRIA - computer arithmetic / Pascaline project (LIP, ENS-Lyon)
Reply to: