why my first time experience with debian is bad!!!!!

[rituraj.goswami]

ok, i'm sorry for writing that but i'm a die hard Red Hat fan, nor fedora i mean Red hat Enterprise Linux Server. trust me i downloaded a .deb file and i i installed it and it told meto run apt- some thing and it deleted my whole gnome desktop. trust me when i rebooted i only got was a x server crash. i didn't knoew debain would crach coz of inbstalling one rpm.

[Mulenmar]

Um...you said first that you installed a .deb file, and then you said it was an .rpm??

Debian uses the apt-get manager, which 1) Uses .deb files and 2) Is supposed to tell you what packages are going to be removed, added, or upgraded.

You are using the latest version (Lenny) right?? Stupid question, probably...

You could try

sudo apt-get install gnome-desktop

to get all your gnome stuff back.

[jledhead]

like said above, debian uses apt, apt can be compared to yum, except that yum repositories general only contain 6-7k packages to install, where debain apt repos can generally install over 20,000 packages. so usually for debian you don't want to download an individual deb file to install like you would in redhat. in debian you would do

apt-get install some_package_name

and apt would install any additional dependencies and install your software. so the feature that makes debian so great was what you missed and made your experience a bad one.

man apt
or
APT HOWTO

[saivin]

Um...you said first that you installed a .deb file, and then you said it was an .rpm??

Hey, he has already confessed that he is a 'die hard' Redhat fan.. he so deep into it that he always thinks of it..he so 'rpm'ish...

Well, rituraj, it would help, if you let us know what you tried to install, what exactly you typed... also apt-get is unlike gentoo's 'emerge'. It gives information as to what is being installed/deleted/upgraded, any dependencies...etc and then asks your permission before proceeding. If something bad has happened then it means you did not fully read the info apt gave...

P.S: the above comment is written in lighter vein...

[rituraj.goswami]

exactly i tried installing the gnome esktop but it won't allow me.

[jledhead]

exactly i tried installing the gnome esktop but it won't allow me.

what commands did you use and what was the output

[Mulenmar]

exactly i tried installing the gnome esktop but it won't allow me.

Did you have root privileges? You need to use

sudo apt-get install packages

Where packages is whatever you want to install. You'll be asked for your password, and it'll go from there.

If you selected "Allow root login" during the Debian setup, you'll probably have to use su instead of sudo, and root's password instead of your user account's.

[garnetty]

Yes,you can use like that:

apt-get install gnome-desktop , the desktop enviroment can be return........

[oz]

why my first time experience with debian is bad!!!!!

The package manager in Debian is one of those things that most folks like best about it. I haven't used Debian in about 4 years now, but it worked quite well on my end the last time that I installed it. People that intend to run Debian should take some extra time to study the apt manual because understanding how apt works can certainly increase the pleasure of using the distribution. I personally like apt far better than yum, yast, urpmi, and many other miscellaneous package tools that I've used.

[Hal343]

I'll second that opinion. I used to use .rpm based distros, but agfter trying my first .deb based one, I now run 5-all deb-based.