\begin{Jeff Waugh}
> <quote who="Doug Stalker">
> > So lets assume for a moment I want to get X windows working, preferably
> > with Helix Gnome.
>
> First off, run either:
> a) tasksel, and choose the "X Window System" task, or,
> b) apt-get install task-x-window-system
>
> apt-get install task-helix-gnome
you could just install task-helix-gnome. hopefully that would end up
pulling in all of X too.
one of the problems with only using apt-get to install stuff, is that
you miss out on "suggested" and "recommended" packages. when you don't
quite know what you want, these suggestions are very useful. if you
really hate dselect that much, i'd suggest trying aptitude or
gnome-apt.
> > I need to install the SVGA server - I'm sure it's on one of the three CDs,
> > but how do I get it off there? Man Xfree86_SVGA won't tell me how to
> > install it in the first place.
> The best bit is that it's all anally packaged, and ready to go as soon as
> you install it. It's all standard, and it all makes sense.
> Potato includes some debconf things, but I'm not entirely sure what for. X
> is certainly configured as it's installed.
of course by these jeff means:
"X is *not* setup by default. install the xf86setup package, then run
XF86Setup"
under branden's new X packages (experimental Xfree 4 ones), there's a
new tool "dexter", which does a good job of giving you a working X
setup with minimal interaction. XF86Setup is xfree's own config
tool. its really quite nice.
> > What if I don't have a network connection? Having the system update
> > itself over the net is great, but I wan't to be able to burn stuff to CD
> > at work and take it home to install.
> I'm "blessed" with a 56k modem at home, so I can't really mirror the entire
> x86 woody tree, so you may want to post these questions to the list, or read
> the documentation for mirror and apt-cdrom.
if you can get to a zip drive (or similar (re)movable media - eg: a
laptop), have a look at apt-zip.
if you have a cd burner and unlimited bandwidth, just burn yourself a
copy of the slink cd's (3 of them), and you should be fine (until you
decide you miss the adrenaline rush from upgrading libc twice a week
and having everything crash/hang mysteriously)
basically, so long as you roughly duplicate the package tree on the
ftp site, and update the Packages.gz files (using dpkg-scanpackages)
before burning - apt will work with it, whether its ftp, http, cdrom
or just somewhere in your filesystem.
--
- Gus
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