Debian & X

[saintNiX]

I spent some hours yesterday attempting to install Debian 2.2r5. Actually, it installed fine (several times) except for one problem. At a certain point in the install, it autodetects the graphics card and attempts to start X, using XFree 3.3.6. Unfortunately, XFree 3.3.6 has no driver for the Nividia cards and the system ended up in a loop, starting X, then showing errors, starting X, then showing errors, etc.

No problem, I thought, as I removed the NVidia card, in an attempt to use the on board graphics card, which is a SIS630. The exact same thing happened again, with Debian going into a loop attempting to start X, then showing errors. I think both cards are actually supported as PCI cards in X on Debian, but not as AGP, although, I am not sure.

No problem I thought. I have never run Debian, but have read enough to know some of the basics (which is why I really, really want to run Debian.)
So I attempted an install again, this time, skipping XFree configuration, editing apt-sources to unstable, and then doing apt-get dist-upgrade to get XFree 4.1.0. This produced another and different problem. The system showed that there was no X-server installed. So I have to pick one and install it. The question is how??? (And please don't tell me dselect. I have no idea what masochist coded that app.)

Additionally, is there any way in the install process, to mount my /home partition, without having it be formatted? hda 5 is the root partition, being 8.9G in size, but I would really like to be able to mount /home, hda7, without formatting, as I have done in various versions of Redhat & Mandrake for the past couple of years.

Any help will be greatly appreciated, as apt-get is truly the absolute BOMB of Linux apps and I REALLY would like to have that convenience, and no, apt on rpm (alein) would not be enough to satisfy.

[pbharris]

hello,
i grabed off the self installing binaies from www.xfree86.org when i did my deian 2.2 box and my nvidia card, although the generic driver with xfree86 3.3.6 worked for most stuff. i think you need to specify whuch xserver to install if using apt, xserver-svga should work - the list of xserver packages here:

http://packages.debian.org/stable/x11/


i never format my /home partiton - if it isntalls w/o aking where home just make sure you don't format that partion and then edit /etc/fstab to show that home is at /dev/hda5

hth

[imported_Psycho]

In order to make x work with my nVidia card with the nv driver that comes in release 4.whatever I had to change the usebfdev option in the driver section of XF86Config-4 to false.

It quit griping about no screens then. I have been putting off getting the accelerated drivers going, I just know in the 'ole bones it's going to be a pain... I did spot something about apt-get source -b (build) package in the debian-users list, and I spotted the NVIDIA_kernel... and GLX... sources when browsing the packages. Life keeps getting in the way or I would have tried it today, maybe later tonight

Another note about Woody if you're going to use KDE KMail. It's broken, it would claim to be preparing transmission from <isp> and never come back. I changed the sources from woody to sid and apt-got installed kmail again. It picked up a few network related packages as well. I don't know what precisely was broken, but that fixed it.

It's a tad different, but I'm going to like it. Just need to take the time to get the picky stuff working, printer at the moment. I had to boot back to RH to print some near photo quality pictures for my daughters science fair thing this afternoon. It just wasn't going to happen with Debian in the required time frame

apt-get rocks ;D

<edit>
Doh!! After apt-get install on the nvidia-kernel-src, and nvidia-glx-src the instructions are in /usr/share/doc/nvidia ... Dummy here had to go search debianhelp.org to discover that :-[

kernel-source-2.4.17-1 is finally on the way now, dialup sucks...
</edit>

PRobably way too late on this one but in order to get all the necessary X window stuff with one command use:

apt-get install x-window-system

This will download the fonts, the server, the common files, and so forth. The "nv" driver will work fine until you install the nVIDIA drivers, which I would recommend. As mentioned earlier, you will have to download and compile them from the nVIDIA sight. Don't forget to recompile your kernel before you try and install.

[ASCI_Blue]

I had the same problem in my Deb install, hardware that was too new. I installed Debian without X then used apt-get to get it as Sarah said.