Posted by Jim at March 17th, 2004

So lately I’ve been using my XP box a lot due to the fact that the gui for my Linux box got utterly annihilated when I did “apt-get upgrade.”

A word to the wise: If a computer asks you whether or not you want to do something, read it first and don’t reflexively click “y.”

Bringing X back from the dead has turned out to be impossible (or at least very hard). Ed, the person who initially got it working, was unable to do it a second time.

Owing to the fact that my hardware is pretty common, it seems likely that a different installer would do a good job. Debian has one of the worst installers of a major distro. That being said, they’ve got access to Anaconda, one of the better installers. So I looked into that.

Installing it on Debian via anaconda proved to be a major pain–not due to anaconda, but because the necessary files were not available for download via apt-get install.

So, I’m installing Mandrake. Mandrake’s got a good installer. And once I get everything working the right way (via automation rather than heartbreaking frustration), I will have a config file that I can use on Debian. Or Freebsd. Or whatever Xfree86 running unix-like OS, I choose.

And I will guard it with my life.