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Re: for our X master Branden Robinson



On Tue 03 Sep 2002 20:41, Maartin wrote:
> Hi Branden,
>
> New to the linux scene and even newer to the Debian scene.
> After having spent some time trying to conf X ver 4.1.?-? that
> comes with Woody, I came to the conlusion that for my hardware
> to work I need X 4.2, and after reading your post on 4.2 not in woody.
>
Wellcome to Linux and Debian!

> I then did the google search for any debian packages
> but no luck.
>
> Then somebody pointed my to http://people.debian.org/~branden/,
> boy was I glad to see this. But now the reason for the e-mail.
>
Branden is the regular X maintainer for Debian, and he does quite a bit.

> My server does not have access to internet so I download with Windoz @ work
> and then cart home. But being very new to Debian 'How do I install ?' is
> there a sort
> of controller file that I need to 'run'. Like in a source compile with
> ./configure and then makefile ?
>
I am guessing that you have the .deb files. These are Debian formatted. their 
are several tools within Debian for working with these, but a stack of 
floppies is difficult. Also, I'm no expert so this is just a simple breakdown.

apt-get:
	Quite good for automatically fetching and upgrading from the 'net.
	Of course this requires Internet access, sorry.

dselect:
	much more controlable for installing large groups like X, KDE, Gnome etc.
	I think it can work with floppies, but I'm not sure.

dpkg:
	The work-horse behind the previous tools. dpkg can be used on it's own.
	Probably the easiest way to deal with a stack of floppies, though I'm sure
	someone can correct me. Here the problem is, dpkg will not install anything
	unless the dependancies are met. X is a large system and is split into
	several packages. This is where things will get difficult. You will need to 
	install the minimum required packages at once to  get dpkg to 
	co-operate.

I'm sure their are easier ways to deal with a stack of floppies, but even 
easier would be connect to the Internet and use dselect or apt to fetch the 
packages from Brandens site. Either of these methods takes care of 
dependancies automatically.

> Or do I have to tar all the files one by one and copy the contents over ?
>
> I hope you can find the time to answer my e-mail, by the looks of the
> posts u are a very
> busy person.
>
There are many people here, but mostly they deal with tracking bugs in 
Branden's packages. The Debian-user list is a much better place to ask.

> Thank You,
> Maartin.

I know this isn't much help for a newbie, but keep at it. Debian is certainly 
worth the effort to learn.

Cheers,

	John Gay



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