I don't know what's going on with my software. I am running Debian 3.1 with 2.4. I have tried installing "desktop environment" thru "tasksel" on my pc because my Gnome interface is completely messed up after I have updated through apt-get update to install a KDE application. (I even have KDE 3.4 installed on my pc).

I am getting confused about the "tasksel" applications activity in Debian! What I think is it is a program to install/uninstall/upgrade Debian packages isn't it? Am I right? If thats the case then when I type in "tasksel" at command console, I can see the blue screen which shows me to select the packages/applications which I want to install. If i select a package suppose "dnsserver" instead of installing 'dnsserver' it removes some other applications like "cups"!!!! What's going on????

I have selected "desktop environment"-In fact I have already got KDE & Gnome running but as I said before my Gnome is stuffed up. I can't even open my Synaptic anymore and even at command console when I type in "su" to login as root & enter password-it logs in as root but I get these crazy messages :
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configuration error - unknown item 'QUOTAS_ENAB' (notify administrator)
configuration error - unknown item 'NOLOGIN_STR' (notify administrator)
configuration error - unknown item 'ENV_HZ' (notify administrator)
configuration error - unknown item 'PASS_MAX_LEN' (notify administrator)
configuration error - unknown item 'CHFN_AUTH' (notify administrator)
configuration error - unknown item 'CLOSE_SESSIONS' (notify administrator)
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How to reinstall the whole the Debian system without losing my data? Is there any way I can reconfigure or repair the whole debian packages?? Because I got heaps of useful programs installed on my pc. If I reinstall Debian from scratch whats the point??? That is not a good linux feature, isn't it??

I also have this strange DNS problem. I can access internet without any problem but when I "apt-get update" it looks for 1.0.0.0 IP address...when I look into my /etc/apt/sources.list everything is normal. Even my /etc/resolv.conf is normal. Basically it is struggling to resolve the URL's in /etc/sources.list !!! So, what I do is I am typing in:
echo -e "nameserver 4.2.2.1\nnameserver 168.126.63.1\n" >/etc/resolv.conf .

In fact, this is what my /etc/resolv.conf has :
nameserver 4.2.2.1
nameserver 168.126.63.1

QUICK HELP WILL BE GREATELY REGARDED