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Re: Package system vs. source vs. both



hey radek,

i used to be real gung-ho on rolling my own everything, since i much
of what i first learned about adminning was on a solaris box.  after
a while though, you'll find it gets really, really annoying when you
want to upgrade (or lord forbid, remove) software.

configuring X in debian is one of the weak points of the distribution
at present imho (though that actually says a lot of good about debian,
if you think about it), but i think it's worth your time to try and get
it configured the Debian Way, and installed via the package management
system.

if you haven't already, try to get it working via

dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xfree86

iirc it even asks you what level of expertise you want it to assume that
you have wrt configuring X.  

otherwise, if compiling from source magically makes it work, perhaps
you should try compiling the xserver-xfree86 package from source.
you can do this with

apt-get -b source xserver-xfree86

though you may still have to install its dependencies, this will build
you the xserver package from source. this way you still the benefits of
a .deb that you can install on your system.


hth
	sean


On Tue, Mar 11, 2003 at 10:36:04AM -0500, Radek Zajkowski wrote:
> Here is a problem, I could not get the X to run from the packages on my
> machine. It either would not configure, hang during configuration or refuse
> to accept my settings. I am not an advanced user, therefore I often have no
> facility to trace these kind of issues.
> 
> As a result I downloaded the binaries of Xfree and it runs as a charm. I
> compiled Emacs and my crappy pentium200 is now a bit more friendly, or at
> least it offers the alternative to terminal.
> 
> Although initially this was a matter of curiosity, X runs very smoothly and
> I would like to keep it, and enrich it with more software.
> 
> The problem I have created here is rather obvious, the package manager
> doesn't know I have X libraries on my system and therefore, anything
> requiring Xlibs will not install, since it forces the dependecies to be
> configured as well. You probably get the rest of the story.
> 
> I would like to find out from you some of the experiences and tactics you
> might be employing when dealing with the package systems. Is it packages or
> sources all the way, or are hybribds a common thing?
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> R>
> 
> 
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