Re: Woody: TaskSel - XWindows; startx fails
On Fri, 26 Dec 2003 06:21:02 -0600, J N wrote:
> When installing woody, after getting to the tasksel screen, I noticed
> that choosing "XWindowServer" option by itself did not resolve enough
> dependencies to be able to run the server. I also tried apt-get install
> kdm, suspecting that I just needed to choose a window manager, however,
> kdm wouldn't resolve either.
>
> My (rather blunt) solution to the problem was to choose the "desktop"
> option in tasksel as well -- that appears to resolve whatever
> dependencies need resolving. I know just (not) enough about
> XWindowServer theory to suspect that this may be by design -- that I
> need to make some sort of 'choice' about my environment that is made by
> selecting the "desktop" option.
>
> Does anyone know why this is, or if it is just specific to laptops, or
> if it is just that something failed that should have worked?
>
> I'm interested in theory. I don't have the specific error messages on
> hand (to get them, I would need to do a fair amount of work) -- but I'm
> learning how to compile kernels, and the process has resulting in
> needing to reinstall debian woody about 6 times so far... (yes, I'm
> doing things terribly wrong and I'm aware of it)... I figure
> reinstallation will go faster if I don't install all of XWindowsServer
> and the desktop each time...
>
> Thanks!
>
> -Jason.
If one is setting up a server, one may only want to run an X server
(XFree86, for example) on that machine, and not an X client. Other
machines on the network would be running X clients and connecting with the
server's X server. One doesn't need stuff like window managers running on
the server.
As you evidently wish to run both server and client, then you need the
desktop setup. A window manager is part of the client, not the server.
BTW, startx starts a client X session.
Try man startx, man Xserver, man XFree86, etc.
This is necessarily very brief and incomplete, but I hope it gives you the
picture.
--
....................paul
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