Matt Posted May 18, 2006 Report Share Posted May 18, 2006 Whew! Well today I was sitting around thinking about this and that and decided that I wanted to give linux another shot. After much conversation with Pierce, I decided to download and install Debian. Well, somewhere during the installation it asked what kind of environment I wanted to install. I thought I selected Desktop Environment, but apparently not. So it installed with no GUI. Now, I have spent the past few hours downloading and trying to install and setup KDE and X, with no luck. It says its been downloaded, unpacked, installed, and setup; but I'm still with no GUI. With it taking this long, and me not really knowing at all what I'm doing, would it just be easier to delete the partition and start over with the installation? Or is there something easy that would help be do this? Thanks,Matt Quote Link to post Share on other sites
hitest Posted May 18, 2006 Report Share Posted May 18, 2006 Whew! Well today I was sitting around thinking about this and that and decided that I wanted to give linux another shot. After much conversation with Pierce, I decided to download and install Debian. Well, somewhere during the installation it asked what kind of environment I wanted to install. I thought I selected Desktop Environment, but apparently not. So it installed with no GUI. Now, I have spent the past few hours downloading and trying to install and setup KDE and X, with no luck. It says its been downloaded, unpacked, installed, and setup; but I'm still with no GUI. With it taking this long, and me not really knowing at all what I'm doing, would it just be easier to delete the partition and start over with the installation? Or is there something easy that would help be do this? Thanks,MattHey Matt,I'd download Ubuntu 5.10, burn it, boot from that, and nuke your debian partition. I ran debian for a bit, but, the install can be a bit annoying sometimes. Ubuntu 5.10 is rock-steady and is a solid choice to run. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Matt Posted May 18, 2006 Author Report Share Posted May 18, 2006 Hiya hitest. Yes, I just killed the partition via windows and will try again tomorrow. They should make it more clear that you have to press space to select an item! Depending on how I warm up to debian, I may try other distros.Many people speak highly of slackware; but do you suppose that is too hard for a beginner like myself?Matt Quote Link to post Share on other sites
iccaros Posted May 18, 2006 Report Share Posted May 18, 2006 you really can't judge Linux by a distro.. that is why there are thousands of them.. if you have more problems just write and we answer.. also if somehting is not working please report all steps done (like did you run start X) how did you config the xorg.cong. what video card... ectgood luck Quote Link to post Share on other sites
shanenin Posted May 18, 2006 Report Share Posted May 18, 2006 (edited) As to slackware, it is a solid distro, but I think it is lacking in one serious way. It does not have a great easy way to install software. The prefered way to install programs with slackware is to indivdually build and compile all programs along with their dependencies. This can be a lot of work. Edited May 18, 2006 by shanenin Quote Link to post Share on other sites
hitest Posted May 18, 2006 Report Share Posted May 18, 2006 As to slackware, it is a solid distro, but I think it is lacking in one serious way. It does not have a great easy way to install software. The prefered way to install programs with slackware is to indivdually build and compile all programs along with their dependencies. This can be a lot of work.Actually you can easily download and install pre-built slack packages. You just download the packages to a directory then at a shell prompt cd to the directory. Then type su to get root access.install the package with this command:#installpkg (packagename).tgzI used that command to install Open Office 2.0 in Slackware 10.2 and it seamlessly installed it and even integrated icons into my KDE start menu. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
hitest Posted May 18, 2006 Report Share Posted May 18, 2006 Hiya hitest. Yes, I just killed the partition via windows and will try again tomorrow. They should make it more clear that you have to press space to select an item! Depending on how I warm up to debian, I may try other distros.Many people speak highly of slackware; but do you suppose that is too hard for a beginner like myself?MattBoth debian and ubuntu have similar install routines. You just need to slow down a bit when you install debian. If you go with debian don't forget to choose print server as one of your packages that will save you from having to install cupsys later. Another tricky part is setting up your mail transfer agent (MTA). I always select the top value when setting up my MTA (send and receive mail via SMTP with your ISP). Have fun choosing. If you need help with debian or ubuntu just ask. One of the experts will lend a hand. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
hitest Posted May 18, 2006 Report Share Posted May 18, 2006 Many people speak highly of slackware; but do you suppose that is too hard for a beginner like myself?MattSlackware has a good text based installer, but, it can be a bit tricky if it is your first attempt at installing Linux. I'd go with debian or ubuntu before Slackware. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Carnevil Posted May 18, 2006 Report Share Posted May 18, 2006 If you're a beginner dude, I'd say go with Ubuntu or Kubuntu on the linux side of things. Now just because I'm an advocate of the BSD's, I'd also tell you to check out PC-BSD. Nice little review of PC-BSD can be found here. http://www.linuxforums.org/reviews/pc-bsd_1.0_review.html Quote Link to post Share on other sites
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