Developer Joey Hess, a member of the Debian Installer Team, has made a change to the tasksel Debian component that is used during the installation of Debian; the modification causes the software to install Xfce instead of GNOME as the distribution's standard desktop. Shortly afterwards, another modification defined Lightdm as the default log-in manager, replacing GNOME's GDM. Unless the developers have second thoughts, these modifications, which were made over a week ago, will affect Debian 7.0 (Wheezy), which is currently in development.

Commenting on his changes, Hess explained that the measures ensure that the standard desktop will fit on the first installation CD, which GNOME currently does not. Hess said that there may be other reasons to prefer Xfce as the default, but added that this is a complex and subjective topic. "Unfortunately, Debian does not have a well-defined procedure for making such choices," explained the developer, "So, I've decided to be bold, and continue the tradition of making an arbitrary desktop selection for Debian in tasksel".

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Comment: Desktop Fragmentation, a commentary from The H.

(djwm)