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Today was my first day with Debian ever so please help!!!
So I downloaded and burnt the first 3 ISOs (3.0 r2). But I never had to use the 2nd nor the third (installer didn't *specifically* as for 2nd and 3rd). Obviously, 2nd and 3rd has packages in them. The question is, how do I use them? How do I get them out of the CD (metaphorically speaking ofcourse) so they can be instaled (BTW, the only way I know of how to install pakcges right now is via "dpkg-distaddfiles"). My understanding of the Debian packages are similar to the "depot" on HP-UX or "RPM" on RedHat and SuSE for example. If there is a GUI just like HP-UX does where it asks me to load the media with the depots, then that is exactly the answer I am looking for. But I would also love to know how to do this from command line in case my Xserver craps out (and it's cooler to do it from the command line). Please help.
PS. I apologize if my choice of keywords for search was poor.

you installed from CDs?

normally the cds should then be in your /etc/apt/sources.list file
try for example (as root) on the command line:

apt-cache search <editor>

this will look for packages that have <editor> in their name or description and display the package-names for them
if you want to install one of the packages, just type

apt-get install <a packagename>


you might want (to have acces to more and recent software) to add ftp servers to your /etc/apt/sources.list file
then apt-get will look for desired packages on the ftp servers instead of only on the CDs (only use this, if you're on a fast internet connection)


I hope this helps you out

Hi,

maybe you belong to the category of people entering away any questions of the installer.
Normally you're asked to insert your other CDs during installation. If you want to make other CDs available to apt just do

apt-cdrom add.

Since it is very likely, that some programs on CD 1-3 have dependencies that require the other CDs, you should either get the rest of the CDs or add ftp/http sources. The easiest to achieve this is to use apt-setup.

"GUI": dselect (console),aptitude (console), kpackage (kde), something for gnome does also exist but can't remember the name.

shdir and kingka, both of your response helped a lot.
"apt-setup" command was exactly what i was looknig for and I also now know to modify the sources.list file as well as some more apt-xx functions.
thanks for the help.

Perhaps you're thinking of synaptic

Hi,
I didn't know of synaptic until now - good tip it's a nice program (uses WINGs).
BTW: The name of the gnome-apt that ships with debian woody is surprise surprise: gnome-apt.