The Debian Administrator's Handbook

The installation is now complete, the program invites you to remove the CD-ROM from the reader and to restart the computer.

4.3. After the First Boot

If you activated the task “Graphical desktop environment”, the computer will display the gdm login manager.

Figure 4.14. First boot

The user that has already been created can then log in and begin working immediately.

4.3.1. Installing Additional Software

The installed packages correspond to the profiles selected during installation, but not necessarily to the use that will actually be made of the machine. As such, you might want to use a package management tool to refine the selection of installed packages. The two most frequently used tools (which are installed if the “Graphical desktop enviroment” profile was chosen) are apt (accessible from the command line) and synaptic (System → Administration → Synaptic Package Manager).

To facilitate the installation of coherent groups of programs, Debian creates “tasks” that are dedicated to specific uses (mail server, file server, etc.). You already had the opportunity to select them during installation, and you can access them again thanks to package management tools such as aptitude (the tasks are listed in a distinct section) and synaptic (through the menu Edit → Mark Packages by Task…).

Aptitude is an interface to APT in full-screen text mode. It allows the user to browse the list of available packages according to various categories (installed or not-installed packages, by task, by section, etc.), and to view all of the information available on each of them (dependencies, conflicts, description, etc.). Each package can be marked “install” (to be installed, + key) or “remove” (to be removed, - key). All of these operations will be conducted simultaneously once you've confirmed them by pressing the g key (“g” for “go!”). If you have forgotten some programs, no worries; you will be able to run aptitude again once the initial installation has been completed.

TIP Debian thinks of speakers of non-English languages

Several tasks are dedicated to the localization of the system in other languages beyond English. They include translated documentation, dictionaries, and various other packages useful for speakers speakers of different languages. The appropriate task is automatically selected if a non-English language was chosen during installation.

CULTURE dselect, the old interface to install packages

Before aptitude, the standard program to select packages to be installed was dselect, the old graphical interface associated with dpkg. A difficult program for beginners to use, it is not recommended.

Of course, it is possible not to select any task to be installed. In this case, you can manually install the desired software with the apt-get or aptitude command (which are both accessible from the command line).

VOCABULARY Package dependencies, conflicts

In the Debian packaging lingo, a “dependency” is another package necessary for the proper functioning of the package in question. Conversely, a “conflict” is a package that can not be installed side-by-side with another.

These concepts are discussed in greater detail in Chapter 5, Packaging System: Tools and Fundamental Principles.

4.3.2. Upgrading the System

A first aptitude safe-upgrade (a command used to automatically update installed programs) is generally required, especially for possible security updates issued since the release of the latest Debian stable version. These updates may involve some additional questions through debconf, the standard Debian configuration tool. For further information on these updates conducted by aptitude, please refer to Section 6.2.3, “System Upgrade”.

Chapter 5. Packaging System: Tools and Fundamental Principles

As a Debian system administrator, you will routinely handle .deb packages, since they contain consistent functional units (applications, documentation, etc.), whose installation and maintenance they facilitate. It is therefore a good idea to know what they are and how to use them.

This chapter describes the structure and contents of “binary” and “source” packages. The former are .deb files, directly usable by dpkg, while the latter contain the program source code, as well as instructions for building binary packages.

5.1. Structure of a Binary Package