Ok, I installed Debian 3.1r0 the other day, and part way through the config after the first reboot, I chose "manual package installation" but it was a horrible mess (all the KDE packages were just listed flat all together!!! Ack!).

So, I hit cancel hoping to get back to the menu where I could choose "Desktop" and then prune off unwanted packages later, but it wouldn't let me go back, so I had to go forward.

End result? I now have a working, bare-bones Debian system when I had wanted a full GUI KDE system.

I tried "apt-get install kde" and it seemed to pretty much install *everything* in the KDE packages list... no biggie, I can remove unwanted stuff later. The problem is the system still does not boot into KDM, nor can I start X with "startkde" or "startx" (I'll see if I can't post logs of the error messages I am getting).

I was hoping someone here would be able to give me a quick, routine answer as to how to get my system GUIfied from this state.

What I want is to have the system boot into KDE.

This is the first time I have used Debian, some I'm not to sure on all the ins & outs of apt-get (how do you get it to list available packages? how do you search for packages? etc...)

Thanks!

Aptitude will give you a good visual listing of what programs you have installed. I assume apt d/l the x-window-system when you installed KDE ?

I had the exact same problem. For some strange reason, kde does not depend on any xserver, so you have to install it manually. apt-get install x-window-system (as mjolnir pointed) should get you going.

If you start off by installing just a base Debian system and then decide to add on a desktop environment with a GUI login you are generally going to need three packages to achieve this type of setup. The Gnome and KDE meta-pkgs won't pull in gdm or kdm so that is the necessity for including that separately.

For example, a KDE w/login would need the following:
# apt-get install x-window-system kde kdm

Or you can go with a minimal kde setup:
# apt-get install x-window-system kde-core kdm

Thanks. I fixed the situation with this:

# apt-get install x-window-system kdm

Now all I have to do is prune out my KDE as installing the KDE package seemed to install a *LOT* of unecessary stuff.

I guess I could just uninstall kde, install kde-core and then install the kde packages that I actually want eh?

Not quite. The package kde is a metapackage and removing it should not uninstall kde-core:
http://packages.debian.org/stable/kde/kde-core
http://packages.debian.org/stable/kde/kde

In other words, kde depends on kde-core, but not vice-versa. (You can also get depends info from "apt-cache show <packagename>".)

Just try the following:
# apt-get --purge remove kde

... and have fun selecting the KDE apps you want.

Study this doc:
http://www.debian.org/doc/user-manuals#apt-howto

Cheers