I'm trying to setup Debian but I'm having a problem. When I try to install xserver-common (apt-get install xserver-common) I get:

Reading package lists...
Building dependency tree...
Some packages could not be installed. This may mean that you have
requested an impossible situation or if you are using the unstable
distribution that some required packages have not yet been created
or been moved out of Incoming.

Since you only requested a single operation it is extremely likely that
the package is simply not installable and a bug report against
that package should be filed.
The following information may help to resolve the situation:

The following packages have unmet dependencies.
xserver-common: Depends: x11-common (>= 6.8.1) but it is not going to be installed

And when I try to install x11-common (apt-get install x11-common) I get:

Reading package lists...
Building dependency tree...
x11-common is already the newest version.
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.

And the x11-common is >=6.8.1, I think its 7.something according to aptitude.

So what should I do so I can install xserver-common?

You could try "apt-get update" followed by "apt-get install x-window-system". x-window-system is a meta-package that includes the xserver-common package and other stuff that you'll need if you want to use the X Window System.

If the above command still gives you errors, please post us the output for "cat /etc/apt/sources.list".

I'm having the same problem. When I ran apt-get update and apt-get install x-window-system, it says it's already the newest version.

Here's my sources.list:

deb http://ftp.debian.org/debian/ unstable main contrib non-free
deb-src http://ftp.debian.org/debian/ unstable main contrib non-free

The answer is in the original question: you're using the Unstable branch where apparently one or more required packages are not (yet) available. My advise: use the Stable branch, e.i. change 'unstable' to 'stable' in your sources.list. This may cause problems though, as the installed Unstable version of the program may require packages not available in Stable. In that case, remove the X-window system completely, run apt-get update again and install the package mentioned in the first reply.