[Nursie]

Debian Wheezy will default to XFCE (I think), so you can use that instead of fallback mode for this use case.

You may find you just like using it....

IIRC the reasoning was that GNOME Shell is too big to fit on the default install CD, rather than any idealogical thing.

[hendi_]

This is wrong, see http://www.debian.org/devel/debian-installer/News/2012/20121...

  - Most of GNOME fits onto CD#1 again (network-less installation).
  - LXDE and Xfce now live on separate images.

[Nursie]

Quite a recent change then!

Shame, XFCE would be a good default.

[PommeDeTerre]

I hope that this decision causes them to re-think their position.