Over several months I have tried to fix (or improve) sound, mail, X
windows, and much more. Now, each time I boot up it's an adventure.
For the most part I have tried to decipher whatever relevant docs I
could lay my hands on, but my fiddling has clearly made things worse.
I hardly know what's what in my single-user box, which contains Debian
3.0, Linux 2.2.20, mutt, galeon, python2.1, tcl/tk8.3 and a host of
mathematical, analytical, and context-specific applications which may
not be problematic.
The question is: Given my current state, is it reasonable to try to
fix each of my problems separately, or would it be more sensible to
keep only the critical data and start over with a new installation?
(At this point I think I'm ready to create a box-within-a-box where all
changes could be tested before they become part of my working system.)
My request is vague because I can't even specify where all the problems
lie, and I'm not sure where I've strayed (as root, no less!) in my
attempt to get things going as well as I could make them.
Would deeply appreciate any words of wisdom.
sam