Hello, I've just installed Debian 9 Stretch and then installed the Gnome desktop: apt-get install task-gnome-desktop but when I reboot the machine it just goes to a login prompt still. How do I have the system boot into the Desktop GUI environment automatically? Thanks

I was able to start by typing startx but this is not having it auto start on a reboot and the environment doesn't really have anything installed.

Are there any desktop environments that I can install that already include a pile of preloaded software including wine? thanks

For some reason I thought task-gnome-desktop would automatically install gdm3, but perhaps not. The basic steps you want to take are:

1) Install the gdm3 graphical login manager. Use the following command:

2) Reboot to confirm you get to a graphical login prompt (that's gdm3).

3) Login to GNOME, and then go into the GNOME settings to configure gdm3 to auto login with the desired user. It has been a long time since I've done this since I switched to LightDM instead of gdm3. I don't remember exactly where I went. But it's definitely possible to do entirely within the GUI.

In addition, to configure systemd to boot into graphical mode by default run the command as root:

systemctl set-default graphical.target

Typically what "pile of stuff" gets loaded by default is not defined by the desktop but by the distribution's installer and/or the type of installation image i.e network install or min ISO etc.

Okay, thanks for the info