Maintaining testing/unstable is nothing compared to such (yes, by design) nasty surprises.

@samhain, thanks for your contributions, I appreciate what you do and always give your latest ISO a spin.

My approach is the minimalist opposite: Disable 'recommends', install tdebase-trinity and add what you want if/when needed. Wallpapers, games. stuff you will never use or prefer alternatives.. Why install in the first place?

Also, IMO, if unwanted stuff is apt-marked manual it gets difficult to track down and thin down.

Here is my basic, minimal TDE install list to feed apt with (adapt to suit). Other TDE essentials and deps (not all the cruft) are pulled automatically. I use this for the ExeGNU live images and (done usually from bootstrap) 'real' installations. Note, tdm is in the list, nothing else pulls it in.

tdebase-trinity
amarok-trinity
ark-trinity
gwenview-i18n-trinity
gwenview-trinity
k3b-i18n-trinity
k3b-trinity
kaffeine-trinity
kamera-trinity
karm-trinity
kate-plugins-trinity
kcalc-trinity
kcoloredit-trinity
kcron-trinity
kdf-trinity
kdiff3-trinity
kdirstat-trinity
kexi-trinity
kgamma-trinity
kget-trinity
kghostview-trinity
kicker-applets-trinity
kipi-plugins-trinity
kmix-trinity
knemo-trinity
knotes-trinity
konq-plugins-trinity
konversation-trinity
kpdf-trinity
kregexpeditor-trinity
ksnapshot-trinity
ksplash-engine-moodin-trinity
kspread-trinity
ksvg-trinity
ksysguardd-trinity
ktorrent-trinity
kuser-trinity
kword-data-trinity
kword-trinity
network-manager-tde
soundkonverter-trinity
tde-i18n-engb-trinity
tde-i18n-es-trinity
tde-style-qtcurve-trinity
tdeaddons-tdefile-plugins-trinity
tdeartwork-misc-trinity
tdeartwork-style-trinity
tdeartwork-theme-icon-trinity
tdeartwork-theme-window-trinity
tdebase-runtime-data-common-trinity
tdegraphics-tdefile-plugins-trinity
tdeio-locate-trinity
tdemultimedia-tdeio-plugins-trinity
tdepowersave-trinity
tdescreensaver-trinity
tdm-trinity
twin-style-crystal-trinity

To prevent this from happening you can mark all packages that "tde-trinity" depends on as "manually installed", e.g.:

apt-mark manual $(LANG=C aptitude show tde-trinity |grep Depends|sed -e 's#Depends:##' -e 's#([^)]*),##g')

Now removing "klatin-trinity" will remove the meta-package "tde-trinity" and the meta-package "tdeedu-trinity" plus all other things mentioned in "tdeedu-trinity", but the rest of TDE will still be installed. As the meta-packages are there for your convinience it works as intended

@ samhain How does one

and why?

@ RedGreen925 Thanks for the info and a look at your /etc/apt/sources.list.d/trinity.sources file.

If using a Devuan install without a desktop already installed, will the TDE login manager be pulled in? Is it better to start with a minimal install such as LXDE and then remove it after TDE gets installed?

The TDM (TDE Display Manager) will be installed no matter the current one on the machine. If already installed different manager then you get the debconf choice to choose the one to login with. Should be no need for anything other than the basic install then installing the software wanted for the TDE and Xlibre if wanted instead of Xorg. With the TDE you get the choice of the tdebase-trinity to install or the tdedesktop-trinity the whole thing I think it is called.

https://wiki.trinitydesktop.org/Devuan_ … structions
https://github.com/xlibre-debian/devuan/

The .sources files from my testing machine I use for both of them.

root@9600k:~# cat /etc/apt/sources.list.d/trinity.sources 
# This file trinity.sources adds the settings needed to install the TDE 
# desktop on Devuan Excalibur.

# Trinity R14.1.x Stable Release (not for testing/unstable)

Types: deb
URIs: http://mirror.ppa.trinitydesktop.org/trinity/deb/trinity-r14.1.x
Suites: excalibur
Components: main deps 
Architectures: amd64
Signed-By: /etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d/trinity-archive-keyring.gpg
Enabled: yes

# Testing builds if wanted need to enable then disable the stable above

Types: deb
URIs: http://mirror.ppa.trinitydesktop.org/trinity-testing
Suites: excalibur
Components: main deps extra
Architectures: amd64
Signed-By: /etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d/trinity-archive-keyring.gpg
Enabled: no
root@9600k:~# cat /etc/apt/sources.list.d/xlibre-debian.sources 
# Xlibre built for Devuan
# https://github.com/xlibre-debian/devuan/

Types: deb
URIs: https://xlibre-debian.github.io/devuan/
Suites: main
Components: stable
Enabled: yes
Architectures: amd64
Signed-By: /usr/share/keyrings/NexusSfan.pgp

BTW, I run testing as my daily gear and I'm happy with it - but YMMV

samhain wrote:

Autumn 2025 Version is out!

I just finished uploading the latest version of "darkness". Biggest changes:

- TDE 14.2-DEVELOPMENT
- Xlibre instead of Xorg - thanks to @callmetango
- new background images
- kernel 6.16.8
- own repository for darkness-specific packages (ATM a package for the repo and the wallpapers)
…

@samhain: Thank you very much for your efforts and for choosing XLibre! We spread the word a little bit:

https://x.com/XLibreDev/status/1975929979922776353
https://bsky.app/profile/xlibredev.bsky … otwn5pmk2h
https://mastodon.social/@XLibreDev/115339036844446679

And the addition of XLibre...? Chef's kiss 🤌

And in 3 different languages? That's one helluva LOT of work, kudos my friend and also big props for giving Xlibre a shot! I'll have to download this later and take it for a spin.

Passwords are the same as in the first post:

As I explained in the post anything that requires the TDE su password as is asked for with many, perhaps all, of the system tools does not work with the default passwords. Setting a password for the root account allows these tools to work by using it.

user / user
root / toor