Debian-newbie questions

[Ilya Palagin]

waltdnes-SLHPyeZ9y/tg9hUCZPvPmw at public.gmane.org wrote:
...
> booted from the rescue floppy and listed off the /boot directory.  There
> I found initrd.img-2.4.18-686 rather than initrd-2.4.18-686.img.  I made
> the appropriate change to lilo.conf and got back to booting.  My
AFAIR, it should offer to create a link to initrd, in this case 
everything is OK.

> remaining issues are...
> 
>   1) The ftp server xanim.va.pubnix.com ia refusing connections (I've
> confirmed this manually).  To install some xanime codecs, dselect wants
> to connect to ftp://xanim.va.pubnix.com/dlls/ and download the files...
> 
> vid_cvid_2.1_linuxELFx86c6.tgz
> vid_cyuv_1.0_linuxELFx86c6.tgz
> vid_h261_1.0_linuxELFx86c6.tgz
> vid_h263_1.1_linuxELFx86c6.tgz
> vid_iv32_2.1_linuxELFx86c6.tgz
> vid_iv41_1.1_linuxELFx86c6.tgz
> vid_iv50_1.0_linuxELFx86c6.tgz
> 
> Does anybody know of alternate sources?
I don't. Do you need xanim to watch video? If so, it's better to use 
xine or mplayer. Go to http://www.apt-get.org (one of the most wonderful 
Debian resources :-)) and search for these apps, look for "stable" 
packages, note the "deb" line for your /etc/apt/source.list in the 
search results. Don't forget to execute `apt-get update` after adding 
this line, then just apt-get mplayer or xine.

> 
>   2) My 433 and 450 mhz machines are underpowered for GNOME/KDE.  What
> I've done with Redhat was to install GNOME+KDE, but switch to FVWM for a
> window manager.  It runs the GNOME+KDE *APPLICATIONS* just fine, without
> the overhead of a GNOME/KDE *DESKTOP*.  I've got two questions here...
>   a) I've somehow ended up logging into X on bootup.  KDE base *DEMANDS*
> gdm, so my question is how do I turn off gdm without removing it
> altogether.  I've tried using update-rc.d, but I've gotten nowhere.  I
> suppose I could manually remove /etc/rc2.d/S99gdm or rename it to K99gdm.
> But will that foul up anything else ?
It's not recommended to modify /etc/rc* manually. Just execute:

$update-rc.d -f gdm remove
$update-rc.d -f kdm remove
$update-rc.d -f xdm remove

Also, check /etc/inittab for default runlevel:
# The default runlevel.
id:2:initdefault:


>   b) I've installed FVWM.  I can't find switchdesk, which does the
> config setup to switch from GNOME to KDE or FVWM or whatever.  How do I
> do this in Debian.
There are wmanager and selectwm instead of switchdesk.

> 
>   3) What is the Debian equivalant to /etc/rc.local
> 
> 
Put your custom startup scripts into /etc/init.d and create symlinks in 
/etc/rcS.d, there is README for details. If you prefer, you may create 
/etc/init.d/rc.local and softlink it with /etc/rcS.d/S61rc.local.

Also, if you're going to use rc.local just for hdparm, setserial, etc, 
you don't need rc.local.  Instead, install hwtools and edit 
/etc/init.d/hwtools


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