I wanted to update Scorpio RC4, (formerly installed to a Dell tower, Pentium IV with 1 GB ram) which I did, then realized I had half of the update using Jessie/SID. How did I achieve this? I guess I have been too fast reconfiguring the sources.list.
Anyhow unsure of how to do things next I erased the install and reinstalled anew from a Lxde ISO image taken from here:
http://cdimage.debian.org/debian-cd/7.1.0/i386/iso-cd/( this iso debian-7.1.0-i386-lxde-CD-1.iso)
I wanted to start from USB with my usual mount to loop method, but it appeared the ISO is not fit for this method, so after several tries I ended up downloading vmlinuz and initrd.gz from here:
http://http.us.debian.org/debian/dists/stable/main/installer-i386/current/images/hd-mediaand installed with the poor man install method as presented here:
http://www.debian.org/releases/stable/i386/ch04s04.html.frand prepared a boot from Grub2 almost as presented here:
http://www.debian.org/releases/stable/i386/ch05s01.html.fr#boot-initrdjust I didn't edit /boot/grub/grub.cfg but the file /etc/grub.d/40_custom which is meant for custom entries, and once done I invoked as root "update-grub2".
It appeared that I should have added the option desktop=lxde somewhere in the boot stanza:
menuentry 'New Install' {
insmod part_msdos
insmod ext2
set root='(hd0,msdos1)'
linux /boot/newinstall/vmlinuz
initrd /boot/newinstall/initrd.gz
}because instead of ending with LXDE I ended with… Gnome3 ! Which I didn't like, so I had to work some more time after the install to correct this.
I wonder if the grub2 text block allows adding options to the linux command line? The said option can be found in the ISO image under isolinux, in the txt.cfg file:
default install
label install
menu label ^Install
menu default
kernel /install.386/vmlinuz
append desktop=lxde vga=788 initrd=/install.386/initrd.gz -- quiet
The post install steps have been, installing Lxde because I wanted to escape Gnome 3 as fast as possible, (just Lxde core, because "task lxde" or such installs a world of programs I wouldn't need) then login to Lxde, remove all possible Gnome components and trying not to break the system while doing so, then install the additional packages and configuration which I keep at
http://meets.free.fr/Downloads, in directories which are now more and more structured to find easily all the setups and changes done previously in the different Ubuntu Openbox spins. (It's a work in progress).
After that I just had to logout, change the session to "Openbox", and also reconfigure .xinitrc because I had 3 dbus-daemon started and 4 sessions! ^^
The LXDE main components are gone, the icons are Faenza with Faenza Mint on the top, providing a nice green set of icons.
There is one issue left: the fonts are ugly, and this will be some work to make them look smooth as they usually are in a Lubuntu, a Xubuntu (and I would suppose in the official Ubuntu as well, which I very seldom boot so I don't quite remember).
Fonts! How to make them look consistent with the right thickness and smoothing? I started working on it, and I plan to read again the archlinux wiki howto on this one, for it has helped before. My fear is I think the components needed might not be available in the Debian current repositories.
To be followed…
