DELL Inspiron 5559 laptop with 8 GB RAM
Processor: IntelCore i7-6500U CPU 1 Core, 2 Logical Processors
Integrated Graphics Processor: Intel HD Graphics 520
Discrete Graphics Processor: AMD Radeon R5 M335
downloaded image 'debian-testing-amd64-DVD-1.iso' 2017-02-06 07:30 3.6G
I am going to install Debian Stretch on my son's laptop (see spec above) and he likes Xfce desktop but he would also like to have Gnome desktop for some bitcoin program he uses. So I have a coupe of questions...
Q1. Would be OK to enable both Xfce and Gnome during the install process?
Q2. Is there any disadvantage in having both and then switching between them on a regular basis?
Q3. If there is duplicate application shortcuts in the menu, would it be a good idea to remove any that are not necessary in each of the desktops to keep menus looking tidy?
Q4. Would there be any problems with updates for this setup going forward?
I'm still learning Linux so any advice/guidance on doing above would be appreciated
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[SOLVED] OK to enable both Gnome & Xfce during installation?
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[SOLVED] OK to enable both Gnome & Xfce during installation?
Last edited by hughparker1 on 2017-02-08 22:45, edited 1 time in total.
Re: OK to enable both Gnome and Xfce during installation?
1) yes
2) no
3) will be some duplicates, you can delete to tidy up, but then why install both if you want a tidy menu
4) updates will be fine
2) no
3) will be some duplicates, you can delete to tidy up, but then why install both if you want a tidy menu
4) updates will be fine
- stevepusser
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Re: OK to enable both Gnome and Xfce during installation?
There should not be any issues, but you can run most GNOME programs in xfce, unless it depends on some special feature like a GNOME extension or panel.
MX Linux packager and developer
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Re: OK to enable both Gnome and Xfce during installation?
HuangLao wrote:1) yes
2) no
3) will be some duplicates, you can delete to tidy up, but then why install both if you want a tidy menu
4) updates will be fine
I will check why he thinks he needs Gnome in case Xfce will be able to run it as well. But it looks like I can enable both desktops without causing any issues.stevepusser wrote:There should not be any issues, but you can run most GNOME programs in xfce, unless it depends on some special feature like a GNOME extension or panel.
Thanks very much for your quick feedback it is much appreciated.
Re: [SOLVED] OK to enable both Gnome & Xfce during installat
Testing may break at times. Only advance users can handle that. It would be better to use stable.hughparker1 wrote: ... I'm still learning Linux ...
ThinkPad E14: Arch, Debian Stable
GUI: Xfce
For new: Try MX Linux, Linux Mint; later join Debian Stable
GUI: Xfce
For new: Try MX Linux, Linux Mint; later join Debian Stable
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Re: [SOLVED] OK to enable both Gnome & Xfce during installat
Thanks for feedback. I agree that testing can cause problems if you are not careful.makh wrote:Testing may break at times. Only advance users can handle that. It would be better to use stable.hughparker1 wrote: ... I'm still learning Linux ...
The main reason I decided to install testing is the laptop is quite new and has Intel Skylake processor so I thought it would benefit from using the newer kernel. I have the same laptop and I installed testing on it last summer and to be honest, it hasn't given me any trouble so far. I was thinking that maybe the system is more stable now since it's been testing since April 2015 and near to the next release.
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Re: [SOLVED] OK to enable both Gnome & Xfce during installat
Skylake also requires some non-free firmware for best performance, specifically in this package: https://packages.debian.org/stretch/fir ... sc-nonfree
I think there's also some program that will let you use the switchable graphics, but I'm not sure how that goes with AMD discrete GPUs.
I think there's also some program that will let you use the switchable graphics, but I'm not sure how that goes with AMD discrete GPUs.
MX Linux packager and developer
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Re: [SOLVED] OK to enable both Gnome & Xfce during installat
Thanks for the feedback. I clicked your link and see that web page mentions package 'firmware-misc-nonfree'stevepusser wrote:Skylake also requires some non-free firmware for best performance, specifically in this package: https://packages.debian.org/stretch/fir ... sc-nonfree
I think there's also some program that will let you use the switchable graphics, but I'm not sure how that goes with AMD discrete GPUs.
I did have quite a few messages displayed at boot after the initial install so I did a bit of searching and found that installing these packages reduced the messages to only a couple...
Code: Select all
$ sudo apt install firmware-iwlwifi # this installed driver for my Intel Corp Wireless 3160
$ sudo apt install firmware-linux-nonfree
$ sudo apt install firmware-realtek
Code: Select all
hugh@DELL-INSP-DEBIAN:~$ sudo apt install firmware-linux-nonfree
[sudo] password for hugh:
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
The following additional packages will be installed:
amd64-microcode firmware-amd-graphics firmware-misc-nonfree intel-microcode
iucode-tool
The following NEW packages will be installed:
amd64-microcode firmware-amd-graphics firmware-linux-nonfree
firmware-misc-nonfree intel-microcode iucode-tool
0 upgraded, 6 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 4,586 kB of archives.
After this operation, 24.1 MB of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n] y
so these are the two remaining messages still displayed during boot after installing the above packages...
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[ 9.092392] tpm_crb MSFT0101:00: can't request region for resource [mem Oxfed
[ 21.826773] r8169 0000:03:00.0: firmware: failed to load rtl_nic/rt18106e-1.fw (-2)