installing x window on plain Debian installation.
 

Hi Everybody,
I have a small question. I tried it myself but had a thought of putting it here so that all will be benefited.

I have installed Debian Lenny on my AMD Phenom PC. Now I had installed it through debian-503-amd64-i386-powerpc-netinst.iso which I burned on a CD and installed on my Hard Disk.

Now I would like to EASILY install x window and kde window manager on this system.

Can anybody tell me
1.> what exactly I will have to download extra.
2.> how to install it on my system.
3.> if necessary how to configure it.

I am now an expert in Linux. But i STRONGLY WISH TO BE. ;)
So I will appreciate a detailed solution to this.

Thanking you all,
Rajesh Sali.
(+91)9209203696
rajesh.sali@gmail.com

This is not the detailed solution, but if you do the following:
it will install x-windows and all the necessary dependencies for the KDE desktop (the same as if you had selected 'desktop' in the original install).

Depending on your system, there may be different things to configure, so feel free to post more questions about the actual install.

If you install "desktop" during installation, Debian installs Gnome. If you try to install KDE later it is difficult to make KDE,KDM and Klogin default. Then you have to be an expert.

Not installing anything during installation and kdesktop later is a really good option.

I usually install kde, kdesktop and kdm to get the desktop working. Debian sorts out the dependencies.

jlinkels

The way i would do it with a netinstall of Lenny is:

This will install a 'minimal' KDE setup and avoid using the metapackage.
You can then install any other applications you need in the same way.

KdeDebInstall - Debian Wiki

Thank you all who read this thread and tried to provide the solution.
But suppose if I dont have a continuous internet connection,
I just want to download the necessary packages for x window and any(xfce or kde or gnome) desktop then please tell me how to do it.
apt-get requires a live internet connection as per your solutions. But I want to download the necessary packages for x window and say xfce window manager, and install it on my debian system.
Now how should I go?

This is really a question to me and also I strongly feel that the answer to this will be a milestone to any newcomer to linux to understand the things much better way as I have always seen the answers relating to linux more technical(most of the answers consider a user as an above average linux user) and hence the answers become useless to them and they revert back to M$.

Thanks.

There are separate install CDs for KDE if you want to install on a machine that has no internet access.

Alternatively you could look at an Xubuntu CD (Ubuntu with XFCE).

You can even purchase full CD sets and not use the internet at all. If you get a full CD set, it will have every package on it.

If you just want to download individual packages, you can, but that would mean keeping track of dependencies (there are ways around this, but it becomes more technical).

Dear Neonsignal,
Thanks a lotfor your answer. But you see I have a question like
1.) Whether I will have to have xorg installed before installing kde by the method you have suggested. I understand that by downloading the iso from KDE I may be getting Debian with kde window manager along with xorg.
Am I right ?

2.)also I found LXDE as one more light weight desktop. If I download
debian-502-i386-xfce+lxde-CD-1.iso then will I get a latest debian lenny with the choice of xfce and lxde with it? (Am asking this because this thing is not mentioned on their site)

Now the most important question. Hopefully the most important to all newbies

3.) Can I use the packages(kde/xfce/gcc) etc. from other distos CD/DVDs in my any existing Linux installation ?
If yes it will be tooo good as it will reduce the overall energy in getting individual media for all different combinations like debian lenny with xfce, slackware with kde, etc. One will have a plain Debian, Slackware, Mint etc. and use kde, xfce etc. from any other distro CD/DVD he/she has.

4.) If I download/ get an i386 or x86 type of iso distribution then will it work on my AMD Phenom? OR is i386 or x86 is a standard distro for average PC architect?

All my questions and efforts are for one aim.
I want to popularize and make people use Linux as they are using Windows right now. One can easily see that people are afraid of Linux because of the lots of distros and the confusions because of their different methods. Why not make it a standard distro ?
ONLY THEN WE WILL SEE LINUX ON ATLEAST 80% OF THE PCs/ DESKTOPS.

Thanks.
Rajesh.

You will need X, but that will be on the cd. Download the cd, then run
After that you can run the apt-get/aptitude commands to install kde etc.

It will not be the latest: the latest update of lenny is 5.0.3

You may be able to install packages from Debian derived distros like Ubuntu and Mint, but you should not since it will likely break your system.

Since you used an i386 netinstal you should only used i386 packages.

Who should make this "standard distro"?
Are you assuming that people here at lq want that?

Evo2.

For offline install of packages take a look at:
Keryx Project - http://keryxproject.org/
Welcome to Sushi, huh? package downloader for offline GNU/Linux systems - http://sushi-huh.sourceforge.net/
or apt-zip

In general no, because the packages have been compiled for a specific context. Not only that, but in different distributions the files are packaged in different ways.

Having less distributions might make things simpler for those new to Linux, but once you have chosen a favorite one or two, having the other distributions doesn't detract from the usefulness. The competition between distributions is just not that heated (even for those of us with strong preferences).

In reality, the bulk of the code is shared between different distributions (ie, the kernel and most of the applications are separate projects, not run by the distributions). The major distributions all package up a similar set of projects, in various combinations.

The point of the distributions is to take out some of the hard work: by building the packages for you, and providing some support. You just have to choose a distribution that you like; the diversity of distributions is a strength, not a weakness. The whole point of free software is to not coerce people as to what they do with the software on their computers. This is not about building a Linux empire.