BobC
It sounds to me like something unusual has affected your install, outside of normal updates and such. Otherwise many of us would also be having problems with updates and X-Windows, like you.
It’s not that you can’t install other things. They might work, or might work until something else affects them, or they might have or cause other completely unusual problems. Until problems are encountered, nobody knows anything about them or how to resolve them.
Its best to try to run software that was tested and commonly run with the distro by the developers, testers, and other users so you don’t end up being a trail blazer, alpha testing for your one of a kind respin.
I’ve been there myself. There are times its cool because its exactly what you wanted, but when there are problems, its not easy to solve them.
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