dselect
Documentation for Beginners
Please note that newer versions of this file can always be found at http://www.debian.org/releases/woody/hppa/dselect-beginner
.
This file documents dselect
for first-time users, and is intended
to help in getting Debian installed successfully. It makes no attempt to
explain everything, so when you first encounter dselect
, read
through the help screens.
If you are eager to get Debian running as soon as possible, well, you shouldn't
use dselect
:-) Debian installation procedure allows you to run
tasksel
which provides some generalized tasks that you can select
and be done with it.
dselect
is used to select which packages you wish to install
(there are currently around 7500 packages in Debian 3.0). It will be run for
you during the install and as it is a very powerful and somewhat complex thing
which can be used for good or for evil; some knowledge of it beforehand is
highly recommended. Careless use of dselect
can severely mess up
your system.
dselect
will guide you through the package installation process as
follows:
As each step is completed successfully it will lead you on to the next. Go through them in order without skipping any steps.
Here and there in this document we talk of starting another shell. Linux has 6 console sessions or shells available at any one time. You switch betwen them by hitting Left Alt-F1 through Left Alt-F6, after which you log in on your new shell and go ahead. The console used by the install process is the first one, a.k.a., tty1, so hit Left Alt-F1 when you want to return to that process.
dselect
Documentation for Beginners
debian-doc@lists.debian.org