rdewald's Journal: Debian-sarge-stable on the salvaged T22

Ok, I wasn't happy with Kubuntu because I was not in the mood to learn a distro. I am a Debian-ite, and I know, I know, Kubuntu is really Debian, blah, blah, blah. Here are the ways in which I am terminally unique:

1. I like a console login. I like "startx."
2. I like to only have packages installed that I actually use.
3. I like to do most of my configuration editing at the command line. I was doing this before Bill and Steve stole the UI concept from Xerox. I don't need a right-click, I don't want GUI interfaces doing wizardry behind the curtain. I like vi. It is a kickass text editor.
4. I like fetchmail, mutt and exim4 for handling e-mail. The RFC's mean something to me. I know, I'm a dying breed.

So, I grabbed the Debian net-install iso and let it rip. It also works, even sound. I just installed the base system, then I installed

• mc (Midnight Commander)
• fetchmail
• mutt
• nmap
• x-window-core
• kde-core
• firefox (from the backport factory so I can get a recent build)

Then I disabled the window manager from firing up at startup.

I am happy. I have what I want. Kubuntu is sexy and all that, but I prefer to dance with who brung me.

Don't we all love

[jawtheshark]

The girl that is plain, but knows how to make you happy? -- Hey, this could make a nice sig! Nah, slashdotters wouldn't understand. It has the word "girl" in it.

Concerning #1

[rk]

I agree. Graphical logins are for lusers and X-terminals.

Is it not possible (or considerably more difficult than changing default runlevel) to hack your init scripts in Ubuntu to not start X on boot?

Re:Concerning #1

[rdewald]

I could have done that. I actually just used the update-rc.d script to remove xdm from all runlevels. Usually when I am logging on the first thing I like to do is run fetchmail and read the mail, which with my aging eyes is easier to do without my glasses at the console (rather than in a xterm window) on the T22's 14.1 screen. Also the n-curses rcconf utility is nice. That probably works in Kubuntu, too.

I don't have anything against Kubuntu really, expect for the mounds of packages I don't want and no e

points

[Randle_Revar]

I completely agree on points 1 & 3 (although I came along after the GUI was introduced). Hooray for .conf files and startx! And I have tried (am trying) to like mutt - not that I really like the GUI mail clients I use, either. Total opposite on 2 though. I am a total software packrat. I used to download and then not use lots of Windows software. Now I apt-get Linux software and don't use it - at least it's legal this way :-)

Kubuntu is sexy and all that, but I prefer to dance with who brung me.
Definitely