Linux Journal: Configuring Your Laptop for GNOME and Sound

“If you followed my tutorial, ‘Setting Up a Base Linux Install
on a Laptop,’ you should have a base Linux install up and running
Window Maker, Debian’s default window manager. Although Window
Maker is useful, I find the feature-rich environments of GNOME and
KDE to be more useful in a desktop/laptop configuration. In this
article I’m going to discuss how to further configure your Debian
laptop with GNOME 2.2 and enable sound using the basic modules that
come stock with the 2.4 kernel.

“Let us start by installing GNOME 2.2. There are multiple ways
to install it, but really only one way is viable for a Debian user.
All that you have to do is run apt-get install gnome-core. Debian’s
apt-get system goes out to the Sid repositories listed in
/etc/apt/source.list and downloads Debian’s latest build of GNOME
and all of its many required packages. This automation saves you
tons of time. Although I have found a couple of missing packages
here and there, the convenience of an apt-get install by far
outweighs the downside of compiling it from source. Using apt-get,
the entire process takes a matter of minutes; if you were to do a
source compile from scratch it could take you hours. For those of
you who need to have the absolutely newest build of GNOME, you’re
stuck with a source install. Fortunately, a utility called Gargnome
can assist you with a source compile. Although Gargnome is no
apt-get, it is a heck of a lot better then messing with each
individual package…”

Complete
Story