Re: Debian/Debian Gnome
On Thu 13 Nov 2025 at 02:29:01 (+0100), Vincent Lefevre wrote:
> 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).
How do you deselect GNOME from lenny's menu without deselecting the DE?
[*] Desktop environment
[ ] Web server
[ ] Print server
[ ] DNS server
[ ] File server
[ ] Mail server
[ ] SQL database
[*] Laptop
[*] Standard system
And lenny's Installation Guide says:
6.3.5.2. Selecting and Installing Software
[ … ]
Some tasks may be pre-selected based on the characteristics of the computer you
are installing. If you disagree with these selections you can deselect them.
You can even opt to install no tasks at all at this point.
Note
Unless you are using the special KDE or Xfce/LXDE CDs, the "Desktop
environment" task will install the GNOME desktop environment.
↑↑↑↑↑↑↑↑↑↑↑↑↑↑↑↑↑↑↑↑↑↑↑↑↑↑↑↑↑↑↑↑↑↑↑↑↑
That might explain the origin of the assumption built into more
recent editions of the d-i software menu that confuses people.
It is not possible to interactively select a different desktop during the
installation. However, it is possible to get debian-installer to install a KDE
desktop environment instead of GNOME by using preseeding (see Section B.4.11,
"Package selection") or by adding the parameter desktop=kde at the boot prompt
when starting the installer. Alternatively the more lightweight Xfce and LXDE
desktop environments can be selected by using desktop=xfce or desktop=lxde.
[ … ]
The "Standard system" task will install any package that has a priority
"standard". This includes a lot of common utilities that are normally available
on any Linux or Unix system. You should leave this task selected unless you
know what you are doing and want a really minimal system.
> > 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 thought you said you didn't want a DE, but only "the packages
common to desktop machines", and later, the "packages common to
desktop machines without getting a specific desktop environment".
Which packages are these—I've never seen an attempt to define such
a collection. Is there a virtual package for it? What would it be
called? Without at least that, I wouldn't expect any documentation
to get written.
> I'm also wondering whether this is sufficient for wifi connections
> (this is obviously a must for laptops).
AFAICT if you install through a wifi network, the d-i will leave
its wifi packages (ifupdown, wpa_supplicant, etc) in place. You
don't need any of the DE, servers, etc checked for that. If you want
Bigsy's specific choice, network-manager, then you're probably going
to have to install it yourself.
Cheers,
David.
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