Hi. I am not a very new newbie but then I still looked lost in Debian Sarge 3.1. My first installation of Debian 3.1 Sarge was on a quite new AMD-Athlon XP 2.4Ghz PC with 768 Mb RAM and on a 40 Gb HD (I had Win XP on another 200 Gb HD; so it's a dual boot). The installation went very well except for the video card. So initially, X-Window failed to start but when I specify the correct video card, it started well. The welcome screen was beautiful (with sunflower picture) and everything went fine and looked great. That was a year ago. Half a year later, the PC got some hardware problem and I lost one IDE slot functionality and I got myself a RAID card and the PC is up again running (HD connected to RAID card).
But that's Win XP. For Debian, well, it failed to start and got stucked at the boot up (I think it's due to change in hardware). I was advised to access a certain file and change it's configuration but I could not accessed the HD so I can't change the config. So the HD was reformatted and use for other purposed. That was then.

Now, I tried to install Debian Sarge 3.1 on an older PC,
AMD Duron 233 MHz with 128 Mb RAM and a 3Gb HD. I find the installation very different. I am not sure what happened? After installation, it was only the login prompt. When I login, it's still stays with the prompt.
Obviously, it's installing only the barebone Debian.
So the installation website at aboutdebian.com advised to type " apt-get install x-window-system". When I did that, it installed the x-window. However, the x-window installed is a total far different from the one I got at the newer PC. The x-windows for the older PC looked like a 256 colour resolution (I selected 24 bit colour) and with green menu, etc. Can anyone tell what has happened?

Is it possible to install X-window Debian Sarge 3.1 during the first time (after partitioning) without through the prompt?

How did I get that earlier x-window which is so pleasant and stylish on the older PC? The older PC is also a dual-boot with Win XP installed at another HD attached?

I think I made a few mistakes during the prompt setup of x-win particularly the keyboard in which I specified pc102 which is supposed to be pc105. I am not sure 24 bit is overkilled, if so I may have to go for 16 bit. Any advice on how to edit and change this settings?

Thank you.

You can run 'dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xfree86' to go thru the X configuration again

Hi. Thanks for the reply. I will try that. It seemed that the x-window that I got is TWM. What's TWM? I don't know how I get TWM. I intend to repartition and reinstall again. Is there anyway I can select other type of X-Window? How many types are there?

Sorry. I mean I need help to setup my x-window to be KDE not twm.

I would do (from a command prompt without X windows running)

Followed by

One word of warning - sarge is the super stable, rarely updated more or less intended for servers build of debian. It is fine to use on the desktop if you want to, but you will find that most all of the software in the repositories for it is 18+ months old. If this is a desktop machine, you may much prefer testing or unstable. You don't need to reinstall to make that change, just change the sources.lst file from stable to unstable or testing, then apt-get update followed by apt-get dist-upgrade, and you'll have the testing or unstable box. I use sarge on every server at work (all without x-windows), but I use unstable on my laptop and at home, as it takes a LLLOOOOONNNNNNNNGGGGGGGGGG time to get current software into stable.

Peace,
JimBass

Thanks JimBass. I have tried your method but got into trouble as it does not have enough disk space (HD 3Gb). Then I found out, autopartitioning using the CDs set the primary partition to 1Gb only, another partition to swap and the rest to logical partition. I had fiddled with the partitioning manual and partition the entire HD to 1 partition. Now after installation (I selected desktop environment) and it provided me the KDE and GNOME options.

How do I change the sources.lst file from stable to unstable or testing (then apt-get update followed by apt-get dist-upgrade, and you'll have the testing or unstable box)?

Another thing is my system had no sound. It had a sound icon at up right corner but I can't turn it on (it's set as lowest volume/no volume). When I tried to go to preference (sound), it has no channel and when open volume control, it says no sound mixer. Is it a driver problem? The PC is using ESS sound card.

Finally, I had a flatbed scanner connected to the USB port but I do not know which software can be used or whether the scanner is installed or not?

Yes, to make your box testing or unstable, you just open /etc/apt/sources.lst with whatever text editor you use (vim and emacs are the most popular, joe, kate, and pico are easy starter editors) and everywhere you see stable in sources.lst, change it to testing or unstable. If you go all the way to unstable, you don't need the security repository, as there is no security updates for unstable. Testing has some security updates, and stable has a ton of them. After you edit it, just do the apt-get update followed by apt-get dist-upgrade.

For configuring sound, follow this posting which is stickied on the debian forum: http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...d.php?t=224547

To see if your scanner will function in linux and if you need drivers for it, look it up at this site: http://www.sane-project.org/

Peace,
JimBass

Thanks for the reply JimBass. I have solved the sound problem using alsaconf as I could not find sndconfig. However, whenever my PC starts up, the sound is set at the lowest volume (mute), is there a way to set it to previous used level? I also noted macondo about firestarter firewall but this firewall only starts when I runs it after login in. Though I have tried to set the preference to start firewall on program startup, on dial up and on DHCP lease renewal, it still would not automatically start when I login.

Finally, I failed in trying to set up the scanner. I went to sane and update my source.list and get install everything with xsane and sane. However, it did not work. I used xsane but it says scanner not detected.
My scanner is Mustek 1200UB which is USB flat bed scanner but it gets the power supply from the usb port. This scanner is listed in sane but somehow I noticed there is no power supply (power is not on) when I run the Gimp scanning. I did a scanimage -L and it said "found USB scanner (vendor=0x055f, product=0x0006, chip=MA-1017?) at libusb:004:005".
Somehow, it still did not work. I hope someone can help.

I have one issue I did not raise and that is on dual boot. I used GRUB and I can choose Debian or Win XP but when I choose Win XP, it hangs. When I chose Debian, well it's Debian (note that I have set the CMOS boot sequence C, SCSI, A). My 3Gb HD that holds Debian is connected to mobo while the 40Gb HD that holds Win XP is connected to PCI IDE ATA-66 card. The CMOS consider ATA-66 card as scsi though it's an IDE. When I changed the boot sequence to SCSI,C,A then Win XP will start without the boot option i.e. I cannot access Debian. There are other sequence which is also causing Debian to start (boot option will be available but will hang if WinXP is selected) i.e. CDROM, C, SCSI or A,C, CDROM, etc. Win XP will start if SCSI is in front in othe rboot sequence.