broke system

[Alan Dayley]

bmike101 at cox.net said:
> stoopid mee!
> I decided to fix what I didn't need to (upgrade really) and now the system
> doesn't work as well.
>
> I ran 'apt-get install kmail' and that made it so it wouldn't
> automatically load 'x' and when I run 'startx' I don't get to choose my wm
> but rather have to know which one I need  to run. I think the wm I am
> given when I type 'startx' is 'failsafe'. (but what do I know) To open
> directly into the wm I want would I type 'startx icewm' (for example)?

OK, installing just kmail should not mess with the loading of x and your
other complaints here.  When you ran the apt-get command, did it download
and update other things beyond kmail?

If it only install kmail, something else is going on here.  Linux installs
do not just "mess themselves up" from installing a mail application.

> I think upgrading kmail was a bad thing! So now I'm doing 'apt-get
> upgrade' in the hopes that will 'fix' it (not that I know what I'm doing).

OK, it might, I guess.

> If this doesn't 'fix' it I think I will set it to 'stable' and do a
> 'dist-upgrade'. Does this sound like a good plan? Do you think that after
> what I'm doing currently  is done I should try to get it to work the way
> it is because a stable dist-upgrade is a superfluous..... errrrr....
> extravegant step?

Debian people could better answer the validity of this course.

Alan