how to extract *.deb files, etc.

[Stephen Jiang]

I am new to Linux (especially Debian), please help me out.   1. Does anyone can tell me how to extract *.deb files? And where can I find Debian's special commands?   2. I have just installed Debian 2.2 r0 (potato), but XF86 did not work (don't have SVGA driver - returned message at first time). So, I used VGA16 driver during XF86Setup (second time), the setup program told me successfully installed XF86 but it failed after I press ok to continue.   Thanks for your attention.   Regards Stephen