*- On 14 Mar, George Bonser wrote about "Re: Slink upgrade and xwindows" > On Sun, 14 Mar 1999, William Lacy wrote: > >> I think that installing xdm and xfs as part of the upgrade is a very bad >> idea for several reasons: >> >> 1) This is a very big change to my system, I have never had these >> packages before- I wanted an upgrade on what I had. This is >> a >> fundamental change in how my system works that I didn't ask for or want. > > > I agree. After upgrade I saw an XDM login appear ... I did not even want X > running on that machine at that time. It is mostly an unattended server > but I do keep X on it and use it about 1-2 times/year. I thought it was a > pretty arrogant decision on the part of Debian. Just because I put X on > it, you are going to FORCE me to use it???? >
xdm was installed on your system before. It was part of the old xbase package. The reason xdm was sucked in during the upgrade was that because xbase was split into several different packages it was impossible to determine which components of it were being used before the upgrade. So all components that were part of xbase were Required by the dummy xbase package. If dselect was used to do the upgrade it would have shown all the depenencies to you and you could have unselected the components you did not need. Below is the package listing for the xbase dummy package which describes the reasoning and shows the dependencies. Don't get mad at Branden, by splitting the X packages up he is making the X Window System much easier to manage. Package: xbase Priority: extra Section: x11 Installed-Size: 44 Maintainer: Branden Robinson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Architecture: all Source: xfree86 Version: 3.3.2.3a-11 Depends: rstart, rstartd, twm, xbase-clients, xdm, xfree86-common, xfs, xlib6g ( >= 3.3.2.3a-11), xlib6g-dev (>= 3.3.2.3a-11), xmh, xproxy, xserver-common, xsm, xterm Filename: dists/stable/main/binary-i386/x11/xbase_3.3.2.3a-11.deb Size: 29516 MD5sum: 40a6e49c2735dcd8b4c22f909bea4f0d Description: XFree86 upgrade convenience package Between Debian 2.0 ("hamm") and 2.1 ("slink") the XFree86 packages were extensively reorganized; this package exists solely to smooth the transition for people upgrading from Debian 2.0 or earlier. . Once this package has been installed it may be removed at any time; it contains no programs, libraries, or documentation. . For the technically curious, this package exists solely to declare dependencies on the packages among whom the old xbase package's files were distributed. The new packages are auto-selected by apt or dselect as a result, and the X Window System is properly upgraded. . Additionally, the X font and static library packages have been renamed. -- Brian --------------------------------------------------------------------- "Never criticize anybody until you have walked a mile in their shoes, because by that time you will be a mile away and have their shoes." - unknown Mechanical Engineering [EMAIL PROTECTED] Purdue University http://www.ecn.purdue.edu/~servis ---------------------------------------------------------------------