Latest Excalibur desktop installer forces LXQt?

Lomax · 2025-11-02 19:31:25

devuan_excalibur_6.0.0_amd64_desktop.iso dated 02-Nov-2025 left me with an LXQt desktop and not XFCE as I wanted. I thought I must have made a mistake so ran the installer again, very carefully making sure that only XFCE was selected - and ended up with LXQt again. This seems to be a bug in the installer?

Last edited by Lomax (2025-11-02 19:33:36)

Altoid · 2025-11-02 20:31:00

Hello:

Lomax wrote:

... a bug in the installer?

Hmm ...
You may want to consider the possibility of the Excalibur installer becoming self-aware.
And as a result, defending itself from XFCE.

Just taking the piss ...

Best,

A.

Last edited by Altoid (2025-11-02 20:31:32)

rbit · 2025-11-02 20:59:41

Hmm... I got Xfce here. If you don't mind going through the installer (again!), at the end when it prompts to reboot, hit Alt-F2, then <Enter> to come to a prompt. type

cp /var/log/syslog /target

then Alt-F1 back to the installer and select <continue> to reboot. I'd be interested in seeing a copy of your /syslog file to hopefully find out what went wrong.

Lomax · 2025-11-03 23:00:02

The installer USB stick doesn't seem to be mounted as root during the installation; I copied the syslog there but it wasn't on the stick afterwards (RAM-disk?). I don't have any other USB sticks to hand. /mnt and /media were both empty and lsblk isn't present during the installation phase, so I couldn't see what drives were available to mount. Now I've rebooted after completing the installation A THIRD TIME and I still ended up with LXQt. I have a photo showing the relevant menu in the installer, and my selected options, but since it's no longer possible to post images on the Internet you'll just have to imagine what it looks like.

Last edited by Lomax (2025-11-04 01:19:47)

Lomax · 2025-11-03 23:08:42

You may want to consider the possibility of the Excalibur installer becoming self-aware.

Don't get me started.

Lomax · 2025-11-04 00:11:59

Being a stubborn ******* I went through the installation a fourth time, this time mounting the NVMe and copying the syslog there, then I moved the USB stick to my main computer and reformatted it as EXT4, reinserted it in the new machine and copied the syslog onto the stick - so I've got it here for you now. But how do I share it? There's no attachment option in the forum.

Last edited by Lomax (2025-11-04 00:13:16)

ralph.ronnquist · 2025-11-04 00:26:59

You could use https://transfer.rrq.au if you like

Lomax · 2025-11-04 00:32:51

Thanks.

https://transfer.rrq.au/Gi1Fb6oLS4/syslog

Lomax · 2025-11-04 00:39:54

Looks like it installs both LXQt and XFCE?

ralph.ronnquist · 2025-11-04 01:37:34

Yes it does... I'll try it out to see if I get the same. Will take a little while though.
Did you install with or without network?

Lomax · 2025-11-04 01:43:04

Thanks. I used "Expert Install", without network.

rbit · 2025-11-04 03:10:38

Hm, here the default slim login puts me into an xfce session. But there are several lxqt packages that got installed, including lxqt-session. These can probably all be safely removed with apt remove lxqt*

I think, possibly, they got pulled in from network-manager-applet

aptitude why lxqt-session
i   task-xfce-desktop      Recommends network-manager-applet | connman-gtk | cmst
i A network-manager-applet Depends    policykit-1-gnome | polkit-1-auth-agent
i A lxqt-policykit         Provides   polkit-1-auth-agent
i A lxqt-policykit         Depends    lxqt-session

EDX-0 · 2025-11-04 06:09:12

makes sense, if anything it should install the policykit-1-gnome as that does provide the polkit-1-auth-agent that would integrate the best with gtk and the network-manager-applet, however my guess is that apt resolved the dependencies getting a list of which packages provide polkit-1-auth and choose the first available option by alphabetical order, were the lxqt agent not available it would had gone with the mate agent...

edit: i just noticed that the policykit-1-gnome agent was removed in trixie because it is unmaintained upstream as stated here https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugrepo … bug=990271

so the real solution is to install the mate-polkit-bin package as that WILL integrate with a mainly gtk environment without pulling the lxqt session NOR the mate-session package

Last edited by EDX-0 (2025-11-04 06:25:49)

stargate-sg1-cheyenne-mtn · 2025-11-04 06:41:40

mostly as a frame of reference with respect to an earlier post, this is from a stock daedalus install, xfce desktop:

devuan@devuan-pc:~$ aptitude why lxqt-session
i   task-xfce-desktop             Depends  slim | lightdm                                          
p   lightdm                       Depends  lightdm-gtk-greeter | lightdm-greeter                   
p   x2gothinclient-minidesktop    Provides lightdm-greeter                                         
p   x2gothinclient-minidesktop    Depends  mate-desktop-environment-core                           
p   mate-desktop-environment-core Depends  mate-notification-daemon (>= 1.26) | notification-daemon
p   cinnamon                      Provides notification-daemon                                     
p   cinnamon                      Depends  network-manager-gnome                                   
i A network-manager-gnome         Depends  policykit-1-gnome | polkit-1-auth-agent                 
p   lxqt-policykit                Provides polkit-1-auth-agent                                     
p   lxqt-policykit                Depends  lxqt-session                                            
devuan@devuan-pc:~$

Lomax · 2025-11-04 09:02:15

Hm, here the default slim login puts me into an xfce session.

And I'm always logged in to an LXQt session. Could this discrepancy perhaps have something to do with me installing on a Ryzen system with a Vega iGPU?

abower · 2025-11-04 09:45:47

It was a bit unfortunate in the timings, that trixie was released with the old gnome polkit removed but the new xfce-polkit package left out by the freeze: https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/xfce-polkit

The xfce-polkit also seems quiet upstream...

yohno · 2025-11-04 10:16:57

My ceres seems OK for now but the test PC with excalibur, upgraded from daedalus today, judged gnome polkit untrusted so it is disappeared now. Just installed polkit mate per recommendation. Thanks a lot....

rbit · 2025-11-04 15:29:13

I'm always logged in to an LXQt session

On the slim login screen, press F1 to switch login session
it's safe to remove lxqt-session (which will in turn remove lxqt-policykit), because, curiously, the offline desktop installs both lxqt-policykit and mate-polkit

EDX-0 · 2025-11-04 18:36:23

so there is a project that implements a command line policykit auth interface intended to build custom polkit agents with scripts.

https://github.com/OmarCastro/cmd-polkit

it has examples to use rofi and zenity as GUI frontend, so it should be possible to build an auth agent with any toolkit frontend we want, will check the project out in depth later, compile and give it a try.

edit: there is an implemented polkit agent using cmd-polkit https://github.com/cobaltgit/pkmenu

i will look into compiling cmd-polkit through the week and see if i can take the idea of pkmenu into something more flexible that can support multiple graphical frontends, all i need is someone who got a good idea of how to do packaging cuz i do get confused with the myriad of helpers for deb packaging that don't work for me.

Last edited by EDX-0 (2025-11-04 20:20:18)

fsmithred · 2025-11-04 20:57:58

This could use some testing. You'll need to add excalibur-proposed-updates to your sources.

<devuanci>    * Fork for Devuan, just for excalibur so xfce has an polkit GUI agent.
<devuanci> xfce-polkit_0.3+v20220621-3~excalibur1 (excalibur-proposed-updates): started binary build for amd64 on amd64-build03

Lomax · 2025-11-07 13:24:53

On my Excalibur laptop, which was upgraded from Daedalus, I have policykit-1-gnome 0.105-8+b1 installed. xfce-polkit, lxqt-policykit and mate-polkit are all absent. I log in via slim and XFCE works perfectly.

Lomax · 2025-11-07 19:44:47

You'll need to add excalibur-proposed-updates to your sources.

Thanks, I did this and installed xfce-polkit, after which I could remove both lxqt-policykit and mate-polkit. Unsure how to get rid of the cruft installed along with LXQt though.

Altoid · 2025-11-11 22:17:12

Hello:

Lomax wrote:

... how to get rid of the cruft installed along with LXQt ...

You can start by first making a list to check if there is any.
eg:

$ apt list | grep installed | grep -i lxqt

Best,

A.

fredbird67 · Yesterday 16:37:44

Hmm...I just created a Devuan derivative with the Xfce desktop environment the other day (formerly based on Debian, but now fixin' to be based on Devuan due to the political nonsense Debian has engaged in as of late, according to Bryan Lunduke), but due to the IceWM edition of it not being ready yet (I've been busy with lots of other stuff), I haven't gone public with the release of it yet. Now I did notice that the ISO is a bit bigger than on the previous edition (almost 3 GB vs. a little over 2 GB previously), so I need to go back and make sure it didn't also install LXQt on me. Nothing against LXQt, I just prefer Xfce, although I have thought about creating a combined LXQt/Openbox edition.

Last edited by fredbird67 (Yesterday 16:40:40)

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#1 2025-11-02 19:31:25

Latest Excalibur desktop installer forces LXQt?

#2 2025-11-02 20:31:00

Re: Latest Excalibur desktop installer forces LXQt?

#3 2025-11-02 20:59:41

Re: Latest Excalibur desktop installer forces LXQt?

#4 2025-11-03 23:00:02

Re: Latest Excalibur desktop installer forces LXQt?

#5 2025-11-03 23:08:42

Re: Latest Excalibur desktop installer forces LXQt?

#6 2025-11-04 00:11:59

Re: Latest Excalibur desktop installer forces LXQt?

#7 2025-11-04 00:26:59

Re: Latest Excalibur desktop installer forces LXQt?

#8 2025-11-04 00:32:51

Re: Latest Excalibur desktop installer forces LXQt?

#9 2025-11-04 00:39:54

Re: Latest Excalibur desktop installer forces LXQt?

#10 2025-11-04 01:37:34

Re: Latest Excalibur desktop installer forces LXQt?

#11 2025-11-04 01:43:04

Re: Latest Excalibur desktop installer forces LXQt?

#12 2025-11-04 03:10:38

Re: Latest Excalibur desktop installer forces LXQt?

#13 2025-11-04 06:09:12

Re: Latest Excalibur desktop installer forces LXQt?

#14 2025-11-04 06:41:40

Re: Latest Excalibur desktop installer forces LXQt?

#15 2025-11-04 09:02:15

Re: Latest Excalibur desktop installer forces LXQt?

#16 2025-11-04 09:45:47

Re: Latest Excalibur desktop installer forces LXQt?

#17 2025-11-04 10:16:57

Re: Latest Excalibur desktop installer forces LXQt?

#18 2025-11-04 15:29:13

Re: Latest Excalibur desktop installer forces LXQt?

#19 2025-11-04 18:36:23

Re: Latest Excalibur desktop installer forces LXQt?

#20 2025-11-04 20:57:58

Re: Latest Excalibur desktop installer forces LXQt?

#21 2025-11-07 13:24:53

Re: Latest Excalibur desktop installer forces LXQt?

#22 2025-11-07 19:44:47

Re: Latest Excalibur desktop installer forces LXQt?

#23 2025-11-11 22:17:12

Re: Latest Excalibur desktop installer forces LXQt?

#24 Yesterday 16:37:44

Re: Latest Excalibur desktop installer forces LXQt?

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