Making a little progress here. Many thanks to John Pearson for the most recent increment.
Next: 1. Not sure whether my installation completed. I was looking at someone's comments about editing a file in /usr/src/linux, so I tried to go there. But I dont seem to have any such directory. Heres what I get at the command prompt: debian:/usr/src# dir debian:/usr/src# In other words, there seems to be nothing in there. Is this normal? Also, when I type man at the prompt, I get command not found. In general terms, is there a diagnostic that verifies I got the whole enchilada installed? 2. I am making spiritual preparations for the long trek through dselect, in the hope that if I strictly control what files get installed, I can avoid Microsoft-style bloat. Am I correct in thinking that dselect is structured in such a way as to support this fond hope? Will I bloat if I instead use a profile? Is there a way to invoke the profiler outside of the installation sequence? (It didnt arise during installation, for some reason.) 3. Is there a good source of reviews on Linux software: (a) Am I correct in surmising that I must choose from among more than several Linux windowing/GUI schemes? (b) Point-by-point objective comparisons of versions of Emacs? (c) High-quality discussions of various utilities, office suites, etc.? 4. Am I roughly correct in thinking that, after the installation is done, the next thing is to install the windowing/GUI software, and then after that its a free-for-all in which I will just install as many pieces of application software as I can stomach? Along those lines, can I rest my faith in Emacs as my do-all Swiss Army knife, or should I be expecting to install eight trillion utilities and gizmos? Thanks all ... ____________________________________________________________________ Get free email and a permanent address at http://www.netaddress.com/?N=1