[CentOS] Getting to Mate or Xfce

Sat Apr 29 15:43:02 UTC 2017
Beartooth <beartooth at comcast.net>

	My wife bought a new Thinkpad, on which we had the shop install 
CentOS 7 (I *think* it's 7.3.) Alas!, I didn't think to specify NOT Gnome, 
in thunder. So of course I got it. 

	I've tried several times to force myself to accommodate Gnome3, 
always with no joy. How do I get Mate or Xfce instead?

	Related problem: when I become root and tell it "yum update," it 
figures out a list of umpteen hundred rpms to update, but then runs 
through attempts at mirrors and keeps failing till it runs out. It failed 
to connect to my wireless router (or even to find it, afaict). So I 
plugged it into the router with an ethernet cable. No joy.