On Sun, Oct 22, 2006 at 01:26:40AM -0400, Carl Fink wrote: > On Sun, Oct 22, 2006 at 01:12:48AM -0400, Jameson C. Burt wrote: > > > We in Linux heavily use the command-line. > > So, I was dismayed when my new Debian etch version displayed a Gnome > > interface WITHOUT ANY XTERM (or GNOME-TERMINAL or KONSOLE) > > and not even any immediate panel options for these terminals. > > Why did you install GNOME? I ignored tasksel and installed icewm/xdm > instead, and xterm was right there. > > > THE XTERM (or its equivalent) SHOULD BE IN MY FACE > > THE VERY FIRST TIME I LOGIN, > > requiring at most a single obvious mouse click. > > Why are you screaming? > > The correct thing to do, I believe, is to file a wishlist bug against > debian-installer.
I install a new Debian Linux a few times a year, as I have since about 1995, when I was at Purdue University where Ian hung out. Before exim, I remember spending 120 hours over a few weeks correcting and understanding the details of smail. Since then, I have gotten lazy, and am no longer willing to spend even 2 hours on a narrow configuration detail like gnome-terminal (or xterm). I tailor my Debian installations enough (20 hours so far on my latest Debian installation). I have finally tired spending time wholesale reconfiguring to my own whims, and I accept many defaults I formerly would not have accepted. Recently, after my year-old Debian Linux crashed on two disk drives in two weeks, I faced forensic work on my disk drives; I relented to not reconfiguring with icewm, kde, or fvwm as I have many times, each time feeling I missed the more thorough considerations that Debian volunteers put into Debian's default installation (eg, the handling of USB, CD, and DVD mounts possibly outside /etc/fstab). When tailoring a configuration, one never knows how much time will get used in unforseen problems. In analogy, I recall a car I purchased 30 years ago from an Australian professor who, each time he started that car, he first opened the hood, then moved a clothes pin on the voltage regulator. I bought a new voltage regulator as I bought that car, and I accept Debian's default Gnome installation as I install Debian Linux. For the first week of my current Debian installation, I attended other issues with my Debian installation (eg, no password authentication, only public key authentication in ssh, thereby forbidding ssh access except to several computers between which I must move keys with each new Debian installation). A couple times in that first week of my latest Debian installation, I briefly tried getting a gnome-terminal readily available either thru Gnome's panel or thru an acceptably quick menu. Instead, for that first week, to get gnome-terminal running, I kept going thru deeper menus as if I were using Microsoft. In fvwm, I would have just added all my startups like xterm (with about 10 options) into ~/.xsession . In my current Debian installation, I DIDN'T MIND SO MUCH THAT I DIDN'T IMMEDIATELY SEE A GNOME-TERMINAL OR A TERMINAL ICON, BUT WHEN THE PANEL OPTIONS OFFERED NO GNOME-TERMINAL AND GNOME MENUS OFFERED NO TERMINAL AT MENU'S FIRST LEVEL, I FELT SOMETHING WAS AMISS [I'm not shouting, just emphasing the meat of this message]. But you folks have affirmed that this was by design, so I'll quit being shrill. I'll also accept your solution to start gnome-terminal from a command-line using alt-F2 Luckily, when done once, Gnome usually saves even that effort, since Gnome remembers the previous gnome-terminal application between boots. -- Jameson C. Burt, NJ9L Fairfax, Virginia, USA [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.coost.com LTSP.org: magic "mysterious and awe-inspiring even though we know they are real and not supernatural" -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
