Re: video cards, the mouse, Xfree86 and Debian installation.....
Michael Fothergill wrote:
> Dear Debian folks,
>
> I have installed Debian on my PC here. It runs a 1200MHz Athlon CPU
> and has one 20GB disk on it with Fedora Core 5 on it and now after
> deleted Windows a second disk (primary) which is 40GB in size has now
> got the Desktop Debian installation on it.
> I spent quite a while downloading the 15 or so CD iso images from
> mirror site using wget and bittorrent (bittorrent was a waste of time
> - not enough fellow downloaders).
Most folks only need the first one or two; the others have lots of
less-used packages, and probably the source for all the packages. You
only needed to download and scan the other 13 or 14 if you needed
packages/source that are not on the first couple.
Most folks who have the bandwidth capability for downloading 15 CDs
won't even go the CD route (unless they need the CDs for some reason);
instead, they'll download a minimal CD image which is just enough to get
the system started, and then pull everything they need directly from the
'Net. Much, much easier, in my opinion.
> At the moment the OS is there and boots etc but only in command line
> mode.
>
> But before talking about this I have some other queries.
>
> When I loaded up the installer it automatically found and configured
> mu cable broadband.
Ah, you do have broadband. Yep, unless you need the CDs for some other
machine, I'd suggest that you've wasted your time with these 15 CDs; you
probably would have found it easier to just download the minimal
installer CD and pull the rest of what you need directly off the net.
> We are not talking feather linux here.
Debian has tons of packages, but you can install very few, as in Feather
Linux, or you can install much. The scanning of the CDs is only so your
system will know what packages are available on those CDs.
> I installed again and scanned the first four of the CDs this time and
> then installed the Desktop. My video card is an SiS 630/730 according
> to Fedora. I put SiS in at what I think was the video card
> manufacturer choice setting in install.
You can see what the kernel sees the card as with the "lspci" command.
> There was then some stuff about Power PCs and video card bus
> identifiers. I do not know what the bus identifier is for the video
> card on this machine and I am not sure how to determine this.
Most people, including you I daresay, can leave this identifier blank.
(It's also useful when using multiple monitors on your box.)
> I got to the mouse autoconfiguration bit. I tried this but maybe it
> didn't work properly. It sounded like it thought I had a serial mouse
> but I think I have a 3 button PS mouse.....
If it has a round connector, it's a PS-2 type of mouse (unless it's
really old, in which case it might be a proprietary bus). If it's a
nine-pin DB connector, it's serial. If it's a USB connector, it's USB.
> I think I should reinstall and then choose manual configuration of the
> mouse. But maybe there is a way fire up the mouse installation
> routine from the command line interface in my current install which
> does boot and run....
There are basically two mouse drivers; one for X, built into X, and one
for console, called GPM. I like to have both, so I install gpm
("aptitude install gpm") and configure it to repeat as ms3, and then
tell X to find the mouse on /dev/gpmdata. I tell gpm to find the mouse
on /dev/psaux for a PS-2 mouse, or /dev/ttySxx for a serial mouse, or
/dev/input/mice for a USB mouse. gpm also is a quicker means of
experimenting with mouse types than trying to "startx" over and over
until you get it right.
Or you can just stick with the X Window System driver; reconfigure X
(video, mouse, etc) with "dpkg-reconfigure xserver-common" (I believe;
it's been so long since I've had to mess with this sort of thing...).
> I also did what I could do configure Xwindows but was not successful
> it seems.
If you manually edit the /etc/X11/XF86Config-4 file, the automagic stuff
above (dpkg-reconfigure...) will no longer work until you follow the
instructions at the top of that file.
> The monitor I use is a 15 inch CRT Belinea device. Belinea is not a
> manufacturer that X seems to know much about. But I have got X work
> OK with it in Fedora.
>
> I don't know the horizontal and vertical refresh numbers for it. But
> maybe I could use Fedora to tell me them and then put high quality
> information into Debian when configuring Xwindows for it.
That's a good plan; or just take your best guess (with the caveat that
older monitors don't have protection against being over-driven).
> When I tried startx I got a little cross and a little box in the
> middle of the screen that said things like "Xsession unable to start X
> no home/mikef .xsession file or Xsession file, no window manager, no
> terminal emulators found; aborting.
Oh, that's good. That means your X server is working. You just don't
have all the other accouterments needed.
Generally, "aptitude install x-window-system kde gnome" will give you
all you want. But since you've already gotten the server working, you
can build it up a bit more piecemeal if you prefer. For example, you can
"aptitude install icewm" and you'd be pleased that you're making
progress next time you "startx". But I think you'd like the first
command, installing a full system, better.
> The log messages before X tried to start contained things like"failed
> to acquire AGP,AGPdisabled, xf86 open serial cannot open device" etc....
Worry about these things later. Just get a basic box working first.
> How do I run the Xwindows configuration again using the CLI in the
> install I have if it is good enough?
"dpkg-reconfigure xserver-common", I believe. Or, maybe it's
"dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xfree86". I forget.
> Do I have to reinstall again and then configure Xwindows again there
> to get it to work?
No. Never. (Sometimes it might be easier to reinstall, but with Debian,
you can always pull yourself up by your bootstraps with a fairly limited
system.)
> Where can I get Fedora to remind me the mouse type I have precisely
> for the aid of Debian?
Not being a Fedora user, I have no clue; but I'd start by looking in the
file "/etc/X11/XF86Config-4" if it exists.
===
Welcome.
There's a fairly good "Installing Debian"-type of document on the Debian
web site, but I'm too lazy to go hunting it right now. You might find
some value through reading that.
--
Kent West
Westing Peacefully <http://kentwest.blogspot.com>
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