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At this stage in the past, the system would be upgraded to testing/unstable, but it seems now that stuff like dhcp3-client is being removed. After dselect install ran, I re-installed dhcp3-client before I rebooted.
I would then normally run:
apt-get install gnome
and that would install all of Gnome from testing/unstable. However, when I run the install apt-get barfs and complains about a bunch of stuff that wont be installed, such as gnome-office etc etc etc.
To resolve this, I tried:
apt-get dist-upgrade
That upgraded a bunch of stuff. But when I go back to running apt-get install gnome, it complains only about gnome-office not being installed etc. I kluged it by running apt-get install gnome-office then apt-get install gnome, and that ran ok.
I then installed gdm, xserver-xfree86, some fonts, gdm etc.
However, the system wont run gdm or I get a weird broken Gnome...
Is there something I'm now doing wrong, or any docs I should read. I've Googled about but can only find old instructions such as in Debian Reference etc.
It's very understandable you are having problems you didn't experience before. Gnome is currently being upgraded to 2.6, but there is also a lot of gnome 2.4 stuff in testing. So you're probably not doing anything wrong. My desktop is broken too since the upgrades, why it always worked fine. I really hope it will be over soon.
I don't have a solution for you, sorry. Just wait maybe...
Thanks for your reply. I'd realised about the 2.6 Gnome into testing, so did a bit of digging. As 2.4 is broken in testing, I'm going to try 2.6. In fact the broken Gnome installation was 2.6 pretty much. The instructions I've found are:
edit /etc/apt/sources.list, add: (replace xy with your country)
deb http://ftp.xy.debian.org/debian/ ../project/experimental main
apt-get update
apt-get remove libgtop2 (work around a conflict with the new libgtop2-2 package)
apt-get install -t experimental gnome-desktop-environment
edit /etc/apt/sources.list, add: (replace xy with your country)
deb http://ftp.xy.debian.org/debian/ ../project/experimental main
apt-get update
apt-get remove libgtop2 (work around a conflict with the new libgtop2-2 package)
apt-get install -t experimental gnome-desktop-environment
I added unstable and experimental to my apt-sources, and upgraded the gnome-packages by hand (synaptic), because I use a stripped down version of gnome (I have stuff like gnome-help deinstalled, I don't have the metapackage gnome-desktop-environment installed). Somehow it worked: most of my desktop works again, including some programs (gnumeric and gedit work again, but gpdf and gxine not anymore). I'm quite happy with the result...
I have removed unstable and experimental from my apt-sources again. I can now find back the upgraded packages by going to "absolete or locally installed", so I can go to the testing-version when it has the gnome 2.6 version.
Not perfect, but at least I can use gnome again...
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