Trisquel Mini to Gnome and vice versa?

afaik these packages are what makes up the gnome-version of trisquel:
trisquel-desktop-common
trisquel-gnome-base

and these are what make up the mini-trisquel:
trisquel-mini

So if you want to convert from mini to the Gnome version, do: sudo aptitude remove trisquel-mini && sudo aptitude install trisquel-desktop-common trisquel-gnome-base

The packages Cyberhawk talks about are indeed meta-packages whose only purposes is to define the set of applications in a default install. However I disagree with the moves he proposes:

• removing a meta-package (e.g., removing trisquel-mini) does not does not do anything. If you really want to get rid of Trisquel Mini you will have to remove, as well, the unique software trisquel-mini and trisquel-mini-recommended depend on: lxde, lxdm, midori, abiword, slypheed, xfburn, mtpaint, epdfview, etc. You can do that after getting Trisquel GNOME but you can keep as well those application if you wish;
• trisquel-gnome-base is marked as "transitional" (it is even written, in comments that "you can remove this safely");
• trisquel-desktop-common is, itself, a dependence of the trisquel package (hence comes with it).

Here are the four meta-packages that you should have installed to get the Trisquel GNOME version: trisquel-minimal (which is, I believe, already is installed on your Trisquel Mini), trisquel-base-recommended (same thing), trisquel and trisquel-desktop-common-recommended

To achieve this, and since you call yourself a noob, you may prefer using the Synaptic package management (in the menu of your Trisquel mini) to the command-line tools (apt-get or aptitude).