The hydrus standard Debian install

As part of my Debian lenny installs, I performed a 'clean' install, rather than an upgrade, on one of the other machines, silver. This was in order to practice the process for an upgrade of a sarge-based machine at work (upgrading to etch and then lenny seemed too much work).

I installed the "standard server" components on silver, using the Debian lenny CD1. This provides a basic working server, including exim4. I updated the /etc/apt/sources.lst, removing the cdrom entries and adding the FTP repositories:

deb http://ftp.uk.debian.org/debian/ lenny main contrib non-free
deb-src http://ftp.uk.debian.org/debian/ lenny main contrib non-free

deb http://security.debian.org/ lenny/updates main
deb-src http://security.debian.org/ lenny/updates main

deb http://volatile.debian.org/debian-volatile lenny/volatile main
deb-src http://volatile.debian.org/debian-volatile lenny/volatile main

Note the addition of contrib and non-free, as I need packages that fall into these categories.

To implement a working X11 system (without Gnome or KDE), the following packages must be installed:

• xserver-xorg
• xinit
• xauth
• xfonts-100dpi
• xfonts-75dpi
• xfonts-scalable
• x11-xserver-utils
• fontconfig

Then add in a lightweight window manager and terminal:

• fluxbox
• rxvt-unicode

To configure the xorg.conf file automatically, run (as root):

  Xorg -configure

This will create a configuration file in /root/xorg.conf.new, which must be copied to /etc/X11/xorg.conf. I found that this configuration would not work with the radeon driver, as the Modes line was missing from the Screen section; the section should look like the following:

  Section "Screen"
    Identifier "Screen0"
    Device     "Card0"
    Monitor    "Monitor0"
    SubSection "Display"
    Viewport   0 0
    Modes	   "1280x1024" "1024x768"
    Depth      24
  EndSubSection

Other useful packages:

• emacs22
• iceweasel
• msttcorefonts

emacs displayed a too large font in the menu bar, which was because the 100dpi fonts preceded the 75dpi fonts in the standard xorg.conf file. The Files section should look like this for a reasonable emacs menu font size:

  Section "Files"
	RgbPath      "/etc/X11/rgb"
	ModulePath   "/usr/lib/xorg/modules"
	FontPath     "/usr/share/fonts/X11/misc"
  #	FontPath     "/usr/share/fonts/X11/cyrillic"
	FontPath     "/usr/share/fonts/X11/75dpi/:unscaled"
	FontPath     "/usr/share/fonts/X11/100dpi/:unscaled"
	FontPath     "/usr/share/fonts/X11/75dpi"
	FontPath     "/usr/share/fonts/X11/100dpi"
	FontPath     "/usr/share/fonts/X11/artwiz-aleczapka-en-1.3:unscaled"
	FontPath     "/usr/share/fonts/X11/artwiz-aleczapka-en-1.3"
	FontPath     "/var/lib/defoma/x-ttcidfont-conf.d/dirs/TrueType"
	FontPath     "/usr/share/fonts/X11/Type1"
  EndSection

Finally, the standard xorg.conf assumed a US keyboard. For a UK keyboard the InputDevice section should look like:

  Section "InputDevice"
	Identifier  "Keyboard0"
	Driver      "kbd"
    Option      "CoreKeyboard"
    Option      "XkbRules"      "xorg"
    Option      "XkbModel"      "pc104"
    Option      "XkbLayout"     "gb"
  EndSection

Note: the artwiz fonts are not required, just my personal preference with fluxbox.

For C and C++ development, add the following:

• make
• gcc
• gcc-doc
• g++
• libc6-dev
• glibc-doc
• manpages-dev

For X11 development, further add xorg-dev. Then, of course, add what you want...