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Debian Desktop Subproject Launched
Posted by
Hemos
on Thu Oct 24, 2002 08:28 AM
from the go-apt-get-go dept.
from the go-apt-get-go dept.
MrOutlander writes "The Debian Project is now officially addressing its usability on the desktop with the launch of the Debian Desktop subproject. Great to see usability being recognized as a very important part of debian. Other than the sometimes daunting install process, Debian is one of the best linux distributions."
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Debian Desktop Subproject Launched
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Debian = good server? (Score:1)
Isnt Linux Customizable? (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Isnt Linux Customizable? (Score:5, Informative)
The truth is however that each distro exist to offer you even more customizibilty. You have distros like Slack/Gentoo that many like because they don't include many unnecessary packages and the distro offers you much configurability. Many don't like these distros however because they don't have the time to compile(Gentoo)/configure/install everything the good-old-way or that they just want a distro that is a tad more user-friendly. For those you RedHat/Suse and Mandrake that are distros that are based on a binary package system (Gentoo has ports which downloads the source and compiles it). Each of these have their own "touch" as well.
Mandrake offers many patches/programs to make life easier, so Mandrake is a very popular choice for people that are new to Linux.
RedHat doesn't offer as much as Mandrake in the newbie area, and are a bit more strict on what goes into their kernel and distro. So imo RedHat isn't quite as user-friendly as Mandrake.
SuSe I don't know much about, I know that tthey have a configuration utility that has gotten a lot of positive feedback (YaST isn't it?).
So the choice of distro is just a part of the customization. Part of running Linux is choosing the distro that is right for you.
Re:Isnt Linux Customizable? (Score:5, Insightful)
Let's look at the following targets: server, corporate desktop, home desktop and embedded.
Server: customizability and security is a Good Thing(tm). You don't need GUI tools, they only make the server less stable. You need to have server software installed.
Corporate desktop: you need GUIs. You don't want server software, but office software. Security is important.
This target conflicts with the server target.
Home desktop: *customizability and security* are not important. The home user simply doesn't care and is lazy. He doesn't want to customize everything, and doesn't want to enter a password to install software.
This conflicts with both server and corporate desktop.
Embedded: you want to have as less stuff as possible because disk space and memory are limited. This conflicts with all of the above.
You see? Totally different targets with totally different needs. And this is just an example, the real world is much, MUCH more complicated. Add a graphical installer and you'll piss off the old school power users or users with old hardware. Don't add a graphical installer and you'll piss of the home user. Add an option and you'll confuse the hell out of newbies. Etc. etc.
You can't have one single distro that fits them all, the situations are too different.
Re:Isnt Linux Customizable? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's actually a case of "too many chefs". No one can agree on what a "great" desktop actually is, since a desktop is so many different things to so many people. The amount of flames I usually receive from people on Slashdot about how feature "X" in environment "X" (or even Windows XP) is stupid and pointless illustrates that well. To one person, it's performance that makes for a great desktop. To another, it's applications. Yet another, eye candy. So far, here's a breakdown of what I've seen:
There are the guys who like to run light with TWM and just use X as a way of having multiple terminals visible at once. I'll bet if there was an option to do this without the overhead of X, they would. As I ocassionally would, myself.
Then there are the folks (like me) who love the eye candy and use X with environments like Gnome or KDE, or just go with a window manager like Enlightenment. These people are the obsessive tweakers who constantly poke and prod and try to get their GUI to be as efficient, customized and sweet looking as possible. To them, the eye-candy/themes, easy customizability and responsiveness of the GUI are what make for a great desktop.
Then there are the utilitarians. They believe that a computer is just a tool. There are also subgroups within this group because some of them want to run light (TWM, FVWM, etc...) and others want an easy to use system that resembles Windows or Macintosh depending on their previous platform (KDE).
Those who use KDE tend to just do the trivial tasks like, browsing the web, working with e-mail, writing docs and balancing their checkbook. They are less concerned about looking cool and more interested in "just working". To them, KDE is the ideal desktop.
The FVWM and TWM crowd that go beyond using X for terms, usually have more specialized needs. They don't need a file manager since they tend to do that from the terminal. They don't need a launcher, since they tend to do that from the terminal too. But they want access to a basic GUI for the apps they run that need it: (GIMP, Mozilla, Netscape, etc...).
There are more groups, but I won't continue. The basic problem is that the desktop is something different for every person. I think the ideal would be an environment that can be as spare as TWM with only xterms/gnome-terms/konsoles, as feature filled as a normal GNOME or KDE environment, and as beautiful as Enlightnment. Upon installation of the environment, the user picks "Thin, Moderate, Full, Custom" and gets what they want. If KDE or GNOME could be made to do this easily and on-the-fly, that would be wonderful.
For instance, if a window manager like Sawfish or KWM could tell it was running with the gnome-panel or kicker, it would revert to a TWM mode. In this mode it would minimize apps to icons on the root window and place a simple right click menu (like TWM's) on the desktop to run a basic set of apps (terms specifically). I think the people who want the lightness of TWM, but maybe like more modern looking widgets and their accompanying functions would really appreciate this.
The ability to switch between Thin, Moderate, Full and Custom, on the fly would be great too. A laptop user could just toggle to Full mode when plugged in and toggle to Light (TWM-like) mode when on battery.
Suspendable X session would be nice too... You suspend the X session and go to runlevel 3 to do deep work that needs all the horsepower it can get. Or you suspend and get back to XDM/GDM/KDM and log in as a different user to do other tasks. (Great for a multiuser machine at home or work) Then you resume your X session with all apps running. This would be kind of interdependent on both the environment and X.
Whatever the case, I think the "Desktop Distro" that will win dominance would be the distro that addresses these issues and does it in a simple way for "Joe User" as well as more complex ways for "Joe Power User" and "J03 G33k G0d".
one of the best linux distributions? (Score:5, Funny)
In other news:
-Lemonade is one of the best beverages
-Pink is the best color
-Pi is the best number
Required Reading... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Required Reading... (Score:4, Interesting)
As someone who's used OS8, OS9, Linux, and all the video variants, let me tell you that OS8 comes pretty damn close to being *golden*. Apple spent a lot of time making OS7-9 pleasant and easy to use and it shows.
Re:Required Reading... (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes. Yes. Yes. People..read this line and chant it.
And in the process, they could also team up with the 'Debian Graphical Installer' group (see this [slashdot.org]
Re:Required Reading... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Required Reading... (Score:5, Funny)
I'm not interested in interfacing with a fabled race of dwarflike creatures, I'm interested in interfacing through a GUI to a UNIX or UNIX-like system.
Re:Required Reading... (Score:5, Insightful)
Or for that matter, windows. KDE has its faults, to be sure, but Konq provides better integration than even Windows. In Windows, I can only see folders on the left pane in explorer. In Konquerer, I can at my option see files, and view all kinds of content, from HTML to text to postscript, in the right hand pane. I can rubberband a bunch of files in ftp and drag them to the desktop. The control center includes system management (to some degree), whereas in windows, you use a completely separate app, MMC. Granted, Windows is carrying along legacy cruft, and would probably make every control panel a MMC snap-in nowadays, but they don't even provide an adaptor.
The user experience on windows is pretty disjointed too. But I don't think Unix (it's more than Linux, folks) exactly has further to go than Windows. It's just broken in different places.
Re:Required Reading... (Score:5, Funny)
Blasphemy!
Re:Required Reading... (Score:4, Insightful)
Don't worry about that. If Debian dares to mimic Aqua as a theme for their Deskstop, Apple will sue them over look and feel. Jobs is good at that. However, the HIG provided free of charge online will be a good guide for Debian to enhance the usability of their KDE and GNOME desktops for the novice users.
Start Here: (Score:5, Informative)
http://developer.gnome.org/projects/gup/ut1_repor
I read this about a year ago. It does an *excellent* job of pointing out many of the inconsistencies and gotchas in any given linux desktop situation.
Also (Score:5, Informative)
Daunting? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Daunting? (Score:4, Informative)
It took me a while to figure out the exact driver for my sparcstation, and in the end, i had to open the box and do a search on google to know.
This new incentive to push debian into the desktop is "a good thing". Even if it doesnt turn out perfect, it's still a step in the right direction.
Re:Daunting? (Score:4, Insightful)
Why do people freeze up when they are given a telegraph key to communicate?
Brand-X's difficult to use installer is no more difficult that any other distribution's difficult to use installer.
This is the whole crux of the problem in Human interface. Programmers are NOT good designers of human interfaces. Apple's Human Interface Guidelines said it best. (Back in 1984!) The general sentiment that Apple expressed was this: We, slashdotters, are willing to put up with the most abysmal interfaces, and have done so for so long that we no longer are even capable recognizing a bad interface.
In the 1800's there were widespread predictions that eventually there would be a telegraph on every desk!
But what happened was that a more natural way of communicating (better human interface) came along and appeared on every desk instead.
System Management for User (Score:4, Insightful)
We will try to ensure that software is configured for the most common desktop use. For instance, the regular user account added by default during installation should have permission to play audio and video, print, and manage the system through sudo.
I think giving the root privileges to the user using sudo is a security risk. It will be very easy to wreak a havoc on the system, once you break into the user account.
Co-ordination please (Score:5, Insightful)
The OSS community can make a desktop that is better than XP. In fact, all of the bits of the puzzle are already there, it's just that they are in different distributions! (Xandros, SUSE, RedHat, Lindows, Debian...)
When Linux has a reasonable foothold in the desktop market, then go ahead, fight away. But until that day, please share and co-operate. For motivation, imagine Bill Gates giggling to himself and muttering "what a bunch of losers". Works for me.
Re:Co-ordination please (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, it depends what you want. If you are happy with Linux having less than 1% of the desktop market, then fine. But there are many people like myself who believe that the world would be a better place if OSS software were much more widely used. And that means the desktop. So, yes, at least from my perspective, Microsoft is the enemy, or if you'd prefer, the competition.
And no, Sun, the BSDs and Apple are not really the competition because they don't own 95% of the marketplace.
Plus, cooperation between Linux distros is somewhat implicit.
Except it doesn't seem to be happening that way. If you look at the kernel, there is a great deal of uniformity between distributions basically because there is a single, widely accepted head-penguin who is doing an excellent job (Linus). I'm sure that there are very few people who would argue that it would be great if we had dozens of incompatible kernals. The desktop space however doesn't have a head-penguin and it really shows.
It's possible to have a high level of co-ordination and co-operation as well as freedom and choice.
Maybe it's too much to ask, but . . . (Score:5, Insightful)
At the least, I'd like to see the Debian compiles updated to i586. (That's the equivalent of a Pentium 1, in non-geek speak.) There are still quite a few of those in use.
Updating the targetted processor architecture would give a significant performance boost to Debian. I mean seriously, nobody is going to run KDE or Gnome on a 386 -- it'd take DAYS just to start a program.
It might also be possible to support multiple processor architectures; eg during installation you get a list of i386, i486, i586, and i686 (386, 486, Pentium 1, More Recent Stuff). Then apt would fetch the appropriate package flavor. Of course, this would require non-trivial amounts of storage space, not to mention all the time needed to re-compile everything.
Re:Maybe it's too much to ask, but . . . (Score:4, Interesting)
Optimizing the kernel for a particular CPU model is almost certainly a win (I'm not a kernel hacker and don't know how much of a win); but it seems to me that the costs of producing and storing multiple optimized versions of an "average" app probably outweigh the benefits. And since i386 is the lowest common denominator, Debian may as well just continue building for that.
-Stephen
[1]: if indeed there is such a thing as an "average" app.
Re:Maybe it's too much to ask, but . . . (Score:5, Insightful)
> ls -1
libcrypto.so@
libcrypto.so.0.9.6
libssl.so@
libssl.so.0.9.6
There were experiments doing custom glibcs a while back, but there were bugs and it was backed out. I'd like to see that working though.
Great! (Score:4, Interesting)
As soon as Linux is recognized as a userfriendly, easy-to-use desktop with lots of free (as in beer) software by the average user Windows will get into real problems. Such an opening would generate a *huge* increase in the number of users and thus in the interest in supporting Linux from different companies.
Two points to avoid flaming: 1) I know that Linux is only the kernel, simply sed 's/Linux/Gnu\\Linux/' and be happy, 2) "as in beer" is how the average user will see it, my mother don't care for open source, she wants to use it as a tool!
Wrong focus? (Score:2, Insightful)
-XFree, 4.2 just appeared in unstable
-KDE 3
-Mozilla 1.1
And it's even worse for people using woody without 'proposed-updates' package repository!
The 'testing' distribution is a step in the right direction, but there's a lot more to do that just to focus on Desktop, IMHO.
Re:Wrong focus? (Score:5, Informative)
You also forget that Debian is not a company, but a community. In other words, you cannot dictate what will be done; people will do whatever interests them. It works, it's just that at this point with so many transitions and changes going on, the process has slowed down. Want to sped it up? Fork over some $$$ to a developer. Simple as that.
Re:Wrong focus? (Score:5, Informative)
Debian focusses on whatever the Debian developers care about. One thing Debian developers tend not to care about at all is armchair experts. If you happen to disagree with what we care about, feel free to learn How you can help [debian.org], or to pay for a developer to scratch your particular itch.
We all know that some critical packages are way out of date:
-XFree, 4.2 just appeared in unstable
And excellent prerelease packages have been available from the X Strike Force [debian.org] for months. Not to mention that Debian supports X on 11 architectures [debian.org] rather than just i386.
-KDE 3 Unofficial packages are available; official packages will follow after the gcc transition; see the FAQ [davidpashley.com].
-Mozilla 1.1
Available [debian.org] in unstable and testing, as are recent CVS snapshots.
And it's even worse for people using woody without 'proposed-updates' package repository!
woody is the stable release. Debian takes stability very seriously and the stable release is only updated to fix serious issues (in particular security issues), not to put in new releases of packages. If you want a more up to date system, use testing.
diabian's install is daunting? (Score:1, Offtopic)
I use diabian at home to run my firewall advice. It's an old K5 machine that runs at 100mhz...remember when they bought that other CPU company (what was their name, Ktech?)
I used to play Duke Nukem on it, and my name was K5KICKBUT...
Whoa, I guess I am l33t!
Finally (Score:1)
I Have No Problems. (Score:2, Interesting)
Personally I have no problem with Debian's installer. In fact, it is the best I have seen yet. In a desktop situation you can (with the exception of partitioning a disk and one or two other places) just continually hit [ENTER] and come out with a base Debian install.
Which installer is better?
Debian for the masses... (Score:1)
* If you cannot use vi why the hell are you using linux?
* Text interfaces are the best!
---
Now we have a project going toward a good installer and one to increase usability...
I'd like to know what the pure debianists think about it!
bye
How about making the apt sources... (Score:1, Troll)
Since when is a powerpoint clone part of a window manager?
Ximian Setup Tools (Score:4, Interesting)
Anyone...?
Re:Ximian Setup Tools (Score:5, Informative)
Menus (Score:4, Interesting)
there are only two classes of users (Score:2)
The article says "there are only two classes of users: the novice, and the expert"
How about all those novices who think they're experts?
Wow (Score:1)
Redundancy (Score:2)
WHY the Graphical Debian installer focus? (Score:4, Interesting)
SO WHAT!?! It installed fine.
Some of my minor complaints include:
Ease of install of Xwindows
X installation has always been a bitch for me irregardless of the distribution Linux or BSD. It seems that it's something that always needs tinkering. I did get this going fairly quick after some help from my BSD admin guru--thank the Gods for buddies!
Ease of install of sound
I still don't have sound working, but I haven't given it the one two punch!
Ease of install of APM support
I probably haven't looked in the right place or good documentation doesn't exist. And I'm lazy?
Up to date install documentation
Let's face it, I think that once most people get their configuration working they don't think about giving back to the community. Something that should definately be reconsidered.
Package Manager selection at end of install
Aggravating. I don't want to sit and select then download and install 200M of software after I get it installed, but I DO want an easy way to get back to package management once I hastily exit out if it. I want my cake and I want to eat it too.
Overall though, my Debian install was a pleasant experience.
If I didn't have ~10 years of XP working with *NIX as a user and ~20 years of XP working with computers I certainly wouldn't know where to begin. That's why I think better documentation is certainly in order.
OVERALL, Debian is everything that I would expect it to be for what I consider to be a non-commercial distribution of Linux.
What I want to know is... (Score:1, Informative)
Yip, virtually all X installations include TWM. If that argument works for Vi, a similarly minimal piece of software, why not TWM?
Oh, and before the uninformed start arguing, TWM DOES support RandomPlacement, extra titlebar buttons, keybindings, icon regions, multiple menus and submenus, and loads more. There are even variants with virtual desktops for those who want them.
Long live TWM! Who else uses it aside from me?
Fundamental issues before desktop usability (Score:1)
Unnecessary debconf prompts (Score:2, Insightful)
Bravo! Aside from wading through 5 million packages to decide which to install, this has been the worst part of installing Debian for me (which I've done on a number of computers because I LOVE how easy it is to keep my system up to date using dselect). In fact, all the prompts may be even worse.
Here are a few ideas for reducing prompts without causing problems:
1) Make a log of all the prompts that WOULD have been shown so that those who want to can go back and see what else they might have customized.
2) Another reason to make a log of the prompts is in case you accidentally okay one of them and then realize you wish you'd read it more carefully. And it would save you the trouble of writing down anything that it suggests you might want to do later.
3) Give people the option of seeing more or less prompts. Some people may want to see them all. Others may want to only see prompts for things that could make their computer stop working if configured wrong. Others may want more than that, but not every grizzly little detail about configuration files they've never looked at and never will look at.
4) If you really want to get zealous, you could add the ability to make a list of packages that you want to see all prompts for (you'd build it over time) so that you can run on minimal prompts for most things, but for packages that seem to get messed up every time you upgrade them because the default isn't right for you, you get all the prompts.
Wow... (Score:1)
Libranet Has Done This (Score:1, Interesting)
Debian already has a great desktop... (Score:1)
Not affiliated except as a happy $99 contributor.
What would make Debian a good desktop OS? (Score:2)
But oh, not the Debian GRUB. The Debian GRUB package is maintained by the same guy who maintains the GNU GRUB distribution.. and he's not porting RedHat/Connectiva's patches to provide the 640x480 background and high res text into the current release, preferring to wait until GRUB 1.0 to include them.
GRUB is at version 0.91, and was first released in.. 1995.
Forgive me for not holding my breath.
X-Windows? Really? (Score:2, Insightful)
Why don't these software companies do what their supposed to do and actually program something. If all they are going to do is take a bunch of packages, slap them together, put in a few utilities to make configuring these mammoths easier and put their logo on a cardboard box, Linux will never make it to the desktop.
Come on people, the Linux community has to stop thinking like Sun, W3C and all these other monstrousities that crank out new ideas less frequently than LucasFilm does. They need a revolution of thought that makes customers proud to stand behind their product.
Re:X-Windows? Really? (Score:4, Informative)
What is so wrong with X Windows? If anything, it should be refined to smooth out things people complain about. I'd hate to throw out X's abstractions (client-server; layered architecture: server, window manager, applications) in favor of something new and flashy but architecturally neutered.
I think the fundamental concepts behind X Windows are sound. If there are implementation issues, address those before trying to reinvent everything badly.
2 camps here, and that's good. (Score:2)
Those are the ones who like stability and control.
Now, those who want an integrated desktop the likes of Windows... the sacrifices required to make that system easy to use for the target audience are the same sacrifices that make us think of windows as unstable and unreliable; standard users with too many rights, automated configuration tools that hide things from us, and possibly break if we tweak what's under the hood too much.
Daunting? (Score:2)
Excuse me? Debian's install process is the best I've used. I figured it out the *first* time I tried it out, and it installed beautifully, using the network to download only what packages it needed instead of making me download a whole 700 MB's worth of packages most of which I won't use.
Some of you I've heard complaining about how complicated debian is to install and/or use. Maybe you missed this, but debian is not for newbies. It's a great operating system and does just what I want it to, but if I knew nothing about linux, and didn't *want* to dive in and learn, I'd look at a more newbie-friendly distribution.
debian can really do this right (Score:3, Insightful)
well, I'd rather have a solid package management (PM) tool than a simple gui for everything. but now that I've got the solid PM sure go for the solid gui or solid config tools.
I think debian has it right in hitting the important bits first and getting it right before moving on to somthing else. they don't do it half assed.
Damn! And I was just about to go back to Debian (Score:2)
An honest question: why Debian? (Score:2)
I have a good deal of experience in Linux and software engineering (especially C, C++, Java, and Python). The sentiment I hear on Slashdot is that among the Linux distributions, I should use Debian, Slackware, or some other similar distribution that's "very stable" and "developer friendly".
But I don't understand why. I've learned how to do just about everything I need in Linux regardless of distribution. I don't see why one distribution should be more "stable" than another; what matters is the stability of the software itself. If there's a buffer overflow in the kernel, all distributions are affected.
So what I look for in a distribution is ease of installation and a breadth of precompiled software. In the words of MrOutlander, "Other than the sometimes daunting install process, Debian is one of the best linux distributions." To me, this seems contradictory. If it's hard to install, what gives Debian the edge that earns it the label "one of the best"? Other distributions have all the same software, and often more recent versions.
Mandrake's rpmdrake (graphical) and urpmi (text mode) utilities beat everything I've seen, especially "apt-get". (The only hurdle is getting your urpmi.cfg right.) Because Mandrake is the only distribution I know of that supplies these utilities, I choose Mandrake.
So I'm asking, sincerely, in what way is Debian superior to Mandrake?
Great News for a Great Distro (Score:2, Insightful)
Also Debian offers easy maintaining and upgrading, all was really lacking was ease-of-use for desktop users and newbies. If this "Desktop Debian" becomes a success I see it as a great step forward for Linux on the Desktop. Mandrake has made some great steps forward with things like universal menus, and easy configuration tools, we just need that and some stability without all the bloat. All in all, I still have faith that Linux will be a success on the desktop.
Well... (Score:2)
YES!
Timeline? (Score:2)
One other huge complaint about Debian is it's lack of timeliness. Updating versions every couple of years is not novice-friendly.
And stow the complaints about the up-to-date-ness of testing and unstable. This initiative is supposed to simplify things.
So with these things in mind, I'm expecting to see this desktop Debian released in 2005, by which time noone will really care anymore.
I'd love to be proved wrong, but unless the people working on it release a schedule and try to stick with it, I don't have too much hope.
Software which Just Works (Score:1)
Software That Just Works
instead of:
Software which Just Works
Besides which-where-that-would-do being a pet-peeve of mine, the latter sounds to me like they're trying to say it just BARELY works.
Re:How funny because (Score:2)
Re:How funny because (Score:3, Informative)
Re:How funny because (Score:2, Informative)
Check out any recent post from Branden Robinson on debian-devel, most of them cover this, this one [debian.org] for example.
Michael
Re:Once again, the point is missed (Score:2)
However, we dont need all distros to reach there. Thats the beauty of OSS, chose what you like. So currently we have mandrake, redhat approaching the novice user, we have debian for the masters. But requiring some aptitude is actually a good thing. It gives a real novice a great kick to graduate to slightly expirience. The proof is in haloween docs, where the M$ guy says "It was fun, even addictive" . Making ppp work by giving a noauth option may seem rudimentry to a slashdot crowd, but to someone totally unaware of unix world fixing such a problem will provide a great ego kick. That I did it feeling.
So IMHO, the desktops should require some expertise, albeit little, but lots of documentation. Think this way, what would a novice choose, some illegal exception at blah blah blah and then crash, or neat messages telling exactly what went wrong.Look in the automobile world, nowdays cars require expertise with so many gadgets, but the current generation goes for it, coz it kind of gives them with geekiness. Dont forget that a person who can program his HI-FI audio has an aptitude for *tinkering*. Its just the presentation. Give the user the power, make his/her learning curve an enlightling experience.
Believe me, it will work, its the right mantra
Re:How funny because (Score:1)
Re:Once again, the point is missed (Score:2)
Re:Debian (Score:1)
Re:Debian dosent support usb mice. (Score:3)
(* Ask The Fine Mailing-list)
(** Fill A Bug Report)
Re:Debian (Score:2)
Too bad you'll have to wait two years after mouse gloves are on the market before there's a Linux driver for them stable enough for the Debian developers to deem it worthy of inclusion into their distro.
Re:network.img from mandrake (Score:1)
17, man! 17 floppy disks to achieve what Redhat and Mandrake do in one!!!!
I had the same problem! (Score:1)
I did an "apt-get upgrade", and when it asked:
Do you want to replace your existing, perfectly working XF86Config-4 with a default one that won't allow X to start? Y/N
I type yes, and it went ahead and did what I asked! The nerve!