The original post: /r/debian by /u/Reasintper on 2024-12-25 14:24:04.

I had an older laptop that I installed Debian 12 bookworm and Gnome from the downloaded iso.

It needs a new battery, and probably new charger as the cord is wearing. So, I was giving it to my daughter, since she needs a usable computer, and this should do quite well once she adds a new battery.

I was taking off my own files and such, and showing her the basics. There was some thing she clicked that suggested that it was going to update a few things and reboot. I had showed her how to use apt and I am not sure where this thing came from, but as soon as she clicked it my heart dropped.

LSS… It came up to the login screen and no matter the account it kept coming back to it. I did the terminal login shortcut messed around trying all sorts of sketchy stuff until I finally got Xfce (which she calls “X-Face” :) to come up.

Everything I tried to remove/reinstall Gnome was for nought. At some points it would say that it couldn’t install this or that because some version was to be installed but colided with some other numerical version.

Anyway I sent her home with X-Face and a generally working system. She lives a few states away, so I won’t get to mess with it any time soon. And I do realize I could have re-installed but didn’t.

I am assuming it had to do with the nouveau drivers because it has the NVIDIA Optimus and I had other issues in the past.

Anyway, just as a matter of strategy, what would have some better things to try before or after I bricked Gnome? This is more a strategic process question, since I doubt I will ever do much with this specific machine again. But bricking the UI is always a great fear for me. Granted all my other Debian machines run KDE but who knows, someday I may be in Gnome again, or brick KDE :)