First round of questions (Debian & KDE)

[Chupacabra151]

Hi, total noob here. Long time Windows user finally trying the walk on the Linux side. Love it so far, I'm a programmer at heart. Here is my first round of questions:

I installed KDE and tried it, but I'd like to try GNOME, since I understand KDE is shady about some proprietary components. How can I query apt to find which packages I have installed (so I can remove KDE components and install GNOME)? Is this the right procedure, or can somebody suggest a better procedure?

I'm not so sure I understand how to set up the boot to default to graphical instead of terminal. Any tips?

I'm also not sure how I would go about switching my display driver? I have a Radeon 8500 and I haven't been able to set the screen res greater than 800x600 (I tried adding some lines to the /etc/X11/X86Config-4 file with no avail. I believe my installation defaulted to an old ATI display driver. Do I need to recompile the kernel, or can I actually upgrade this display driver?

I'll stop there for now. Feel free to "throw me a friggin bone here" or redirect to other forums as necessary.

[daark.child]

I am not sure I get what you mean by "KDE is shady about some proprietary components". KDE is completely opensource and is built using completely opensource tools, just like GNOME, XFCE etc, so your statement is a bit baffling.

To install GNOME, do something like

#apt-get install gnome-desktop-environment

To completely remove KDE and its config files, try

#apt-get remove --purge kde

To reconfigure you card, do

#dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg

To start in GUI mode, you need to have a login manager such as GDM or KDM installed and do something like

#update-rc.d -f gdm defaults

[jens]

I am not sure I get what you mean by "KDE is shady about some proprietary components". KDE is completely opensource and is built using completely opensource tools, just like GNOME, XFCE etc, so your statement is a bit baffling.

I assume he means the commercial QT license.
You're not allowed to use the Free QT License for professional non-free software

GTK uses the LGPL license.
QT uses the GPL for free software but demands a commercial one for non-free software.

Others still dislike KDE for using QT when it was still completely non-free (forgiven but not forgotten).

IMHO, the main difference is that GTK will work (with less costs) for a larger developers base (one person projects usually don't have the money to start with QT).
None of this matters for Free Software development though...

[Zelmo]

I'm going to recommend you don't remove KDE when you install Gnome, unless you're really hurting for disk space. They can coexist just fine, and you can pick which one to use at the login screen.

As for booting into GUI, having KDM, GDM, or XDM installed should take care of that for you. If you already have one of those installed and it's still booting to CLI mode, check your /etc/inittab file to see what the default runlevel is (it'll be in or around the fourth line of the file). Make sure the number is not 1; it should probably be 2, but could also be any of 3 through 5 in Debian. (The fifth block of text in /etc/inittab tells what the different runlevels are. You want to use one of the multi-user levels.)

If the inittab is right and it still doesn't boot into a GUI, run this:

dpkg-reconfigure xdm

That will let you pick which DM to use, and it should set up the appropriate files so that you start in graphical mode when you boot (assuming the default runlevel is a graphical one).

[Chupacabra151]

I assume he means the commercial QT license.
You're not allowed to use the Free QT License for professional non-free software

GTK uses the LGPL license.
QT uses the GPL for free software but demands a commercial one for non-free software.

Others still dislike KDE for using QT when it was still completely non-free (forgiven but not forgotten).

IMHO, the main difference is that GTK will work (with less costs) for a larger developers base (one person projects usually don't have the money to start with QT).
None of this matters for Free Software development though...

That's it. That's the issue I referred to. I read someone's opinion on it and he/she paralleled it with Redhat's track record. Sorry if the phrase "proprietary component" was misleading.

As for Zelmo's advice, I do think I'll keep KDE a little longer and work with GNOME. But my system did NOT setup a desktop, or even X Window system. I had to hook that in manually.

I'll take a look at everyone's comments and come back later with more questions. Thanks a lot guys.