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Finishing the Installation
Now that the NDIS wrapper has been compiled, it's time to finish the installation and install an X-server and other packages.



Samba
I usually start off by getting Samba running.
  1. su
  2. Get the smbfs and samba packages

    # apt-get install smbfs samba

  3. Backup the smb.conf file before modifying it

    # cp /etc/samba/smb.conf /etc/samba/smb.conf.original

  4. Create the appropriate account in the Samba password database. My username is "tew".

    # smbpasswd -a tew

  5. Home directories by default are shared, but are not writable. To make them writable, modify the smb.conf file

    # nano -w /etc/samba/smb.conf

    Scroll down to the bottom of the section labelled "Share Definitions" and change the line that says "writable=no" to "writable=yes".

  6. You could wait until the daemon refreshes the smb.conf from the disk, but to make the changes go into effect right away, restart the daemons

    # /etc/init.d/samba restart
(written 7/26/2006)




Mounting other volumes
I would like my computer to automatically mount my Windows partition, and be set up so that I can easily mount other volumes.
  1. First, create mount points for the volumes. I want to create a mount point for my Windows partition, my CD drive, and a Windows share (shared on a computer named Pervasive):

    # mkdir /mnt/WinXP
    # mkdir /mnt/cdrom
    # mkdir /mnt/pervasive

  2. For the CD drive, modify the fstab

    # nano -w /etc/fstab

    and change the /dev/hdc line to read:
        /dev/hdc /mnt/cdrom iso9660 ro,user,noauto 0 0
    Now, when I want to mount a data CD, I can just type the following

    $ mount /mnt/cdrom

  3. For the Windows partition, modify the fstab and add the following line
        /dev/hda1 /mnt/WinXP vfat uid=1000,gid=1000 0 0
    My userid and groupid are 1000, so this automatically makes me the owner so I can write to it without being logged in as root.

  4. For a Windows share that is located at //pervasive/tew, add the following line to the fstab     //pervasive/tew /mnt/pervasive smbfs username=bill,password=gates,uid=1000,gid=1000 0 0
    Obviously, this is for a fictitious user and password. Now I can just type "mount //pervasive/tew" to mount than volume.
(written 7/26/2006)




Installing an X-server
Finally, install the X-server so that there is something other than a command line to use.
  1. Get the x-window-system package

    # apt-get install x-window-system

  2. Exit out of superuser mode, to go back to being logged in as a normal user

    # exit

  3. Test the X-server and mouse

    $ startx

    After the X-server starts up, the video should be displayed properly, and the mouse should work. After testing to make sure it works properly, shut the X-server down. A console window should have automatically launched. Type "exit" in the window to shut it down.

  4. Go back to being superuser

    $ su

  5. Install KDE

    # apt-get install kdebase kdm

    This will cause a massive number of applications to be installed, most of which are unnecessary. I wish there were a way to do a minimal install, so that I can pick and choose which packages I want to have installed.

  6. Unfortunately, unlike with Debian Sarge (Stable), the sound card doesn't work right out of the box (inexplicably). You would reasonably expect something that works in the Sarge install process to work properly in the Etch install, but then you would be wrong. An error box in X will show up warning you that the sound card wasn't initialized. You have to install ALSA, and then configure it.

    # apt-get install alsa-tools alsa-oss alsa-base
    # alsaconf

(written 7/26/2006)




Other Packages
Now go ahead and install the rest of the packages you might want. The following is a list so that I remember which packages I frequently use.
  • thunderbird

  • thunderbird-enigmail

  • gnupg

  • firefox

  • yarssr (RSS reader)

  • gqview (picture viewer)

  • gftp (FTP client)

  • gpdf (PDF viewer)

  • openoffice.org

  • xmms

  • totem

  • k3b

  • digiKam

  • kipi-plugins (one of the parts of this package allows uploads to Flickr directly from within digiKam.

  • root-tail

(written 7/26/2006)






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