Re: reinstalling Debian - part I
Nuno,
You can de-install unnecessary stuff anytime later. Using an interactive PM eases the control over the package selection. It lets you browse and solve dependency conflicts much more easily. Compared to 'real' graphical PMs like synaptics, interactive aptitude has advanced features, but for a newbie is less intuitively.
I still recommend to use it from the beginning because it's worth to learn. But you would need to read the manual.
x-terminals (like xterm, konsole, gnome-terminal) are UTF-8 capable.
For example, gnome-terminal has menu path to select and organize different character encodings. Usually, it is possible to switch the language of a certain window by keyboard shortcut or mouseclick - this is a task done by window manager (pls refer to that docs.)
If you like smart office, and fewer stuff installed, you can try with a smart 'session manager' like wmaker (windowmaker), which has kind of uniform launcher icons and workspaces but is not a full desktop session at all. You don't need to install Gnome or KDE to run Gnome or KDE applications. For example, installing K3b burner will install some KDE specific stuff automatically, but not more than necessary.
You can choose the default session in the display manager, it also let's you start through into a certain session directly without login. There are ways to bypass the display manager completely, too. For wmaker this works fine, however, gdm and kdm did some stuff to prepare later session (IIRR, some y ago), maybe that's still the case.
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