Re: quick general debian questions
> Hi. Im running potato on a microquest laptop. It runs well, no
> problems. I have recently started using debian on "my" computers,
> having left suse after they decided to charge *=2 what they were. So if
> anyone has answers and time please let me know.
Under ordinary circumstances I wouldn't reply to a thread which so many
others have replied to. However, since I use both SuSE (for my desktop
system) and Debian (for my laptops - I had been hopping distros on it
for testing, but Debian was so comfy I stayed) maybe I can shed better
light for you than most of us.
> 1) How can I control the boot process? i.e.:
> Zope starts on my laptop, and Id really not like that? Id like to add
> dhcp-client. things like that
The SuSE system is the only one I know that keeps the sysV init stuff under
/sbin (/sbin/init.d, /sbin/init.d/rcN.d). Debian has
/etc/rc.boot/
just-throw-it-in aka rc.local on redhat'ish systems
except, ours is a directory. I usually use for softmodems
/etc/init.d/
for the actual copies of the init scripts, including the
really important rc
/etc/rcN.d/
where N is the runlevel - including S for Single
note, the contents here are symlinks to ../init.d/<scriptname>
Debian does *not* have SuSE's BSDish "all variables in one place" file, but
there is a package you can install which will turn things into something
more like that if you want.
apt is the cool installer thing. If you install the package 'console-apt'
from woody (short name capt) then it has a curses environment for installing
things, and apt (together with the data in each package provided by the
package maintainers) is really good at sorting out dependencies. The packages
also have pre- and post-install scripts for nearly all packages that would
care. This is the closest you'll find to YaST, hopefully you will find it
enjoyable.
> 2) when starting a windowmanger from xdm, how can I autostart
> programs? basically how can I make xdm use .xinitrc?
As others have noted, .xsession is what you want - so you could symlink it.
As a laptop user I rarely use Xdm, I normally consider that a tool for
desk stations where multiple people are likely to get their hands on it.
It may also make a difference that I'm a technical user (not at all afraid
of the commandline) and aware that using a GUI unnecessarily eats extra
battery life.
> 3) how can I set the mixer non graphically? I was using OSS on SuSE
You can use OSS on Debian as well. In our file /var/lib/dpkg/available
you can see descriptions of all packages, so you can decide which, of in
my opinion waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too many possible mixers (otoh, diversity
is good) you want to use. Some will be GUI, but you should be able to
see by their package dependencies which are which.
Sadly, console-apt doesn't appear to be able to search in descriptions,
just package names. So, you can narrow things down to section Sound, but
still have to wade through to spot the mixers that way. (Just like SuSE.)
Personally, I use cam, I find it annoying, but was lazy enough to stop at
something that works. I wanted something even more commandline, where I
could say, tune it down a notch, 20% volume, loudest, etc. The closest I
have to that is cdcd which is very nice, and has the ability in its ftplike
command prompt to set volume level. cdcd might affect only your CD bay and
not your sound card, if yours are wired seperately.
* Heather Stern * star@ many places...
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