Re: Overwhelmed newbie

[Kent West <westk@acu.edu>]

Fritz Brown wrote:

>OK, everybody, THANKS!  I finally got it installed without it asking me for all the extra packages (which is where the overwhelming part came in).  Now, the only thing is I don't know how to start the GUI.  I took most of the default settings (this is Woody, BTW - may try to get Sarge a little later) in the installer, and it comes up to a command line.  Do I need to run apt to find a GUI and install it?
>  
>
X11 is the windowing system (GUI) used in Woody (X.org is the "new
version" of X11). On top of X, you'll also need a window manager (such
as Icewm or Fluxbox) and/or environment (such as KDE or Gnome).

You can install X with a command like:
    apt-get install x-window-system

You can install a wm (Window Manager) with a command like:
    apt-get install icewm

You can install a DE (Desktop Environment) with a command like:
    apt-get install kde

Or you can get a bunch of stuff all at once:
    apt-get install x-window-system kde icewm gnome openoffice.org
mozilla-firefox

(You will have to do these commands as "root".)

Once X is installed, you can start it with the command "startx", or
depending on what all you install, it may start automagically the next
time you reboot (although you can pretty much forget about needing to
reboot all the time, unlike what you had to do in the world of Windows).


>Oh yeah, and what is the login for root?  I assumed it was "root", but I should abviously read something informative before I go installing new OSs....
>  
>
"root" is the username of the Administrator; the password for "root" is
whatever you set it as during the install. You were asked for a root
password, and then you were asked to create a normal user and to provide
a password for that user. If you've forgotten what password you set for
root, there are ways around it.

By the way, it's a bad habit to run X as root; don't do it. (IIRC,
Debian doesn't even allow X to run as root, by default.) Instead, run it
as a normal user, and when you need to do rooty things, use sudo or sux
(which you'll have to install -- "apt-get install sudo sux") instead.

-- 
Kent