[LUG] A debian diary

[Tony Sumner <tony@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Since attending the Debian masterclass I have been keen to get on
board the debian wagon. So I took my laptop along to the Paignton meet
to get some expert help on a debian install. That was a start but there
was a lot more to do and I thought it might help someone if I write down
what I did and what happened. Most people on this list won't need it
but there may be a few like me who have to chip away at a mountain of
ignorance to get to the gold inside. 

A --  on a Dell laptop

1   Neil Williams installed debian Woody from CD for me. There was
   no X - an error message like 'no configured screen' - but there
   is a debian system and Neil takes me through the apt basics. 
2   I download the .iso image for sarge, burn a CD and go through the
   install again. Now xdm seems to get started but that is all. I get 
   a log in screen but after logging in I get nothing to look at. Waving 
   the mouse produces a ghostly green menu that flickers and dies.
3   I decided to give up on the laptop and try installing on a desktop
   instead, again from the .iso image.
   
B -- on a desktop PC

4   Push in the .iso CD and go through the installation. This goes well
   but at the end there is no X at all. /etc/X11 does not exist. 
5   My Red Hat PC starts with kdm so I do apt-get install kdm. This
   installs ok but no change otherwise; typing 'kdm' does 
   nothing. /etc/X11 now exists though.
6   I fool about in this fashion for ages until I realise that the
   basic installer does not give you an X server. I also discover the
   package list at 
   ftp.uk.debian.org/debian/dists/sarge/main/binary-i386/packages.gz
   It is worth downloading this (I do have ftp working) because it
   tells you what the various programs are called, eg emacs is emacs21.
   It is helpful to have a summary list from something like
   grep ^Package package-list >package-summary
7   What I need is xserver-common and xserver-xfree86. I get these
   and kde, reboot and kde springs to life as if by magic. 
8   Until now I have been connected to the net via an ethernet cable
   to the router. I need to get the wireless adapter working so that
   I can move the PC out of everyone's way. I apt-got linux-wlan-ng
   and linux-wlan-ng-doc. I am already familiar with this so installing 
   is fairly easy though tedious since you have to compile the kernel 
   (2.4.27). It's a Netgear MA111, which uses the prism2 chipset.
   The instructions are in 
   /usr/share/doc/linux-wlan-ng-doc/README.Debian.gz
   At the end, if you have a USB adapter, you are thrown back to the
   maintainer's documentation, which is confusing to say the least. 
   What I have done is put the commands
     #!/bin/sh
     wlanctl-ng wlan0 lnxreq_ifstate ifstate=enable
     wlanctl-ng wlan0 lnxreq_autojoin ssid="linux-wlan" authtype=opensystem
     dhclient wlan0
   in /usr/local/bin and run the script from root after booting up. 
   I have so far failed to get this included with the boot process.
9   When I disconnected the ethernet cable and moved the PC upstairs
   kde stopped working. More later.
10  That just leaves mail. The MTA is exim or exim4. I hit on the
   idea of typing man exim (man exim4 is the same) and at the end it
   suggests '/usr/share/doc/exim4-base', a directory that contains 
   README.Debian.gz. I gunzip this and it tells me to run 
   dpkg-reconfigure exim4-config
   This runs an interactive configure script apparently based on curses. 
   Is this perhaps what is meant by debconf? The script takes me through
   configuring exim4 and it is all very easy. I create ~/.muttrc and
   all at once I am sending e-mail hither and yon. I get the
   idea that there may be other files called README.Debian.gz and 
   yes there are: 'find /usr/share/doc -name README.Debian.gz' gives you
   a full list. 
11  apt-get fetchmail, then copy ~/.fetchmailrc from my Red Hat system.
   I can now fetch mail from my mailbox. 
12  All done, except that I don't have a browser. When I switch on I get 
   the kdm screen and the invitation to log in but the keyboard is dead.
   None of the keys has any effect. I can still (with the mouse) ask 
   for a console login and continue that way. The keyboard section in
   /etc/X11/XF86Config-4 looks ok to me. It was working at step 7 above.
   I might try re-installing the X server.

Tony Sumner

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