I have been using Sparky Lxqt and Xfce versions for a year or so now and they've been great on my (oldish) gen1 i5 laptop, but now I have a new high-end laptop I am planning on trying a minimal install of Gnome on top of Sparky. Is the following the best process?
1. Download and install "SparkyLinux 4.5.4 MinimalGUI – No Codecs"
2. (i am guessing here that Gnome - full install is an option in the Sparky gui) -> apt-get install gnome-core
# basically I use my laptops for all my web dev. work and of course a bit of browsing to research, but I can do without all the extras that a full-blown Gnome involves..
You can install Gnome Shell by the APTus, which installs 'sparky-desktop-gnome-shell' meta package, which installs: gnome-menus, gnome-screensaver, gnome-screenshot, gnome-session, gnome-terminal, gnome-system-monitor, gnome-tweak-tool, and a few additional packages.
But is is minimal installation, not full desktop.
Thanks again pavroo. That sounds like exactly what i'm after.