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Re: [LUG] A Debian diary



On Monday 15 November 2004 6:58 pm, Tony Sumner wrote:
From: Neil Williams <linux@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>

By the sounds of it, one thing I neglected to mention was that the entire
Package List is always available on Debian:
$ apt-cache search xserver

That is true but it assumes you know what to look for.

Not necessarily. It will search the package descriptions as well. Search for 
'mail' and the screen scrolls passed again and again. Add a second search 
term and you can get a more refined search - like a boolean AND on other 
search engines like Google.
apt-cache search mail kde
brings up a much smaller list of packages that have descriptions that contain 
both 'mail' and 'KDE'.

Once you have the package name from a search list, apt-cache show will give a 
lot more detail: apt-cache show gnupg - shows package sizes, maintainer 
details, the full package description, dependencies, conflicts, version, even 
the md5sum.

Partnering apt-cache search with apt-cache show and grep can make for 
extremely productive searches.

Maybe it is too difficult to install at home and you have to go to an
install-fest.

Not true, thankfully.

My first port of call in ALL such situations is Knoppix. If Knoppix
works, Debian will work, it's all down to the config. With a working
Knoppix XF86Config, you're half-way home.

Only halfway :-)?

Yes, because you still have to transfer the relevant X settings to the other 
installation - you can't usually copy the entire file.

But what sort of XF86Config problem would cause the 
keyboard to go into a coma?

The kind of keyboard is defined in XF86Config - 101key, 105key etc. Check that 
first. Backup your existing XF86Config (or XF86Config-4) and then run 
xf86config as root. One of the first questions is keyboard details. You can 
fluff the rest of it, just let it save the final file and compare the 
keyboard settings. xf86config gets into all kinds of details of refresh rates 
and sync rates of monitors and unless you know these, it can be more 
confusing than it is worth. Just use it to help solve this keyboard problem 
for now.

Is it a USB keyboard? Wireless?

More detail is required to fix that kind of problem. Google is your friend, 
put in the model number/type of the keyboard and Debian.

If it's ordinary PS/2, check the keyboard language.

-- 

Neil Williams
=============
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