My experiences with Buster GNOME, which I installed a few days ago, have been somewhat similar to what Jesse Smith saw, although I went with a few different installations options. I prefer a network install, so I downloaded debian-10.0.0-amd64-netinst.iso and used that instead of one of the CD/DVD iso images. Smith wrote:
I ended up downloading the DVD install media, which is 3.6GB in size. I also downloaded the official live GNOME edition which is 2.3GB. My observations in this review come from installing and running Debian based on the install DVD media, unless otherwise specified.
I stayed with gdm3 instead of switching to lightdm, but Smith said that he went with LightDM when the installer gave him the option of using that or GDM as the session manager.
I haven't looked at a GNOME Classic session because I prefer GNOME Shell over the "classic" look. Smith said:
For the most part, I used GNOME Classic during my trial, but I did occasionally use the GNOME Shell session too.
He also mentions that he included MATE during the installation, but he doesn't say anything in the review about actually using MATE in Buster.
I haven't tried a live session yet. Smith wrote:
...when booting from the live desktop disc, the distribution could not launch a graphical interface when loading in UEFI mode. I could boot to a text console, but the operating system could not display a desktop or launch an X.Org session. When booting from legacy BIOS mode, Debian's live disc booted into the GNOME desktop and ran smoothly.
And, regarding wireless:
The most common complaint I keep seeing about Debian 10 in user-supplied reviews and on forums is that wireless connections do not work. This is because people are downloading the official ISO files which do not include non-free firmware, meaning most wireless cards will not work. While Debian offers unofficial media with the non-free firmware, which would enable wi-fi to work, the unofficial media is hard to find and it's not clear from the download page that it even exists or why people would need to use it. This separation of free and non-free firmware media is not even mentioned in the release announcement. Which means a lot of people are giving up on using Debian from a combination of the free firmware only policy and unclear documentation.
I am not using wireless. However, one of the first thing I do with Debian, post-install, is to set up the repos; I like to do this by editing the /etc/apt/sources.list file with nano, and I add the contrib and non-free components on the relevant lines in that file.
As noted in the Debian GNU/Linux Installation Guide (see https://www.debian.org/releases/stable/installmanual), section "6.3.2.1. Set the Root Password":
In case you do not specify a password for the “root” user here, this account will be disabled but the sudo package will be installed later to enable administrative tasks to be carried out on the new system. By default, the first user created on the system will be allowed to use the sudo command to become root.
I didn't specify a root password there; I've been using sudo.
Anyway, I thought Smith did a good job with this review.
I've added a handful of my favorite apps to Buster GNOME and tweaked things according to my own tastes. Excellent release, from what I'm seeing.
Here's a link to the "Getting Debian" page: https://www.debian.org/distrib/
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