alpha-release of a bug-report & some questions
the installation was quite flawlessly, except that I found no instructions on
how to download the whole thing with dap (download accelerator) in windows
(which would have been a lot faster than apt-get) and configure sources.list to
accept that download as a valid mirror. anyway, I configured sources.list to
search at the gd.tuwien mirror, and selected nearly all package-groups. the
first problem I discovered was that the asus 7700 geforce2-card was not detected
automatically and so no x-server could get chosen. then no xf86config was
created as the computer kept repeating some error-message ad infinitum as in
some loop or whatever, so I was forced to stop it with control-c. at the end of
the configuration-process I did learn that some packets could not get installed
among them mailx at and logrotate (there where 4 packets). therefore I had no
x-login (xdm), but at least net-access did work (through lynx). no gpm got
installed (i've got a ps2-mouse here) and also nslookup didn't seem to exist.
because this agp-card is quite new (as is the rest of the computer) I thought I
would have more luck with the test-release -- which according to my research
does even contain the nvidia-drivers. so, I added a "test" into the lines of
/etc/apt/sources.list which had no "non-us", and a "test/non-us" into the ones
devoted to non-us mirrors (there where 4 lines: 2 for gd.tuwien as package and
package-sources server, and 2 for a non-us mirror). I did this little tweaking
because without gpm I had no possibility to cut&paste the lines proposed at
debian.org under the topic of how top get access to the test-versions. then I
started dselect. while updating the server-info it reported some errors about
some missing directories. in the list of packages it did offer for selecting the
installed packages where already selected for an update and it wasn't clear for
me how to prevent that huge download. I decided that figuring out how to prevent
the download would take up as much time as the download itself, and so I did my
best to find xfree 4 kernel2.4.18 and nvidia as fast as possible and start the
download. I also tried to exclude mailx, but that somehow didn't work. I also
removed zope, as it had problems starting anyway. after another 3 hours of
downloading no installation got done at all. (while selecting there where many
packages which where recommended or suggested, but not present at the servers,
but nothing vital.) maybe some packages where installed (I think the new
apt-thingies asked me whether configure should ask questions or offer a
menu-interface, and considering that I I had no X running I did choose the
curses-menu), but certainly not all of the 0.3 giga of packages. in the least
neither xfree 4 nor the kernel did ask me any questions. so I did try some
random commands suggested in the error-messages, and I don't know how, but I did
get some packages to configure after all, but still no new kernel and no xfree.
the lack of gpm did bug me, and therefore I did start dselect again and choose
both gpm-packages (gpm itself and its lib). but the installation didn't install
anything after the download. remove did manage to remove the packages I didn't
need anymore (I'm wondering why it wasn't done automatically during install),
but configure did fail because of mailx complaining that my hostname didn't
match. it's true that "BUSSIBÄR" isn't a fqhn, so I changed it to
"BUSSIBÄR.chello.at" by appending the domain-name to the /etc/hostname file.
even after a restart that didn'T help anything (I don't know how I'm supposed to
change my hostname any other way, and typing it at the prompt is impossible
because the bash-prompt doesn't accept "Ä"). somehow debian did add mailx into
the list of packages-to-download even though I did choose mailutils (or however
this replacement-package containing this program was called) instead. but maybe
I'm mistaken here, and it was really that new package which did give this
message. I think, then I did try again that command which already was successful
at giving me at least some of the packages, and there I did choose that config
should ask all questions again and again. then I did select the option (of an
already configured package) that not just critical, but nearly all packages are
asking me questions, and this way I at least got into the xfree-configuration,
thereby getting a new xf86config -- although I still have the vga-server
selected as my default-server (because in the meantime I did start xf86config
only to stop it before the config-file was written). I didn't try X yet (what do
I need a vga-server for anyway?), but gpm still was not started or even
configured. what should I do next to get x and the new kernel running? how can I
install a package which already got downloaded but which does refuse to start
when I select configure? what do I need to get mailx to work? with a cable-modem
it isn't very smart to use sendmail, but maybe that's the solution? is it
correct that the configuration of the other packages will start one I get mailx
to run -- even though only 3 other packages depend on it? why isn't the
version-number showed when unresolved dependencies are presented in dselect (I
had great difficulties figuring out why xdm was marked as a conflict)? my
hostname in windows is <some random choice of letters and numbers>.chello.at and
my ip-address is chosen by dhcp (or however this is called); what should it look
like in linux for mailx to work?
So far the bug-report. what I now would wish is that someone would help me
figuring out which of my complaints are bugs, which are features, and where I
should draw a line between separate bugs (imho they are all just one bug:
automatic installation doesn't work!). also it would be nice if someone could
report which of my discoveries are already in the bug-database, and under which
topic I should search for them. is it preferable that I file the same bug for
all packages to which it "could" concern (like dselect, apt-get and many others
are visibly responsible for my difficulties to install gpm even though the bug
probably is in only one of them), or should only bugs be reported duplicately
when the same problem does concern the configuration of many packages (like for
example all packages containing mailx seem not to work for me)? So, could please
someone help me to formulate the above text into a proper bug-report? what
information do you actually need? all I want is a working linux as soon as
possible. I already spent those 10 hours without much effect!
now my questions:
test (or woody as it is called) seems to come with gcc3, but I know that gcc3 is
binary-incompatible with the old c++-libs. are all gnome-libs and so on compiled
with the new gcc3? is that the reason why gnome was re-downloaded when I did add
test to the sources.list file?
what command do I need to use for re-configuring the network (especially to
insert a new hostname)? when I accepted that all packages get re-configured
again to ask me deeper questions the network-configuration was not among them.
which package does contain nslookup, and where can I search for such info?
how can I get an xfs root-filesystem in debian without messing up the
installation? do I have to watch out for some databases or hard-linked files
while copying to a loop-back xfs? what is the command to put the loop-back xfs
to my main linux-partition with the help of dd or something?
what x-server do I need for my asus 7700 geforce2 graphics-card? does the nvidia
glx-driver actually work with this card? why is the penguin at startup drawn
with a corrupted palette, and how can I correct the palette? also how can I read
the first few lines of linux's output after it has been erased because of that
penguin?
how do I get umlauts to work in bash? is it allowed to have umlauts in a
hostname? what codepage does a hostname use? how is the correct way to get
debian into the unicode-mode?
how do I get packages from unstable without allowing any future packages to be
from unstable too? for example unstable wine makes sense since it always was
unstable anyway, or the newest abiword1.0 would be nice too...
Where do I get a list of valid /etc/apt/sources.list entries (not just mirrors)?
I think that's it for now. thanks for the help, and I wish CC of responses would
be sent to me directly too, as this makes answering more easy.
P
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