Well, I decided on what appeared to be the most user-friendly of the commercial Debian variants to go on my machine - Libranet. So far, I'm not as happy with it as I was with Knoppix. For one thing, it seems that apt-getting is a restricted process under Libranet. They have an app called "Aptitude" that, I've discovered, one should by all means use for installing new packages. Here's the way I learned this: I noted that there were some dependency problems with WINE (more on that later), so I decided to apt-get it using Aptitude. I was not having much success, so I said to myself: "why I am I screwing around with this Aptitude prophylactic when I can just open a console and apt-get the thing?" So, that's what I did. Well, for the first time in my breif apt-getting career, I got a message saying there were dependency problems, and a list of the missing dependencies. So, I says to myself: "heck, I better get those dependencies so's I can install my prog." So, I went first after one called "libarts." Big mistake. Installing libarts caused major portions of KDE to be deleted: apparently what happend is that I got libarts from stable Debian, which, as I understand it, is part of KDE and KDE in stable Debian is 2.x while I had KDE 3.x on my Libranet system. To make a long story short, the most expedient way of restoring KDE proved to be reinstalling Libranet. So, I decided I may only apt-get at my own risk on this system, most of the time being constrained by Aptitude and its peculiarities.
Here's another problem I've had. I tried to get Lyx using Aptitude, but have again encountered dependency problems. My question regarding this is whether dependency problems are endemic to apt-get as they are to the package installing methods of other well-known distros? I never ran into any dependency problems on the Knoppix test system I had when trying to apt-get. Was I simply lucky? Are the dependecy problems I'm having traceable to shortcomings in Aptitude, or are they part of life using apt-get from a console as well? Finally, does it seem to you, as it does to me, that my initial problems with WINE are a reflection of deficiencies in the distro I'm using? I can see no reason why I should have dependecy problems on a freshly installed system. I was never asked during the install process whether I wanted to leave out any libraries or anything. Rather, I selected pretty much the default install option, adding a couple of additional package groups from the list with which I was presented. That indicates to me that either they have poorly constructed this distribution, leaving out key elements of an important package, or else their Aptitude program is buggy and is wrongly reporting dependency problems. If either of these are true, I question whether I should go through with payment on this distro, since it seems still to be at the beta stage. Feedback from the more knowledgeable on this list will be appreciated. James PS I have not succeeded in running any program under WINE, though I have not spent a great deal of time trying. Whether problems lie with the dependency issues Aptitude reports, or just WINE's inherent buginess, I cannot say for sure at this point. - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-newbie" in the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.linux-learn.org/faqs
