Replacing Cinnamon with GNOME on Linux Mint Debian Edition
I loyally enjoy running Debian Stable. I am with less enthusiasm accustomed to GNOME, after years of habit and customizations on which I have come to rely. But Debian has some disadvantages: for me, it was that (apparently) GRUB was not always configured correctly after installation to a random laptop. Meanwhile Linux Mint (inlcuding LMDE) installs are always solid. And I am too thick to troubleshoot GRUB. I found that I can have the best of both worlds.
Linux Mint is a popular and highly-recommended Linux distribution based on Ubuntu. I avoid Ubuntu, although Linux Mint overcomes many of my objections (by removing snaps and other Canonical transgressions). But there is also a Linux Mint Debian Edition (LMDE) in which Linux Mint user affordances, including its Cinnamon desktop environment, are built atop Debian instead. (For the record, I install Linux Mint on machines that I give to people who want to try Linux. Everything just works, reliably, and Cinnamon is a great entry point for Windows refugees, with a nice familiar look and feel.)
To my surprise, it turns out that it is possible to completely remove Cinnamon and its dependencies from LMDE and replace it with GNOME. The resulting experience is very similar to a Debian GNOME install, with the following differences (that I take to be advantages):
- a new install boots on more of the machines I have lying around
- the repositories curated by the Ubuntu and Linux Mint folks have newer versions (e.g. of GNOME and Emacs) than the Debian Stable repositories.
Install and update
Start with a fresh install of Linux Mint Debian Edition (LMDE 7 “Gigi”) based on Debian 13 “Trixie.”
Open a terminal and bring everything up to date. This could take awhile, but it cannot be skipped (I checked). I didn’t bother to try to determine which dependencies are important.
apt update apt upgrade reboot
Install GNOME with tasksel.
The most reliable way to install GNOME is via tasksel.
sudo apt install tasksel sudo tasksel
From the tasksel menu:
Choose software to install: [*] Debian desktop environment [*] ... GNOME [ ] ... Xfce [ ] ... GNOME Flashback [ ] ... KDE Plasma [ ] ... Cinnamon [ ] ... MATE [ ] ... LXDE [ ] ... LXQt
select both Debian desktop environment and GNOME.
Another menu will appear for choosing a “display” (login) manager. I prefer gdm3 because it follows GNOME customization settings.
Default display manager:
gdm3
lightdm
Reboot again. Note that login is now via gdm3 and that your default login is now into GNOME.
Remove Cinnamon packages
You certainly could stop here and keep Cinnamon installed. You could also leave all the Linux Mint default Cinnamon apps installed. But I don’t want any of this stuff. The mint* packages are cosmetic user-interface stuff that customizes Cinnamon.
sudo apt autoremove --purge cinnamon* mint*
After that last step, log out and log in again. Note: some icons might be missing in e.g. Nautilus windows; use GNOME Tweaks (sudo apt install gnome-tweaks)
Appearance → Styles → Icons → Adwaita (default) to restore the GNOME defaults.
I was surprised that I could remove all of the cinnamon* and mint* packages from LMDE without breaking anything. And then to get what appears to be a nice stock Debian/GNOME environment, with the benefits of Linux Mint.