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 <[email protected]> - 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)
