Switching a newly-installed PC from Gnome to XFCE?

[Omer Zak]

Thanks, Ari (and also Oleg Goldshmidt).
As it happened, I installed SLiM (without removing Gnome packages) on
the laptop and it worked - enabled access to several desktops, XFCE
being one of them.
I think there was a dialog to select the default login manager during
installation.

Failed attempts:

1. I also had a look over /usr/share/doc/gdm3 - but the documentation
there was not useful.  There is no gdm3-doc package in Debian Squeeze.

2. There are configuration files in /etc/gdm3 but I was not successful
in figuring them out or whether there is an option to enable the feature
of choosing a desktop.

3. From Gnome main menu: Applications/System Tools/GkDebconf (Why the
hell is there no right click menu item to display the command line
actually invoked when selecting a menu item?!) starts GkDebconf.  I
choose Section 'gnome' and from it I select package 'gdm3'.  It then
asks for root password and...cycles back to the above package selection
dialog.

By the way, in Debian Wheezy you can install gdm (rather than gdm3,
which is installed by default in Debian Squeeze) and it then allows you
to switch desktops.

--- Omer


On Tue, 2011-10-18 at 12:36 -0700, Ari Becker wrote:
> If you don't want to use GNOME then you should remove the GNOME and
> GDM packages.
> 
> Try installing SLiM instead as a login manager for
> XFCE. Decent introductions are available, as is the Debian package
> information. Just remember to edit your /etc/inittab appropriately,
> i.e. make sure you boot to run-level 5 and load slim:
> 
> x:5:respawn:/usr/bin/slim >& /dev/null (copy-pasted from Slim
> documentation).
> 
> 
> so that you don't install slim and end up booting gdm anyways.
> 
> 
> -Ari Becker
> 
> On Sat, Oct 15, 2011 at 11:15 PM, Omer Zak <w1 at zak.co.il> wrote:
>         I made a new installation of Debian Squeeze.
>         Debian installer, by default, installed Gnome.
>         I would like to economize on RAM usage, so I installed the
>         packages of
>         XFCE.
>         
>         However, after installation, I see in gdm's login screen no
>         way to
>         switch desktops from Gnome to another desktop (such as KDE or
>         XFCE).  I
>         remember that there used to be such a dialog in the past.
>         
>         Currently, in the new installation, the gdm login screen has
>         buttons
>         only for shutdown options and for turning on accessibility
>         provisions.
>         
>         Can anyone please remind how to access the desktop switching
>         dialog from
>         gdm's login screen (if possible at all)?
>         Which additional package/s do I need to install to get this
>         dialog?