Re: HOWTO configure Debian Woody

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Date: Wed, 3 Dec 2003 02:50:57 -0700
To: debian-user@lists.debian.org

Roger Chrisman wrote:
> Googling my topic, I find,

I read your followup and know that you have solved this problem
already. (In fact I am quite impressed with your ability to dig into
the problems you have encountered and resolve them. Very good!) But
I wanted to comment anyway and hopefully this will be useful
information.

> http://www.maenad.net/geek/di8k-debian/node5.html
> "The way to reconfigure the X-server is by using dpkg (what else?). Do:
> dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xfree86
> to reconfigure X. It's best just to change one parameter at a time, so
> you can see what's working and what's not. "
>
> Is that good advice?

Yes. That advice to use 'dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xfree86' is fine
advice. But I don't know about changing only one thing at a time.
How can you do that if it is the first time?

Here is a hint that would have saved me frustration previously. The
framebuffer support question is early but you don't know until much
later if it works. Therefore unless I know the driver supports it I
usually say no there. Then after I have things working I try the
driver with framebuffer with that as the only change. Then if it does
not work I know it does not. The "nv" driver does not support
framebuffer for example.

> Here's what I get when I try:
> p3a:/home/roger# dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xfree86
> /usr/sbin/dpkg-reconfigure: xserver-xfree86 is not fully installed

If I were in that situation I would look at the status by using these
two commands. Normally for the first you would see "ii" in the first
column. If not you can see that it needs something.

  dpkg -l xserver-xfree86
  ii xserver-xfree8 4.1.0-16woody1 the XFree86 X server

  dpkg --status xserver-xfree86 | grep Status:
  Status: install ok installed

The second part shows you much detail. The status is the only part I
wanted to see at this moment. This is where the "ii" comes from. But
in long form you get more detail such as unpacked, half-installed,
etc. as documented in 'man dpkg'.

In this case since you did not get xserver-xfree86 configured the
first time it was probably left in the half-configured state. It
would probably have needed to get configured for the first time. I am
guessing that is what blocked your ability to "reconfigure" it.

Sometimes apt will get confused during a complicated installation.
This drifts a little but is good to know and is related. IIRC it will
abort after 50 errors. A single package could be in a bad state and
cause an error for another package. This will repeat and eventually
apt will give up. Just recall the command and run it again. This
will make more progress and may eventually hit the 50 errors and
abort. Repeat until you get everything installed except for whatever
is causing the trouble. Or it might not be a problem later because a
circular dependency finally resolved. The cxlist package I think that
a problem in woody which was one trigger for this type of problem.
But in general you will eventually get down to the real problem.

Depending upon things I might run either of these commands.

  apt-get install -f

  dpkg --configure -a

or target xserver-xfree86 specifically

  dpkg --configure xserver-xfree86

Usually the first is a good thing to run to fix problems if something
gets interrupted right in the middle of something. The second is a
lower level command. When in doubt just run 'apt-get install -f'.

For X11 some people like to not use the Debian postinst debconf
scripts to configure and manage but to instead use the X11 program
'xf86config' instead. I never cared for that myself and prefered
writing one by hand.

A lot of people really like booting KNOPPIX and letting it autoprobe
and create an XF85Config-4 file automatically. Then putting it into
place manually. This works quite well and I like it much better than
the xf86config method. It is a personal preference. I use it mainly
to see what parameters are used then will feed those back into debconf
later. Which is another personal preference.

Remember that debconf has an option to let it manage your config file
for you. It is the very first question that will be asked. Run
'dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xfree86' and check the setting. If you have
modified your config file by hand or by xf86config or by copying the
knoppix version over then you need to make sure you answer the
question "No" or later at a future package upgrade it will overwrite
your file because you told it to. Say "No" to tell it not to touch
the file ever again.

Conversely there are advantages to having debconf manage the file. If
you have configured your server this way then updates are pretty much
automatic and seamless. I usually say "Yes" when I have a simple
configuration and can set it up that way but I say "No" if, for
example, I have a dual monitor setup which it can't configure itself.
Certainly if you have manually modified the file later you need to go
back and set the debconf configuration to "No".

The entire issue of using debconf to manage configuration files is an
often debated one. Really it is a bad thing. But for X it has been
given a waiver until various issues can be worked out. So don't take
this particular example as being a good example. It is more in the
tolerated space and is much hoped to be improved at some point in the
future. It all just takes time and effort.

Hope this helps,
Bob

P.S. s/apt-get/aptitude/g to keep the noise about which is better to a
minimum.

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