I can't seem to get along with aptitude (have no aptitude for it) so I get stuck with installing the whole desktop environment which comes with tons of sh$t I don't want, and don't know how to get rid of.

Is there a way to search for packages by name? Let's suppose I want to get rid of all the games. Can I search-and-destroy all the packages containing the word "game" with aptitude or apt-get or some other tool?

Also, in case any other hapless newbie is reading this, it's best to take most (all?) of the defaults on the x-window config. The first time I installed Sarge it actually came up, but I wasn't happy because I couldn't log in under root. So I installed it a few more times just for grins and the SOB has never run the GUI again- now it's broken. *%^& Miraculously, I did the xorg config manually with Slackware and it works no problemo.

Begin_ramble:
It would be great to figure out how to do a relatively lean Debian install and still have a working KDE, for example. I know it must be possible because a lot of you guys are running Debian and love it, but I just can't figure this stuff out. Maybe some people are just better off with certain distros- it's weird but Slack was very natural for me after a couple tries. So why am I looking for something else? Because I would like to find a distro with a lot of package selection so I can try new and cool apps, while at the same time keeping my core machines relatively pristine. I also have some stuff that I haven't gotten working under Slackware with the 2.4 kernel, like my touchpad and sound card.
End_ramble:

Thanks,
Rand

http://www.debianhelp.co.uk/ is good place for help with apt,aptitude and synaptic pkg manager. http://thegoldenear.org/toolbox/unices/ has guide for minimal sarge desktop install with gnome which includes a laptop section.
Look at tuxmobile listings or linux-on-laptop site for Debian Sarge install notes on your lappy model. You have to know your lappy hardware,make sure BIOS is latest, and may you have to do extra work to get the lappy setup. Good luck.

Thanks, lestoil. I will see what I can find out on those sites. I've installed several distros without too many problems, although I didn't keep anything except Slackware so far. My PC is a couple of years old, it shouldn't be anything too wild for Debian Sarge.

Regards,
Rand

First, install the Debian GNU/Linux base system from the netinstall CD. Then do:

$ su
# apt-get install x-window-system-core kde-core

Then use apt-get or aptitude to install the rest of the stuff you need.

Try this:

$ su
# aptitude -r install mdetect xdebconfigurator
# xdebconfigurator && dexconf

If that doesn't give you a working GUI, try (as root) "dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xfree86" (or "dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg" in case you use Debian testing or unstable).

Thanks, man. I'll try it and get back to you.

I'm responding to you from KDE on my newly-working Sarge machine

You da man!

But now I remember how much I hate KDE. The screens all suck and you can't see the buttons on the bottom as the default is to make the task bar sit on top of everything I fixed it, but WTF. Why does it come configured like that...

I want the ease-of-use but this sh$t is too much I'll have to try some other WM. I think apt-get it a little easier to live with than aptitude. It's a little scary to be taking up 665M just with kde and X and the base setup (I also installed ICE, guarrdog and firestarter. I don't know how to select ICEWM, researching that now...)

I installed guarddog and had it working in 10 seconds. Very nice setup for a quick firewall.

Is it possible to set up the nice graphical login for users while still enabling root to login to a shell console? What I did on Slackware was to set up bash profiles for users to automatically get thrown into X, but root gets shell. I liked the graphical login I saw when I first installed Sarge 5 times ago but I couldn't log in as root; and when I killed X it restarted automagically again- pretty aggravating.

Thanks for all the help, man.

I just couldn't take it anymore, so I uninstalled KDE and gnome and installed icewm. What a relief! After a half hour of screwing around, ice is pretty nice. I have it working mostly like I want. The bad news was that it took me more than an hour to get rid of gnome and kde- you may be able to apt-get a few packages in ten seconds but removing them leaves TONS of sh$t you have to chase down manually. I tried aptitude but it was stopping me every time I tried to get rid of something because of the dependencies. Sometimes it's good just to break something to get rid of something else!

The bad news was that of course since guarddog is built on top of kde, when kde goes, guarddog went with it. The good news was that rc.firewall was already built and working. Mwahahhaa- it still does.

Thanks for the pointers and help, guys. I'm actually liking it a little on debian. Now if I could just figure out how to see what I have installed without aptitude or going through 100 screens of aptitude search output...

A little rox and emacs action and we're right at home...

You can see what you have installed by installing synaptic. It's really useful. Can install, do upgrades etc too.

You could use xdm, gdm or kdm for that. XDM is the neutral one though - the other 2 are for gnome and kde.

deborphan is good for getting rid of those lingering packages.

Also, when you remove packages, try using the --purge option. should remove any config files left behind. Also, I see you don't like using aptitude, but you can use it from the CLI just like apt-get...

For searching packages, try apt-cache search string and otherstring. Many times I have to pipe it to more because a lot of stuff gets spit out (I'm not the most efficient at searching...). Then use apt-cache show packagename to see more info.

Oh, yeah. Seeing what's installed:The cool part is that you can pipe it to a file and then transfer it to another machine and to install all the packages that existed on the first machine on the second. Pretty handy when you want two identical test machines (or partitions)...

One more, use fwbuilder, a nice gui front end to IPtables. I used it to build my iptables rules for both my Debian box and my Linksys WRT54G w/ Sveasoft Alchemy Firmware...

PJ thanks for all the info. Very cool about cloning a new system. Thanks also for dpkg --get-selections. Sure beats the hell out of aptitude.

While it is very nice to be able to install stuff quickly, I think the proliferation of tools- dpkg, apt-get, aptitude- is getting out of hand. I understand that this stuff evolved until now and that later pieces are wrappers on the earlier stuff. Even so, it would be a lot better to have one very clean command-line tool and one quasi gui tool. As it is, we have to do certain things with certain tools. This is clumsy and a royal PITA. Now that I have done it (and installed Sarge about 6 times) I'm starting to get the hang of it. But the usability area of package management could stand a lot of improvement. When I want to know what I have installed in Slackware, I can go look in /var/adm/packages. When I do a dpkg --get-selections or aptitude search pkgname on Debian I get an unmanageable list of crap. I'm not sure whether the ease of grabbing new apps is worth the difficulty of managing the bloat. That's kinda what this Sarge machine is about, for me, for now.

I am using arno iptables firewall since I have it on my Slack machines. I can set it up in less than a minute because I have a very vanilla desktop setup. A lot of the other firewall front-ends need KDE or GNOME and I am running only x-windows-core with ICEWM.

I got rid of netkit and now my network doesn't come up automagically. Does anybody know what I have to do to get Sarge to bring up my network? I know how to bring it up manually- and I already wrote a couple of scripts- but I don't understand how things are supposed to work in Debian.

Thanks,
Rand

dpkg is the package management tool for Debian all the rest are really just front ends.. pick one and stick with it. I use apt for pretty much everything and never touch synaptic, dselect, gnome-apt or aptitude.. I rarely ever use dpkg directly unless I am reconfiguring an installed package. Just because there are multiple choices doesn't mean you have to learn or use them all..

These commands will take care of probably about 98% of your package needs..

apt-get update
apt-cache search <package*
apt-get install <packagename>
apt-get remove <packagename> --purge
apt-get upgrade
apt-get dist-upgrade
apt-cache policy <packagename>

Chough and dracae, sorry dudes, I don't know how I missed your posts. Thanks for the info. Chough- I use X-windows and icewm but I don't see xdm running on the process list. Can you explain more about the graphical login, or do you have a pointer to some reading?

farslayer man, I kinda settled on doing like you said over the last couple of days. I just hate aptitude so I was using apt- for everything I could, like some other guys suggested.
The one thing I use aptitude for is purge packagename mwahaha.

What do dist-upgrade, and policy do? upgrade gets the most recent package for everything you have installed, right? The others I used already.

Thanks guys.

Don't completely throw out aptitude. You can use it from the command line just like apt-get (aptitude install package) and once in a while when apt-get chokes (for whatever reason) sometimes aptitude will work. this was the case with the dist-upgrade from woody to sarge (apt-get couldn't upgrade itself after all).

dist-upgrade is what happens when you change from the old stable to the new stable, or from stable to testing or unstable (which by the way is quite stable, it's what Ubuntu is based off of). Generally, your /etc/apt/sources.list should be tied to a release name (i.e. sarge, etch, or sid). Then when "etch" becomes stable (i.e. the next debian release), you change your sources from "sarge" to "etch" and apt-get update && apt-get dist-upgrade. I believe dist-upgrade also includes things like the kernel if you're still using the default kernel. Sometimes when you apt-get upgrade some packages are held back for some reason. Usually a dist-upgrade will fix that also.

Don't know what policy does. But type it in and I bet it shows you more information about the package (i.e. dependencies, description, etc).

If you want a graphical login, just apt-get install xdm or gdm (I'm kinda partial to it, even though I use icewm myself) or kdm.

Randux:
Debian is just like Slackware, without doing your homework, you're going nowhere. It's evident you haven't done it.

Questions about apt?
Read the APT HOWTO at debian.org

Wanna know what apps you got installed?
$ dpkg -l

Lean installations?
Check the Tutorials section in this site

Post-installation configuration?
Read the sticky

Want more up-to-date apps?
Install Sid with the net-installer

If you want a lean fast install, forget about graphical logins use 'startx'.

Any other asinine questions, go to google.com/linux and type:

debian + your topic <Enter>

If everything fails, then post, explaining what you did and what you read. Just as if you were in the Slack forums.
Capisci?