Progress! Ha!
For those of you who are planning to install Linux and have no idea what you're doing (like me) I do not recommend the lovely shrink-wrapped version of Debian. It's nice in that it comes with a copy of O'Reilly's "Learning Debian GNU Linux" right in the box. But what's not nice is that both the installation docs and the book (or maybe it's the CD itself) are wrong, Wrong, WRONG. I've already come to a few places where I'm told to select an option that doesn't exist at all. (installing the dummy network driver module for instance... that option doesn't exist)
It begins by assuming that you are installing Linux to a drive that already has Windows running on it. It tells you how to partition off space for Linux. This goes through just fine, but when you get to the part of the installation procedure where it wants you to make a swap partition.... oops! Now it assumes you are installing to a brand new drive and totally forgets about that Windows partitioning thing. The option to make a new partition on the "Free Space" on your drive doesn't exist because the program doesn't see the new partition you made as free space. It sees it as already in use because it's got a Win95 or 98 FAT system on it already.
Once I saw what was going on I worked around that, but so much for documentation. And I haven't yet been able to figure out how to get and install that dummy network driver module that didn't exist as an option when I was told to install various driver modules. []/w3timages/icons/tongue.gif[/] And then when all's said and done, I can't make X work. It loads. I get a background and a cursor, and then nothing. I can't move the mouse, and I can't send any keyboard commands as far as I can tell (other than the command to close out of X). Unfortuanately, no error messages. I don't know whether it's failing to load the appropriate window manager or what. I did have it at one point running my login right through X, and I could put in my username and password... but then again, as soon as that was through I'd just get the cursor and the blank screen and nothing. And then I couldn't exit out of X to just the command line. Trying to exit would just ask me to login again.
Fun for the whole family!
Phoenix
