Network

Once when I was king...

I'm sorry, but the days of installing programs from disks are over. In fact, the days of having a localized operating system are over, since computer-like devices seem to be reverting back to empty network terminals. It's a grand idea: keep your operating system, programs, and files on servers so you can access them anywhere. Linux is heavily dependent on a network, though you can get a relatively recent distribution of it by downloading several gigabytes of DVD images. The fun begins when you make the choices about what you want on your system. Aside from a window manager and file manager, you may wish to have an internet browser to research what you don't know about Linux (like me).

Despite Window Maker's vestigial Netscape icons taken from the NeXTSTEP interface, that browser won't work so well on today's internet. Under normal circumstances, I would have installed Firefox, except...

Oh dear. There's no Firefox.

...the standard Debian software repositories don't have Firefox. That's not to say it's impossible to get genuine Firefox installed; there are ways to do it. To keep things easy and simple, I went for Iceweasel, which is the exact same browser, but without the Firefox logo. Our contemporary internet is quite dependent on Adobe's Flash player, so you may want that, too.

If you're in Window Maker already, open XTerm. First become a super-user and then type:

aptitude install iceweasel flashplugin-nonfree

Assuming you granted access to non-free software during the Debian installation, this should give you a working browser. But how to start it? How do you start any program?

First return to being a regular user (type exit) and in XTerm type

iceweasel

Boom!

Now how to get a double-clickable Iceweasel icon on the workspace that's always there? Drag the window up to the right and you will see a new icon in the lower-left corner. Drag it under the last icon in the dock and it will stay put forever.

Move the window a bit to the right. Hello little weasel!

Drag the Iceweasel icon to the dock.

Now you don't have to type a command to start Iceweasel. Just double-click it!