[vox-tech] jay and dselect

[Peter Jay Salzman]

begin Jay Strauss <jjstrauss@yahoo.com> 
> Ok, so I upgraded my test machine to woody. Now I'm getting "startx:
> command not found".  Here are my questions:
 
make sure these packages are installed:

ii  xfree86-common  4.1.0-14       X Window System (XFree86) infrastructure
ii  xfreecd         0.7.8-5        a GTK-based CD Player
ii  xserver-xfree86 4.1.0-14       the XFree86 X server
ii  xbase-clients   4.1.0-14       miscellaneous X clients

startx belongs to xbase-clients.  if they're installed, make sure their
installed fully and configured (see my debian package tutorial for more
info on this).


> 1) How do I determine the version(s) of X installed on my system

try:

   X -probeonly > X.out

look at the first few lines.

> 2) Is there a new way to start X (different than startx)?

plenty of ways.  but you should use startx.

> Here is my /etc/apt/sources.list:
> 
> deb http://http.us.debian.org/debian/ woody main
> deb http://non-us.debian.org/debian-non-US woody/non-US main
 
here's mine if you want to use it:

deb     ftp://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/ woody main non-free contrib
deb-src ftp://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/ woody main non-free contrib
deb     ftp://non-us.debian.org/debian-non-US woody/non-US main contrib non-free
deb-src ftp://non-us.debian.org/debian-non-US woody/non-US main contrib non-free

# Security
deb     http://security.debian.org/ stable/updates main

# Wine     apt-get -b source wine
deb     http://gluck.debian.org/~andreas/debian wine main
deb-src http://gluck.debian.org/~andreas/debian wine main


> Here is:
> 
> debian:~# apt-get dist-upgrade
> Reading Package Lists... Done
> Building Dependency Tree... Done
> Calculating Upgrade... Done
> The following packages have been kept back
>   nethack
> 0 packages upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 1  not upgraded.

this means that nethack depends on another package which isn't currently
on your system.  debian normally won't do that unless you specifically
tell it that it's ok.  debian always errs on the side of caution.  to
install the most recent version of nethack along with all its
dependencies (even the ones that aren't currently on your system), do:

apt-get install nethack



btw, when upgrading software, you use apt-get update.

when upgrading an operating system (as in going from potato to woody),
you use apt-get dist-upgrade.  so at this point, you want to use:

dselect update && apt-get upgrade

or you can even alias it:

alias updatesys="dselect update && apt-get upgrade"

> I'm not sure where to go from here
> Jay
 
just remember this next time i post a perl question.   ;-)

pete