Stage Two: Package Installation

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Apt Package Installation

If you did not choose to install X, then the previous anXious screens never

happened. Either way the next activity is the installation of packages. After

some clicks and whirs, apt get will check for dependencies caused by the

choices you made from the task selection screen. After assuring itself that all

the packages it wants are in the archives it will list the ones it will be installing,

followed by a synopsis of the results of its analysis. The list of packages to

install may very well run off the top of the screen too fast to be read. Don't

worry, dpkg can tell you exactly which package got installed, once the smoke

clears.

On a typical installation, the synopsis lines might look like:

1 packages upgraded, 342 newly installed, 1 to remove and 0 not upgraded.

Need to get 0B/161MB of archives.

After unpacking 408MB will be used.

Do you want to continue?

[Y/n]

Pressing ENTER causes the installation to begin.

Since you removed the CDs after you registered them with apt get there will be

no CD to install packages from. apt get will prompt you to put the correct

CD into the drive and press ENTER. Read the label presented here very

carefully. While often the first CD is needed first, sometimes, depending on

the packages chosen, a different CD will be needed. Load the CD with the

corresponding label into the CD ROM drive and then press ENTER.

apt get will scan the packages on the CD and then, most likely, drop back

into configuration mode. Many packages now support the use of debconf,

which allows configuration information to be gathered before it is needed by

the package installation. Once you have answered all the questions in this

phase, you might expect the rest of the installation to proceed without your

assistance.

Only one example will be presented here. The number of additional configura