For the standard installer ISOs the packages are sorted by popcon score, so the most popular packages first. I haven't confirmed it but it could be that the first ISO contains all of the XFCE packages, so it wouldn't need the network in that case.As a test, I did full install without a network connection to a flash drive (accomplished by sandboxing in Virt-Manager). Tested both the Standard Installer and Calamares, i.e., ran the test twice. As far as I can tell, nothing is missing. In both tests, the full install drive worked fine once given access to a network connection, both wired and wireless. Notably, all connections I tested are supported by the kernel.
The Calamares installer works differently, at least the last time that I tested it out. My understanding is the Calamares installer contains all of the packages for a standard XFCE install on the DVD already "installed" to the DVD partition. It then does the equivalent of copying the file system over from the DVD to install target.
Statistics: Posted by dlu2021 — 2024-05-06 15:05