Hi Paul, Paul Condon wrote: > Last week I decided to dist-upgrade from Squeeze to Wheezy, thinking > I would get in ahead of the rush of stragglers. I found a nice > document with lots of step-by-step instruction, and particularly how > to create a log file of the steps that I actually performed. Reference URL please? So that we can critique it and at least know what you were trying to be doing. > I thought I was following it but I will never know because something > went wrong and my failed attempts at recovery have lost the log > file. Nothing was working. So sad. Sympathies. > I found a 'business card' CD for Squeeze 6.0.5, that installed > Squeeze 6.0.7, which is to be expected. What did you do? Did you throw away your damaged upgraded system and then start from scratch with a business card install of Squeeze 6? > But all sorts of features haven't been configured to my habits. But you said you were using Squeeze 6 before. And from what you say above you smashed over your system with a fresh install of Squeeze 6 again now. It should all be the same packages. Of course if you smashed over your system with a pristine install then there won't be any customizations left from before. But you could reconfigure it the same as before and have just what you had before. > I am just now able to email this list, but via gmail, and I am quite > new at using gmail. Gmail is not a good mail user interface for mailing lists. It has several misfeatures for them. > I think I know how to reply-to-list, but I really need help and > apologize in advance for violations of Debian etiquette. In > particular, this is being composed in Icedove, and I don't know how > to limit the line length. Please, someone, tell me. So you aren't using Gmail. You are using Icedove. Or perhaps Icedove using IMAP through Gmail? Or Icedove through your system? Oh my gosh this is so confusing! You could be doing almost anything! > I had been running Gnome/Squeeze before the disaster. At one point I > caught a glimpse of the new Gnome3 that comes with Wheezy. I don't > want to install it and then figure out how to remove it. I think I > won't be finnished with my recovery until I get Xfce installed in > its place in Wheezy, There are a *lot* of GNOME 2 refugees who fled to XFCE after seeing GNOME 3. You will be in good company there. > and to do that is to install Xfce in Squeeze and then do a > dist-upgrade to get to Wheezy. That will work. But that isn't the only way. I would probably suggest following the documented upgrade procedures to get from Squeeze 6 to Wheezy 7. Then install XFCE and use it. That would be the least number of steps. But if you have installed Squeeze 6 and want to install XFCE then that is no problem either. > But ... I don't know how and can't find instructions. When I search > with Google I find lots of hits to pages that say it can be done and > most also say it is easy, but *how* ? Are you asking at installation time? Or after the system is installed? At system installation time boot the boot media. That would be any of CD#1, netinst, businesscard, whatever. At the installer screen it says "Advanced options >". Cursor down to it and press Enter. Cursor down to "Alternative desktop environments >" and press Enter. Cursor down to "Xfce" and press Enter. That will take you back to the "Install" prompt setting you up for an xfce installation. Press enter on the Install prompt after having selected the Xfce option. There is another way too. You can type in "install desktop=xfce" at the install boot command line too. Either by reading the online help that describes it or by hitting TAB and editing the existing command line. But selecting it from the menu seems the easiest. > What CDs do I need? If you are installing from scratch then you can use any of the CD images. CD#1, netinst or business card. Or probably any of the other available installation media. > What packages do I install under Squeeze? If you have an already running system and want to install XFCE 4 then just install xfce4. # apt-get install xfce4 That will do it! That is a meta package and it will pull in all of the expected XFCE packages. It will be installed along side whatever else you had before. On Squeeze that is probably GNOME 2. You can then select it and log in using it. > I am at a loss. To me, it is important that I keep my computer > bootable at every step of the way. It is my only link for getting > useful help. Suggestions for alternative plans are welcome, but > please don't suggest switching to a different distribution that is > more forgiving of user error. I don't believe there is one, do you? I would never suggest it. I believe Debian to be very forgiving of user error. And just look at the great help you are receiving from the mailing list! :-) > My first firm question(s): What packages should I install from a > Debian repository to get a working installation of Xfce The package name is "xfce4". Install it. # apt-get install xfce4 > that come up when the computer boots? What substeps are there to > making this happen? A url that I can read? First thing to know is that a graphical desktop environment IS NOT a graphical login manager. Graphical login managers are like xdm, gdm, gdm3, kdm, lightdm. Those are all graphical login managers. When you log in using a graphical login manager it will automatically start a graphical desktop environment for you. You get to select which one you want from the installed selection. (And of course there are several ways to do that too.) In Squeeze 6 the default graphical login manager is gdm3. Unfortunately like everything else about GNOME 3 it is much less functional than GNOME 2. The gdm3 does not give any options to change desktop managers. Therefore you will want to install gdm instead of gdm3 if coming from Squeeze 6. # apt-get install gdm That will give a menu during installation configuration. Select gdm. Then you don't really need to reboot but I will say reboot here so that it will start up the gdm graphical login manager. (Strictly speaking you only need to stop gdm3 and start gdm. If you know how to do that then please feel free to do that and avoid the reboot.) At the gdm graphical login prompt select the "Session" option. Select "Xfce Session" and "Change Session". Then log in normally. You will be running XFCE now. Any questions? Ask. Bob
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