Re: getting xorg working on an old box .....
On Mon, 15 Jan 2007 18:20:31 +0000
"Michael Fothergill" <mikef20000@hotmail.com> wrote:
[snip]
You can kill the Xserver with Ctrl-Alt-Backspace
> Some could be dumb but I need to ask them based on the new postings.
>
> 1.In one posting it was suggested that if Xorg doesn't work when you
> fire up xdm or kdm or gdm then it doesn't matter; you can simply not
> use them. I assume this means you could type in startx instead at
> the command prompt and then you could fire up e.g. gnome it would
> work.... Is this true? Can gnome work it Xorg fails? Or is gnome
> dependent on xorg to work?
Very simple put, Gnome is just the nice graphics you see. Xorg is the
infrastructure needed to display it.
> 2.In an earlier posting it was suggested that I could use gnome core
> instead of gnome to save on memory and cpu effort etc on the old
> box. What features do you get with only gnome core?
Gnome is also a collection of various software. gnome-core contains
just the strictly necessary.
> 3.It was suggested that I get rid of gdm by entering # dpkg -P gdm
> and then # apt-get clean. What about doing # aptitude remove gdm? Is
> this equivalent here?
'aptitude remove' leaves the config files behind. The equivalent would
be 'aptitude purge'. Both will do the trick. 'apt-get clean' or
'aptitude clean' will remove the package from your local cache (saves
you some space).
> 4.It was also suggested in the same posting that I install
> xserver-xorg-core, xserver-xorg-input-all and
> xserver-xorg-video-all. Would I have to do aptiude remove xorg first
> and then install these packages one by one if I tried this? What is
> the advantage of doing this over the xorg installation you get from
> the desktop choice in Etch?
If you have the package xorg installed then you probably have those
installed as well. If you want to save some space later just remove
what you don't need.
> 5.It was also suggested that I use e.g. fluxbox or icewm etc. I did
> use xfce64 before on this box when I had Sarge on it. But it was a
> bit pesky not having a floppy icon etc. I didn't want to have to use
> command line stuff there. Also it was a pain figuring out how to
> configure the printer using xfce64 relative to gnome. Also Etch has
> gutenprint on it that has a driver specific for the Epson printer I
> use which is cool.
Gnome has nice features, but will run slower.
> 6.The posting mentioned above also talked about changing the xinitrc
> file contents. What is the philosophy behind this?
If you have a display manager (gdm) then you don't need that, because
you can use the menu to select which WM (xfce, fluxbox, ...) or DE
(Gnome, KDE) you want to use. If you don't have gdm and have only one
WM or DE, then you also don't need this because the system knows which
one to start. If you have more then one then there are 2 (or more) ways
of selecting which WM of DE to run. The generic way is to use X config
files (like .xinitrc). I prefer to use Debian's alternatives system.
Run 'update-alternatives --list x-window-manager' to list what WM your
system knows of. Run 'update-alternatives --config x-window-manager'
to select your default (system wide).
> Your comments on this are appreciated. I have another slightly
> younger box in my sights where I work.
Nice ;)
Regards,
Andrei
--
If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough.
(Albert Einstein)
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