Re: XFree86 & dselect questions
On Sat, 27 Mar 1999, Lev Lvovsky wrote:
> I'm new to the Debian distro, and relatively new to Linux in general (was
> using Red Hat until its security issues began to bother me). Go easy on
> me :)
>
> several questions:
>
> 1. I can only run 'xinit' or 'startx' as root, running it from my regular
> acct says that I don't have permissions to use it. Any suggestions? I'm
> using xf86config to set it up
Check what files are suid and sgid... just an idea, I've never seen this
before.
-rwsr-xr-x 1 root root 4912 Nov 16 03:26 X*
at very least... hmm, permissions on your mouse? Try ls -l 'ing
everything you think might affect this.
> 2. I'm really confused when it comes to the packaging system for debian.
> Although RPM was a big reason for *leaving* Red Hat, I'm kind of put off
> by 'dselect', and even more by 'dpkg'. I bought the CD's from
> cheapbytes.com, it's a 4 CD set, 2 binary, and 2 source...perhaps I'm
> doing soemthing wrong, but was something as simple as Pine left out of the
> distro? Anywho, basically, I guess dselect is the easier way to do
> things, but I can't even find Netscape in there. Is there a page onthe
> web or perhaps a HOWTO that describes these two things?
PINE and Netscape both are part of non-free because of licensing issues.
A person on this list (Sorry, don't remember the email, search the
archives for "I have PINE DEBS" or something like that... maybe just look
for pine) got permission from UW to distribute the modified binaries,
redhat just bends over and accepts the silly filesystem layout (kinda
works with their own silly filesystem layout. :)
Netscape does not meet the DFSG, and so is in non-free, AFAIK mozilla will
have no trouble meeting these guidelines, but I see that even in potato,
there's a really old version, any newer versions debianized?
Solution: Use dselect to change your access method to ftp and update, you
should see netscape and the two important pine packages now, select 'em,
now go to /usr/src/pine and follow the instructions for building a
debianized pine. It's real simple, and the debianized pine is nicer
anyway, IMO.
> 3. In RedHat, the 'su' command allowed and '-l' switch, which would take
> the path settings of user to be su'ed to (ususally root in my case)...any
> way to do that with the debian 'su'?
su - [user]
[user] is optional if su'ing to root.
HTH.
-Dano
--
As long as each individual is facing the TV tube alone, formal freedom poses
no threat to privilege.
--Noam Chomsky
Reply to: