[Solved] MATE instead of Cinnamon in LMDE4

[Sydney]

Clean install of LMDE4. Unable to boot into Mate.

I found another post that explains that in order to boot into Mate as the default desktop environment, one has to do the following:
1) To install Mate:

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sudo apt install mate-desktop-environment -y

2) To purge Cinnamon:

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sudo apt autoremove --purge cinnamon nemo cinnamon-screensaver cinnamon-control-center -y

1) is no problem, but after 2) I can't boot but get the following message:

Xsession: unable to lauch "cinnamon-session-cinnamon" X session --- "cinnamon-session-cinnamon" not found; falling back to default session

But nothing happens and the "okay" button does not work.
Removing Cinnamon-session in the software manager has the same effect.

When I start over, keep Cinnamon, do

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sudo update-alternatives --config x-session-manager

and chose "mate session in manual mode"
nothing happens, I just keep booting into Cinnamon.
I don't have a login screen as I login automatically. And I tried installing GDM3 which did not help either.
I check my desktop environment by typing:

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$DESKTOP-SESSION

How can I get Debbie to use Mate, please ? Thank you.

[cpedretti]

Hi, boot on rescue mode and enter this:

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sudo nano ~/.dmrc

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[Desktop]
Session=mate

Hope this resolve your issue.

[Sydney]

Thank you, yes it did, it just needed some fiddling. I think this had to do with my login-settings, but my .dmrc file was not executable and I was unable to change it. So I had to - very unelegantly - create it manually, make it executable, then purge Cinnamon, and then restart. Which did the trick.

I also subsequently deleted cinnamon-session and cinnamon-settings via software manager but was surprised to see that I was still getting Cinnamon-updates from the LMDE repo.

Just in case someone else is trying to replace Cinnamon with Mate and is unsure if it successful and wonders what desktop they are currently running: hover your mouse over the terminal-icon. Cinnamon will come up with "terminal", wheras Mate will say "Mate terminal".