Re: X-windows/Mouse

[Mark Phillips <mark@ist.flinders.edu.au>]

Hi Kent,

Some others have given you some useful advice.  It might be an idea
to get gpm working before trying X.  This is the program that gets
the mouse working in console mode (text mode).

Sounds like you are pretty new to Debian.  It takes a little while
to get the hang of things, but don't give up -- you'll get there.

Perhaps I can explain a few things.  The program you're probably
using to install stuff is "dselect".  This is like a "high level"
installer program.  A "lower level" installer program is dpkg
which is short for "debian package".  This program allows you to
deal directly with individual packages.  As a beginner you should
probably generally stick with dselect for the moment, but sometimes
dpkg can be useful.

Where is your copy of the debian distribution stored?  Is it on your
hard drive, or is it on a CDROM?  Mine is on my hard disk stored
in the directory:

	/usr/local/store0/debian

The binary packages for intel (and compatible) machines, on my machine,
are stored in:

	/usr/local/store0/debian/hamm/hamm/binary-i386

If I do an 

	ls /usr/local/store0/debian/hamm/hamm/binary-i386

I get

	Packages.gz   doc           interpreters  news          text
	Release       editors       libs          oldlibs       utils
	admin         electronics   mail          otherosfs     web
	base          games         math          shells        x11
	comm          graphics      misc          sound
	devel         hamradio      net           tex

The Packages.gz file is a list of all the possible packages in the
distribution.  It is compressed so if you want to look at it, do
"zless Packages.gz".  Everything else is a directory.  As you can see,
the packages in the distribution are broken up into different categories,
with one directory for each.

If you look in the "misc" directory for example, you get:

bl_1.2-3.deb                 megahal_8.1-3.deb
cbb_0.73-4.deb               miscutils_999.0-4.deb
dbview_1.0.3-4.deb           otp_970425-3.deb
display-dhammapada_0.15.deb  pc532down_1.1-4.deb
dtlk_1.12-5.deb              pkg-order_1.02.deb
eject_1.5-6.deb              plan_1.6.1-7.deb
gpm_1.13-5.deb               postgresql_6.3.2-8.deb
gpstrans_0.31b-5.deb         screen_3.7.4-6.deb
hello_1.3-14.2.deb           sysvbanner_1.0-7.deb
ical_2.1-4.deb               urlview_0.7-3.deb
joystick_0.8.0-4.deb         user-de_0.7.deb
kernel-package_4.11.deb      worklog_1.4-3.deb
linuxlogo_1.06-5.deb         xcal_4.1-4.deb

One of these packages you will notice is "gpm_1.13-5.deb", the gpm package.
You can do

	dpkg --info gpm_1.13-5.deb

And it will tell you information about this package.  If you want to install
this package you can do

	dpkg --install gpm_1.13-5.deb

It might now work, complaining that you need some other packages 
installed first.  You could install each of these other packages first
manually and then try it again, but it's much easier just to use
dselect.  dselect does all of this work for you --- it works out exactly
what needs to be installed before gpm is installed.

Why am I telling you all this?  Well, I just wanted to try and give you
a better feel for what is going on.

Well, try and get gpm installed properly and let us know how you go.  Are
you sure you have a PS2 mouse?

Anyway, there's more that I could say, but I haven't got time right now.

Cheers,

Mark.


_/~~~~~~~~\___/~~~~~~\____________________________________________________
____/~~\_____/~~\__/~~\__________________________Mark_Phillips____________
____/~~\_____/~~\________________________________mark@ist.flinders.edu.au_
____/~~\HE___/~~\__/~~\APTAIN_____________________________________________
____/~~\______/~~~~~~\____________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________
        "They told me I was gullible ... and I believed them!"