Hi all... I'm getting reacquainted with Debian so I am in need of some help. Here's what I've done:

1. netinst
2. changed sources.list
3. apt-get update, and then apt-get upgrade

Screen now shows:

Debian GNU/Linux 4.0 (This is Sid, Right?)

Ok, so far so good. My problem is that I don't really know where to go from here. The system ALWAYS boots to a prompt. The last time I installed, I got a gnome desktop and lots of software. This system is currently pretty much bare bones.

#dpkg -l shows me gnome-desktop 2.14.3-1, x windows, but I just don't know what to do here. How do I get x windows and the gnome evironment up and running?

#kernelversion shows 2.4. Do I need to upgrade this, or am I ok for now. Installing on a Dell Latitude C610 laptop.

Thanks all...

login and try one of these:

startx
startgdm

and see if that gets you anywhere. if you have a display manager installed, it should start when you type one of those.

Should be Etch, but I can't imagine how you got a 2.4 kernel. Furthermore, an Etch install almost never has the problem with no desktop. Where did you get the Netinstall disk? Did you do an upgrade from Sarge, or a fresh Etch install?

I'd like to know the answer to those two questions b4 advising you on what to do next.

Thanks for replying. I originally got netinst from debian web site. It was 3.1 which is "sarge". I believe this is where I got the 2.4 kernel. I then changed my sources.list and did upgrade. I believe that I'm at etch and not sid. Is there something that I can type that will display "sarge", "etch", or "sid"?

I also did apt-get install gdm. The system now wants to launch gnome, but I'm getting errors. I will try to solve these errors on my own. After this, I plan on upgrading the kernel and then going to sid. I want to get the basics down pat before installing apps. Can you folks direct me to where I would go for basic, baby instructions on upgrading/recompiling the kernel? =^) I should have a 2.6 kernel, right?

Goals:

Basically I want the cube.(very cool) xgl stuff.... =^)

Since you're just starting anyway, I would suggest that you start over. A much better installation plan at this point is to install Etch directly. The conversion from Sarge to Etch tends to break things related to the conversion from XFree86 to Xorg. Furthermore, Etch is much better at picking up your hardware and getting everything installed and working correctly on the first pass through. Using the Netinstall disk will ensure that you get all the newest packages available during the installation, as well.

Once the installation is complete and working, if you're sure you want to upgrade to Sid, simply change all occurrences of "etch" in the /etc/apt/sources.list file to "sid," and do an:

# aptitude update
# aptitude dist-upgrade

Edit: A further thought. While I believe Debian is the best possible distro (the Distro we move to ... not from), you might consider the fact that Suse and Fedora come with XGL pretty well working out of the box, I think. If you're capable of getting it to work on Debian, IMO, you will have a better and more stable system, but it may not be easy.

Thanks rickh...