Re: No NIC and No X - WTF Does It Take?
Situation Update...
I went ahead and started from scratch. And _this
time_ I remembered to enter bf24 at the
boot prompt in order to install Kernel 2.4. Anyway,
This time around, I was given the option to
format the partitions as either ext2 or ext3 (last
time, ext2 was the only option, meaning it
wasn't really an option.) Also, there were plenty
more choices for modules to add to the
kernel, and I had no trouble whatsoever getting the
NIC to work. It was so much nicer being
able to do an FTP install instead of having to swap
between 8 different CDs.
Now, after the install was done, and without
rebooting; I logged in and ran gdm. I was rather
disappointed that there is no way to log in via gdm as
root (I really do prefer to do that at this
time rather than log in as a regular user and then su
to root, since there seems to be no way
to work from the desktop as root even after going to a
terminal window and doing su and
quitting out of any of the window managers just brings
me back to the gdm login with no way
to quit to a command prompt. WTF is up with that?.)
With X running, I noticed that the
screen was flickering really bad. I thought it might
be due to incorrect frequency settings for
the monitor, but I checked, and they were correct: Hz
- 31.5-82 / V - 50-150.
So, unable to do any configuration from within the
graphical interface, I hit CTRL-Alt-F12 then
logged into a text-based terminal as root (is there
any way at all to get back to the desktop
after doing that?) and ran dpkg-reconfigure
xserver-xfree86. I entered all the correct bits of
data, then rebooted; and found myself right back where
I started before I did my reinstall.
gdm tried to run and then I finally got an error
saying that the X-Server couldn't be started,
and would I like to try to run the configuration
program again?
I selected yes and gave the root password, which
brought me into twm (I think it was), and a
graphically-based X configuration program. I
struggled through it using the keypad, since for
some ****-up reason, the mouse (just an ordinary
2-button PS/2 mouse) wouldn't work. The
last thing I did was try to configure the mouse, and I
was immediately apparently dropped out
of the configuration program and taken to the twm
desktop. I exited out of twm and was
immediately brought back into twm (Why can't I ever
****in exit to a command prompt?) And
now, the system is locked up tight. No mouse
response, no keyboard response, nothing. All I
could do was power down.
So, if anyone can decipher what I just posted, could
you please tell me _how the hell_ I get
this working? These are all very common components
that have been proven to work fine in
other Linux distros as well as Win-98. What is it
about Debian that makes it a complete
struggle and an exercise in total frustration every
step of the way?
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