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Re: Do you want XFree86 working out of the box?



On Sat, Dec 18, 2004 at 02:52:41PM +0000, Rob Bradford wrote:
> On Fri, Dec 17, 2004 at 10:30:02PM +0100, Petter Reinholdtsen wrote:
> > 
> > Do you want a working XFree86 configuration out of the box, without
> > having to answer questions about your hardware?
> > 
> > Try to install xdebconfigurator,
> > <URL:http://packages.debian.org/xdebconfigurator>, and see if it work
> > for you?  To test it, install the package and run
> > 
> >   xdebconfigurator && dexconf
> 
> What's the advantage of this over the current situation with the xserver
> packages using discover, mdetect and read-edid to guess the hardware setup and
> fill in the relevent debconf entries? 

Well, I think that this is an advantage. 

Imagine that you change the video card of a fully installed system. Your 
kdm/gdm/xdm setup will not work anymore, so you want to reconfigure your X.

Now you first need to remember which was the package in charge for X
configuration is xserver-xfree86 and that you need to do 'dpkg-reconfigure
xserver-xfree86' to redo it. Only to find that the xserver-xfree86
configuration scripts will _not_ rerun discover/mdetect/et al if the
debconf values have already been defined (at least they didn't for me). So
you're stuck with trying to figure out the values yourself or editing
XF86Config-4 (based on configuration files you found in the Internet),
since you don't know the magic that the config script uses to find which
driver/screen/whatever you are using.

<grrrr>

[ Happened to me before ]

> Are there plans to integrate this with the existing xserver package's debconf
> setup (with the priority of the questions raised).

It already uses xdebconf and I don't think debconf should be used as a 
generic configuration interface (regardless of the wonderfull work done by 
the X Strike Force)

> 
> Such an inclusion would be superior for our users compared to having to remember
> to install yet another package. I think your work on this is going to be
> especially useful for the unattended installs Joey Hess has been working on with
> preseed.

Well, if you don't want our user to remember it, we could just add it 
to default task for desktops or have it pulled in by proper dependancies.
(xserver-xfree86 could Recommend: xdebconfigurator)

Just a thought

Javier

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