Re: Reality Check. (was Why Linux on a Laptop?)
> > Well, you might take a "package pools" approach - rescue your own control
> > files to a clas of apps or utilities, remove it entirely, use the
> > packaging system to reintroduce the pool, and then look at the control
> > files that come with the "standard" kit and apply only the changes you
> > need back in.
>
> You are talking well over my head. Sorry. I am happy to wipe the remnants
> of Progeny out but I have no idea how to get that done. I also am leaning
> towards standardizing on KDE so I'd have no problem with wiping Gnome.
The suggestion is to take out parts a little bit at a time rather than all
at once, and to put them back in to about the same measure.
For example, If you remove "tcl" then all apps which depend on that tcl
version would be removed; if you thought tcl was seriously mangled, then
taking notes on those, checking for any files in /etc that relate to the
things which are about to disappear on you, and then putting them back in
(this time knowing which distro flavor they come from) can help a lot.
DON'T TAKE OUT PERL. You'd be really really sorry. Debian deeply depends
on perl, so the fact you get as far as you do, means perl is probably fine.
When you said you were using unstable I assumed a higher skill level than
you've got. I sometimes recommend 'testing' for people who want to keep
up. I don't recommend 'unstable' for anyone who isn't an expert, or someone
who enjoys writing detailed bug reports, or both. Mainly because it sometimes
is... unstable, that is.
install aptitude at your earliest convenience
apt-get install aptitude
then use it to do the other things. I promise you, it'll make life much
easier for a commandline newbie. aptitude has menus and ? brings up help :D
> > GRUB/lilo probably not nearly as much a bug as X dying on you. which
> > flavor of X?
>
> I am not sure what is what any more now that I loaded Unstable and 2.4.14.
> Is there a simple inquiry to discover this?
>
> "X -probeonly" only gets me "bash: X: command not found"
I hope my other mail helped this make sense a little.
> > Do they have 2.4.16 up yet?
>
> Linux Kernel 2.5 pre-patch 2.5.1pre4
Don't go there. It's got a bunch of -seriously- untested new features that
you probably don't need, and since you're already broken, you don't need to
confuse that.
You get to a prompt in Single mode, therefore for the current purposes your
kernel is fine. Neomagics don't need fancy support at the kernel level.
> > What sort of "doesn't work" does it do, e.g. error messages, etc.
>
> Several commands have been suggested to try and activate X from
> Single and none have worked. As you have noted, trying to test
> anything in between the flashing display is a recipe for frustration.
Give the full path to things. If you're already in the right directory, use ./
cd bin
./ls
...is the same as
/bin/ls
Sometimes it is easier to find things with 'locate' than with 'find'
locate procmail
(reports back the procmail binary, links to it from your MTA, the procmail
docs, etc.) The difference is, locate uses a database which is updated
every once in a while. find really looks at the disk - but you need to
tell it what directory to look at.
> > Turn off xdm/gdm/kdm so you don't have a GUI login attempt gumming up
> > the works.
>
> And I do that how, please?
(gdm is the gnome version, so I'll assume it's the one that's torturing you)
apt-get --purge remove gdm
> > You may, however, need to back down to "plain" SVGA support until you
> resolve
> > acceleration problems. That will require editing some control files, or
> > regenerating them.
> > xf86config is good, it's a text mode app that only asks you all the right
> > questions, rather than expecting the GUI to work yet.
> > * Heather Stern * star@ many places...
>
> Sitting in the /usr/X11R6/bin directory "ls" shows me xf86config but neither
> "xf86config -probeonly" or "xf86config" gets me anywhere. I get a "command
> not found error". I presume this is because I am in Single mode?
Yes.
echo $PATH
...you will probably find it is empty or has very few things in it, like
PATH=/sbin:/bin
You can declare a longer PATH if you are careful, or you can give full paths
to programs you want to run.
* Heather Stern * star@ many places...
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