Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton wrote:
> the first-time install process _does_ say "set the
> dselect communication method, you can change it easily later on"
> but it doesn't say HOW!!!!
Um, did you install Debian 2.2 (potato)? IIRC, that was the last version
of Debian to ask you anything about debconf when it was installed.
Of course, it doesn't use the words you used above, since this has nothing
to do with dselect. I suspect you are misremembering whatever it is you
saw.
> additionally, finding _out_ how is totally impossible unless
> you happen to know.
>
> it's not specified anywhere.
>
> man debconf shows -ftype which i only just found in the last
> 30 seconds but it is not specified what the front-end types
> are!
All the debconf man pages also refer you via the SEE ALSO section to
debconf(7), which has a complete user tutorial, descriptions of all
available debconf frontends, and examples of everything.
Frontends
One of debconf's unique features is that the interface it presents to
you is only one of many, that can be swapped in at will. There are many
debconf frontends available:
dialog The default frontend, this uses the whiptail (1) or dialog (1)
programs to display questions to you. It works in text mode.
readline
The most traditional frontend, this looks quite similar to how
Debian configuration always has been: a series of questions,
printed out at the console using plain text, and prompts done
using the readline library. It even supports tab completion. The
libterm-readline-gnu-perl package is strongly recommended if you
chose to use this frontend; the default readline module isn't
really good enough.
This frontend has some special hotkeys. Pageup (or ctrl-u) will
go back to the previous question (if that is supported by the
package that is using debconf), and pagedown (or ctrl-v) will
skip forward to the next question.
This is the best frontend for remote admin work over a slow con-
nection, or for those who are comfortable with unix.
noninteractive
This is the anti-frontend. It never interacts with you at all,
and makes the default answers be used for all questions. It will
occasionally mail root with messages the package wanted to dis-
play, but that's it; otherwise it is completly silent and unob-
trusive, a perfect frontend for automatic installs. If you are
using this front-end, and require non-default answers to ques-
tions, you will need to pre-populate the debconf database; see
the section below on Unattended Package Installation for more
details.
gnome This is a modern X GUI using the gtk and gnome libraries. Of
course, it requires a valid DISPLAY to work; debconf will fall
back to other frontends if it can't work. Note that this fron-
tend requires you have the libgnome-perl package installed.
editor This is for those fanatics who have to do everything in a text
editor. It runs your editor on a file that looks something like
a typical unix config file, and you edit the file to communicate
with debconf. Debconf's author takes the fifth amendment regard-
ing the circumstances that led to this frontend being written.
web
This frontend acts as a web server, that you connect to with
your web browser, to browse the questions and answer them. It
has a lot of promise, but is a little rough so far. When this
frontend starts up, it will print out the location you should
point your web browser to. You have to run the web browser on
the same machine you are configuring, for security reasons.
Do keep in mind that this is not a very secure frontend. Anyone
who has access to the computer being configured can currently
access the web server and configure things while this frontend
is running. So this is more of a proof of concept than anything.
You can change the default frontend debconf uses by reconfiguring deb-
conf. On the other hand, if you just want to change the frontend for a
minute, you can set the DEBIAN_FRONTEND environment variable to the
name of the frontend to use. For example:
DEBIAN_FRONTEND=readline apt-get install slrn
The dpkg-reconfigure (8) and dpkg-preconfigure (8) commands also let
you pass --frontend= to them, followed by the frontend you want them to
use.
Note that not all frontends will work in all circumstances. If a fron-
tend fails to start up for some reason, debconf will print out a mes-
sage explaining why, and fall back to the next-most similar frontend.
--
see shy jo
Attachment:
pgpFE5l9etJaz.pgp
Description: PGP signature