Newbie observations on Woody install process
So I got Ian Eure's "netinst" iso image so that I could install Debian
(woody) fresh on a new machine (die, floppies, die!). I use Debian because
apt-get is VERY cool, and I try to advocate it to my friends considering
Linux, thanks to the ease of installs and upgrades. And I figure I might as
well run the latest and greatest.
This install was a Woody install, on whatever was current for Woody on
1/26/2002 using the apt-get installers to the us.debian.org site.
I had two fairly major problems, and a minor one. I was able to resolve
them all by poking about on the web and mailing lists, and they seem to be
well understood problems. Though the answers are not too hard to find, I
fear these problems could very well halt a new Debian user in their tracks
and send them off to another distribution. If they are already bugs
submitted, I'd like to vote for them. If they are not, I'd like to learn
how to submit a proper bug. Your suggestions are welcome.
The system came up after boot and the mouse was behaving erratically. I was
able to fumble into the system using keyboard only, but discovered that no
Window Manager was installed with Gnome. I couldn't reach a command line at
all (since gdm was installed) and finally got to tweak the config files only
by booting a rescue disk and hand-editing inittab to run at runlevel 1.
What were the problems?
1) Both gpm and X were installed, and I naively told XFree86 that mouse was
at /dev/psaux instead of /dev/gpmdata. This is apparently a VERY common
mistake and I'm surprised there are no methods to catch and compensate for
the problem at install time. Would be nice if there were a way to track the
dependency and configure accordingly.
2) Somehow, the installer installed Gnome, but no window manager. This
seems to happen to some other people as well (at debianhelp.org). I had to
apt-get install sawfish-gnome
apt-get install wmaker-gnome
and then I had to select wmaker, and then switch back to sawfish to make
sawfish work.
I got an error at install time about problems installing a window manager,
but I ignored them. If someone points me at the right log file, I will
share the messages.
3) (minor) Since GDM was installed and running by default, I had no way to
get a nice, dumb terminal to work out config issues (since the window
manager and mouse were both hoarked). I wish there was an easy,
keyboard-based way to kill gdm and drop back to a terminal in the case of
serious X issues. That would have saved me the trouble of so many rescue
disk reboots.
So, maybe I'm an idiot. But I think these issues should be easy to resolve,
and I'd like to help resolve them. Where do I start?
My system is working now, but I think there were an awful lot of extra
post-installer steps that might have scared off a newer newbie than me.
I am not on debian-users, so please reply directly if you have any
suggestions, ideas, next-steps, or flames.
Cheers.
Phil
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