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. 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. Probably firefox-esr. If you want a Display Manager then install one; otherwise, you can use startx from a console. That's how I do it. I have other non-GUI packages that I add as well (mutt, vim, build-essential), and I prefer rxvt-unicode as my GUI terminal emulator. Otherwise, I just install things as I find they're missing or needed.
