No X configuration offered during install of Woody (30r1)
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I've just, sort of, completed my first installation of Debian and I'm
ready to start asking questions.
Installation is Woody 30r1 from the .iso images with apt-get configured
to use CDs and also http, so I ended up with quite a bit of stuff
automatically fetched from the security site.
Anyway.....
1) Can anybody suggest any obvious reasons why I was not offered any of
the X setup screens during the original installation?
Following advice read elsewhere on this list, I attempted:
dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xfree86
but this complained about X not being fully installed - not that I'd
seen any message to this effect during base installation. I'd have
expected a fairly prominent warning about something as fundamental as X
not installing.
So, in accordance with further instructions on this list, I installed X
manually:
apt-get install xserver-xfree86 followed by
apt-get install kdm
(not sure if kdm was essential but it was recommended)
After that, when I rebooted, KDE started but I couldn't do anything
with it. The mouse couldn't get more than about an inch away from the
bottom left hand corner and none of the keyboard shortcuts listed at
kde.org were being actioned.
2) When faced with such a fatal problem in X, how does one persuade
Debian to boot to a console display given that you obviously can't edit
any of the configuration files.
3) I played with Mandrake a couple of years ago, and I seem to recall
there being separate entries in LILO for KDE or TEXT sessions, can
anything similar be achieved in Debian? I think it was something to do
with runlevels.
I managed to sidestep the problem on this occasion by SSH'ing in from a
Windows PC (3 cheers for the installation routines configuring the
network) then running dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xfree86 and trying a
different set of keyboard/mouse options. Interestingly I was asked a
slightly different series of questions than I was when I first
configured X.
4) Does anyone know which driver I should be selecting to support a MS
Trackball Explorer. At present I have it as a basic PS2 mouse so I
lose the use of the wheel, the extra buttons etc. I originally tried
the iexplore driver but that clearly wasn't what I wanted and, given
the mess it got me into, I'm kind of reluctant to apply trial-and-error
to any of the others.
5) Unrelated to the foregoing, is there an apt-get command (or any
other command) that basically says "go and get all the security patches
applicable to anything I've got installed" such that I can keep the
system up to date?
Thanks in advance,
Andrew Borland (UK)
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