The first thing that comes up on the screen is page 1 of the Help file. You can get to this help by pressing ? at any point in the “Select” screens, and you can page through the help screens by hitting the . (full stop) key.
Before you dive in, note these points:
◼ To exit the “Select” screen after all selections are complete, press Enter. This will return you to the main screen if there is no problem with your selection. Otherwise, you will be asked to deal with that problem. When you are happy with any given screen, press Enter to get out.
◼ Problems are quite normal and are to be expected. If you select package A and that package requires package B to run, dselect will warn you of the problem and will most likely suggest a solution. If package A conflicts with package B (i.e., if they are mutually exclusive), you will be asked to decide between them.
Let’s look at the top two lines of the Select screen. This header reminds us of some of the special keys listed in Table 3.1.
Table 3.1: Special dselect keys
+------------------------------------------------------+
| Key | Description |
|------+-----------------------------------------------|
| + | Select a package for installation. |
|------+-----------------------------------------------|
| = | Place a package on hold |
|------+-----------------------------------------------|
| - | Remove a package. |
|------+-----------------------------------------------|
| _ | Remove a package and its configuration files. |
|------+-----------------------------------------------|
| i, I | Toggle/cycle information displays. |
|------+-----------------------------------------------|
| o, O | Cycle through the sort options. |
|------+-----------------------------------------------|
| v, V | A terse/verbose toggle. |
+------------------------------------------------------+
Table 3.2 lists the states that dselect uses to denote the status of each package it is aware of.
Table 3.2: dselect Package States
+-----------------------------------------------+
| Flag | Meaning | Possible values |
|------+-----------------+----------------------|
| E | Error | Space, R, I |
|------+-----------------+----------------------|
| I | Installed State | Space, *, -, U, C, I |
|------+-----------------+----------------------|
| O | Old Mark | *, -, =, _, n |
|------+-----------------+----------------------|
| M | Mark | *, -, =, _, n |
+-----------------------------------------------+
Rather than spell all this out here, I refer you to the Help screens where all is revealed. One example, though.
You enter dselect and find a line like this:
EIOM Pri Section Package Description
** Opt misc loadlin a loader (running under DOS) for LINUX