Debian Sarge

[Eddy Veenstra]

Dear Debian team,   For several years I used Debian 2.2R5 'potato' and was a happy user. In the meantime I've tried on that system Xfree 4.2 (download version), but it wasn't an easy task to get it properly installed. So I went back to my 'good-old' 2.2R5 and decided to wait until Debian would come with a distribution that had XFree 4.2. I've tested Mandrake 10.1 community and Suze 9.2 on my new PC ( AMD 3500+). On both distribution almost all hardware was detected and the proper drivers installed, except for my wireless network card (RT2500) which had to be done manually. Even my TV-card was recognized and installed. What I don't like about Mandrake and Suze is that they decide which packages are to be installed; they do a lot behind my back and that's what I don't like. Now I've downloaded Debian Sarge DVD-version with jigdo and that was a big improvement for downloading. The installation was in the old fashioned Debian way, so that was not a problem. The installation asked for my video-card (Nvidia GeForce 5700LE)and my monitor ( CTX S962 19” LCD ). I selected the correct driver (NV) and gave the horizontal and vertical frequencies ( 30-80 hor, 59-75 vert ) for my monitor. When the installation was finished, X was started in 800x600 mode. No higher resolutions were possible. In the GNome environment I couldn't find a way to tell the system about my graphics card, my monitor, or the resolutions I prefer. So I ran xf86config to solve the problem. No success. Apparently GNome doesn't react to the changes I made with xf86config. But how can I tell GNome what card and monitor I have? I've tried all the items in the menu to find a way, but I had no success. I've done six installations now, and every time the same problems occur. The problems on all occasion are listed below. All kind of hardware wasn't detected: Printer: HP PSC 2355 on USB on-board sound card Realtek AC '97 Pinnacle TV card Pro Wireless networkcard RT2500 Modem Intel 536EP Other thing I've found: Error message 'No CUPS-Server running'. Adding a printer gave no solution. I Prefer KDE over GNome. But GNome is always installed. In 2.2R5 you could choose the Desktop manager(s). How can it be done in 3.1? My system: Mainboard: Asus A8V de luxe, AMD 3500+ Graphic card NVidia GeForce 5700 LE Monitor CTX S962A hda: Quantum Fireball 6.2 Gb; Fat 32 Windows 98 hdb: Seagate 20 Gb; hdb1: Ext3 root filesystem;   hdb2: Ext2;   hdb3: linux swap sda: Maxtor 200Gb. Sda1 ntsf WinXP;   sda2 ntsf;   sda3 Linux swap   I hope you can solve some things for me. Regards, Eddy Veenstra