Debian will either make me or break me

[CrashTestDummy9]

I havent been this frustrated at my computer in a LONG time .

I installed Debian 3.0r0 with the 2.4 kernel and everything went fine until post install configuration . It gets to Locales Configuration and I cant proceed any farther . Return doesnt work and I cant toggle to <Ok> . Am I just stupid ?

I can get into my system as root or my normal user . eth0 is up and running and I'd like to "see" what Debian looks like , but im stuck .

Any suggestions ?

I used Disk1 and Disk5 for install .

[CrashTestDummy9]

I guess not

[CrashTestDummy9]

.

[CrashTestDummy9]

You may find this irritating but im bumping this up to the latest thread section . Over 30 views and not a comment yet . I'll patiently wait .

[razor_01]

Just so you know, I viewed your thread but I have not ever used Debian so I don't know about your post install problem.

[sharth]

hmm... You got me :)

Did you verify the md5sums of the iso images?

You might have a broken ncurses... hmm... By post-install you are refering to after the reboot section...

try doing an alt-f2, logging in as root, and running dselect. filter out what programs you don't want and see if that helps at all...

I've never had this problem (or installed lately) so I really have no clue.

back to the psychology paper....

[CrashTestDummy9]

Originally posted by sharth
hmm... You got me :)

Did you verify the md5sums of the iso images?

You might have a broken ncurses... hmm... By post-install you are refering to after the reboot section...

try doing an alt-f2, logging in as root, and running dselect. filter out what programs you don't want and see if that helps at all...

I've never had this problem (or installed lately) so I really have no clue.

back to the psychology paper.... Actually I wiped that install and did an ftp install but still have the same problem . It happens after the first reboot . Debian configuration is at the top of the screen and its stuck on configure locales . When I log in as root and try to run dselect or nearly anything for that matter it says that program is already in use (or something like that) . Thanks for your replies . It keeps this thread alive until somebody who has or better yet "had" the same problem , sees it .

[knute]

How many Locales did you choose?

I only have like 2 that I've chosen, and it takes a couple of minutes to generate them -- course my system is only a 300mhz, so that may be some small comfort.

Though you should see what locale is currently being generated, though.

[CrashTestDummy9]

Originally posted by knute
How many Locales did you choose?

I only have like 2 that I've chosen, and it takes a couple of minutes to generate them -- course my system is only a 300mhz, so that may be some small comfort.

Though you should see what locale is currently being generated, though. I only chose 1 and when I hit enter nothing happens . Ive got a 1.4ghz machine with 512mb of RAM . There is no way to toggle to <OK> . It just sits there like a bump on a log .

[Wallex]

I don't have the answer, but I hope you have considered external sources of help? I went to Debian's site and you could subscribe to the mailing lists or try a site called debianHELP. LNO does not holds the answer for all issues... and it's more likely to get help from a place with pure Debian users, is it not?
When I finally get to install Gentoo, I might as well pack up and move on to Gentoo's forums as I've peeked the place already. Those guys recompile their kernel a hundred times looking for the flags that will give them optimal performance. Yeah I wanna do that too someday...

[sharth]

try tab and then enter.

I think i know what we are talking about now. try picking no locales. just hit tab and then enter. (i think ncurses isin't being nice to you.)

hmm... or we could try something else.... try below if that doesn't work (this is off the top of my head)

I'm thinking that you could try and get away from using ncurses but I can't remember the package that controls which thing debconf (but it may be debconf... checking... IT IS! woop woop. :D)

kill dselect. kill the locales chooser. kill it all :) if you have to. hit crtl-z and then do the ps kill. whatever. then do this dpkg-reconfigure debconf. but that requires you to use ncurses...

I'm gonna keep looking around, see if i can find something that will let you change it without unlocking it. (because i've forgotten how to unlock it. hehe)

[sharth]

hmm.... I can't find a way to change debconf from a config file. can't find it.... hmm

GOT IT!!!!!

dpkg-reconfigure debconf -f readline

choose readline as the method.

then do a dpkg-reconfigure locales

NO MORE NCURSES!!! YAY!

[CrashTestDummy9]

Had to run and get the wife from work . Thanks for the suggestions Sharth . Im gonna write this down and go try it right quick .

[CrashTestDummy9]

Ok heres an update . Im posting this reply from Debian Woody 3.0r0 but im posting from Lynx .
X wont start although I see the KDE screen come up for about 5 seconds .
At least im able to do something with it .
The rest will take patience I guess .
Thanks for all your replies and thanks for the tips Sharth . I wont forget it .

<edit> X starts but it crashes . Just wanted to clarify that .

[CrashTestDummy9]

Another update . I got tired of messing with Debian so I shutdown and booted into WinXP for a while . I decided to crank up Debian and give it another go and WamBam thankyou maam , im posting from Mozilla in Gnome 1.4 . Cool , guess I just needed to reboot . "But it didnt tell me I needed to reboot" he said in a noobie Windows numbed voice .

Thanks again for your help Sharth and everybody .

[Wallex]

Well as far as I know pretty much nothing requires you to reboot to take effect (perhaps maybe doing something so low-level like recompiling your kernel?). And I am pretty certain normally you don't have to reboot to make KDE work after installed.. but then again, I guess the real error was buried too deep within to be found easily, and the start-up scripts managed to fix it for you. Well... whatever, good thing you finally got Debian running. Enjoy the power of apt-get.

[sharth]

Might have been some init script that didn't run.

[CrashTestDummy9]

Originally posted by sharth
Might have been some init script that didn't run. It might have been . KDE still crashes X but Gnome runs fine and I can launch some KDE apps from Gnome including control center . It gives something to work on . I may even do another install of Sarge if I can figure out how LOL . I wanna play with this thing though as I suspect im going to learn more about Linux by messing with Debian for 2 weeks than I did by using RH and MDK for 2 months . Im looking forward to it .

[SubWing]

Based on my experience, using Debian helps me to learn more about linux in about a week then Red Hat nor Mandrake in a month.
If you want to try sarge, vi /etc/apt/sources.list and change the 'stable' to unstable.

#apt-get update
#apt-get dist-upgrade

[sharth]

enjoy debian :)

Personally, I've run blackbox forever and I've never had any problems with it.

apt-get update && apt-get upgrade

that will update your system completly (only what you have installed of course). very nice stuff there :)

[bosox79]

Originally posted by CrashTestDummy9
I havent been this frustrated at my computer in a LONG time .

I installed Debian 3.0r0 with the 2.4 kernel and everything went fine until post install configuration . It gets to Locales Configuration and I cant proceed any farther . Return doesnt work and I cant toggle to <Ok> . Am I just stupid ?

I can get into my system as root or my normal user . eth0 is up and running and I'd like to "see" what Debian looks like , but im stuck .

Any suggestions ?

I used Disk1 and Disk5 for install .

I am having the exact same problem!

any help would be great where are all the debian gurus? :)

let me know if you are able to find a work aound, thanks

[sharth]

I don't know if any of my solutions that I posted worked, but if all else fails, do the command I gave to change weather or not ncurses is being used from an ssh access or something.

[CrashTestDummy9]

Your suggestions opened my mind Sharth . I actually just rebooted and did apt-get update until all the packages were installed . For some reason The packages didnt unpack and setup until I did apt-get update about 3 times .

[sharth]

hmm... heres why (unless you did a typing mistake.)

apt-get update updates the database. apt-get upgrade updates installed packages.

give aptitude or dselect a try. nice little programs :)

[bosox79]

Originally posted by sharth
I don't know if any of my solutions that I posted worked, but if all else fails, do the command I gave to change weather or not ncurses is being used from an ssh access or something.

Thanks for all the help alt tab did the trick

I was able to get debian installed but I am having issues with my xfree86 config my mouse does not work & when I try startx I get an input error 104 & I have no gui ( I have also tried using statx via root but I get the same error.) I am also unable to use the xfree86 config tool with my keypad to config my mouse I am unable to add I new mouse after I drill down on the mouse config menu I am unable to selct install new device.
if anyone has any suggustions I would love to hear them. :)
I think I am going to give Knoppix a try since it is debian based & I can still use apt-get I hear Knopixx has much better hardware dectition & supports newer hardware then debian it's self. I ca'nt wait untill the desktop based distro of debian gets rolling. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2002/debian-devel-200210/msg01471.html

Thanks again for all the great help :)

[sharth]

Right there inthe signiture. I was about to yell at you for not including mouse type :)

So, we are talking about a usb mouse. Well, if we are using one of them nice stock kernels. try an insmod mousedev and an insmod usbcore and an insmod usb-uhci (or just uhci) and an insmod usb-hid (or just hid) and some other stuff.

Basically, try this. make a character device at major node 13 minor node 63. (should be already found at /dev/input/mice).

cat that file and then move your mouse all around. if you get output you are good. If not, then try a kernel rebuild, and make sure you give yourself usb support, input layer support, uhci support, and mouse support.

then do XF86Config and reconfigure the file to access /dev/input/mice as whatever kind of mouse it is (might be imps/2. thats what it is for my ms 3 button opt wheel mouse)

[bosox79]

Originally posted by sharth
Right there inthe signiture. I was about to yell at you for not including mouse type :)

So, we are talking about a usb mouse. Well, if we are using one of them nice stock kernels. try an insmod mousedev and an insmod usbcore and an insmod usb-uhci (or just uhci) and an insmod usb-hid (or just hid) and some other stuff.

Basically, try this. make a character device at major node 13 minor node 63. (should be already found at /dev/input/mice).

cat that file and then move your mouse all around. if you get output you are good. If not, then try a kernel rebuild, and make sure you give yourself usb support, input layer support, uhci support, and mouse support.

then do XF86Config and reconfigure the file to access /dev/input/mice as whatever kind of mouse it is (might be imps/2. thats what it is for my ms 3 button opt wheel mouse)

Thanks for all of your great info & help I will give that I try. I am also going to try downloading & using the pgi-woody installer from http://gd.tuwien.ac.at/opsys/linux/progeny/pgi/

Thanks again sharth :)