Okay.....background first.

I'm still a relative beginner with all things *nix. I've used Mandrake since 8.1, but have gotten adventurous. I've toyed around with Ubuntu, but this is my first crack at Debian.

I'm trying it out on VMware 5.0 before I attempt to install to a real hard disk.

Having said that, my install went A1, and I now have a functioning Debian system with Gnome running. Fair ball, but what I'd like to have is KDE up and going. So.....I tried first installing it with aptitude. That seemed to go okay, until I noticed KDE was no where to be found. Not good.

Then I tried Synaptic. It made a good go at it, but returned the following error (repeated later when I tried apt-get install figuring incorectly I might get somewhere with it):

W: Failed to fetch URL Removed due to anti-spam rules libnetpbm10_10.0-8_i386.deb
Unable to fetch file, server said '/debian/pool/main/n/netpbm-free/libnetpbm10_10.0-8_i386.deb: input/output error'

as well as two other files, thus cancelling the whole download & install.

For giggles, I surfed over to the ftp in question, dug down, and sure enough, there's the file, in all it's glorry, on line and ready for anyone that wants it.

So............what'm'I doing wrong here? I had no problems installing Fluxbox, Enlightenment, or Blackbox this way. Just KDE.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks.
Rob.

Hi,

Which Debian have you installed ? Sarge, testing ?
How did you install ? CD-roms or netinstall ?
Honestly the easiest way is to do a netinstall, it enables you to install Gnome AND KDE
by default. Just d/load the image (about 110Mo) on debian.org, choose either sarge or testing.
Go there to d/load a netinstall testing image : http://cdimage.debian.org/pub/cdimage-testing/daily/

Works well, I have installed tons of time with that. You'll have an improved text-based install, once
you have burned the ISO on CD. BTW, read the info on Debian.org available here :
http://www.us.debian.org/doc/user-manuals#apt-howto

read the APT-Howto, the rest is slightly outdated...

cheers

Thanks for the reply samael,

I did do a net install of 'testing', which is how it so successfully bounced into Gnome, although I really don't remember any time where it asked me whay desktops to load, just asking me what the general purpose of the install was (I chose desktop). I could always re-install if you think that's what the error is (an error somewhere in the install), but that seems a bit drastic to me.

Is it possible to point apt-get to another server, and if so, how, and if how, where would one get a list of apt-get servers?

Oh, being early in the moring, I missed that you had pointed to the apt-get manual. Never mind this part (at least for now), I'll dig through the manual and see what's there.

Again, thanks.
Rob.

Update:

Alright, well, rather than beat a dead horse, I re-did the install, selected all the same stuff, but this time pointed the net install (apt-get) to a different mirror, and voila! It installed both Gnome and KDE right from the get go.

Anyways, thought I'd share. I'm off now to see what it is that makes Debian so great.

Thanks.
Rob.