Re: Please help

[Johan Grönqvist <johan.gronqvist@gmail.com>]

Hi,

Welcome to debian.

2011-03-04 05:06, Ryan Collins skrev:
> I've installedDebian 6.0(squeeze) on my dell inspiron 6000. All I have
> to show for it is a shell. [...] I think I may have
> installed a server version [...] What
> can I do to get a desktop environment installed through my command line?





I will add something I have not yet seen in this thread.

The installer has several options, like webserver and desktop, and it 
seems that you would have wanted to install a desktop system, but 
somehow missed it. For this to work, I will assume that you have no 
problem downloading lots of data over the network.

If you log in a root and run the command

tasksel --new-install

by typing it at the command line, the dialog you should have seen during 
installation should now appear, and you can choose (with arrow keys and 
the space bar) the packages you need. I guess you want to select 
desktop, standard and laptop (if the computer is a laptop). After you 
click ok, the package management system should install several hundred 
to a thousand packages, and then exit.

If you then reboot by typing
shutdown -r now
at the command line, you should hopefully see the standard debian 
desktop installation start and you should get a graphical login screen.

Also, as a note about debian and new users: If debian does what you 
need, then I would recommend debian. If it does not, it may well be 
that some other distro has a simpler or even fully automatic solution 
for that problem. (I have never tried Mint.)

Hope it helps

/ johan