mistinthenight

Hi, I've installed KDE 3.3.2 via cooker (I allowed it to get all the required dependencies) and now the fonts are a bit different, with less quality. Does anyone what can have caused this ? Regards,

I don't understand why kpp isn't a valid program for gnome. Is because you need all the extra libraries or just because you don't want a KDE application ?

Hi, I've just compiled KDE 3.3.1 using Konstruct. My only complain is about the Mandrake applications you lose when you follow this way. How have you faced this ? Were you able to continue using URPMI (for Mandrake apps) and drakconf ? Is there anything else you miss when you follow this way? Any comments from people using a compiled version would be really welcome -it'd save weeks of problems- Best regards,

Thank you for the info. Looking for that GPL CD, I found a Suse Live 9.1 CD (I don't know if this is the one you state). It gave me a chance to use it without any intalling. My first experience is: - Everything KDE (I love this). You have DIVX and MP3 support out of the box. - Faster WEB browsing (in terms of screen redrawn) but slower when there are a lot of PNGs in the web page (you can see how it scrolls down smoothly and then there is a slow-down when there are several images. - I'm using the latest propietary driver from ATI in Mandrake and with Suse I used the default driver. Suse allowed me to change my resolution up to 2048x1512 (my monitor supports it) and working at 1600x1200@106Hz. This is something that even the official ATI drivers don't allow easily. - Faster desktop, KDE is more smooth: I can move windows with the content without problems, it was a bit slower with mandrake. - Nice fonts. Just like Mandrake (but bettern than FC2) - More or less recent packages correctly configured. Example: kaffeine was in its last version, completly configured (you only needed to put the win codecs in the directory) and working. Samba correctly detected my home network, etc. - For a Live version, Knoppix is still the best: I had to manually configure the sound card, and it has far less software than Knoppix. I'm a bit picky about smoothness and font quality, but I want a system _at least_ as smooth as my XP machine at work. In this sense, I think Suse is better. But I see two problems: one is the one you say -It's more closed- and the other is that I don't want to leave this forum :). On the other hand they are promising a even faster version with the next release next month. They will be using the kernel 2.8. and they already have the KDE 3.3.1 packages. I'll wait for that version to decide. About not releasing a full version in CD or DVD, but allowing to download the full server to your harddisk, it's completly insane: I've seen places selling 2 DVDs with the entire FTP for +/-6 Euros.

First, don't get me wrong. I value the effort of the people who work in the different projects of Linux, and if I'm spending long hours learning to use it, is because I also like the spirit of it. I'm looking for some way to contribute in a way that is enjoyable for me. I'm a programmer and I do know the hard work that means to develop such a huge project as Linux as a whole. Every day I I find new related projects and think the same: it's really incredible -so few people, working in such great undertakings, in their free time- and almost keeping up to pace with giants like Microsoft or Sun. But it's buggy. As a friend of mine says, it's BBB software: buggy beyond belief. And, reading code and reading developer's forums, I'm starting to think it's "patch oriented programming". It has, by far, more bugs than XP and has less functionality. If you are speaking of Windows 95, 98, Me, you are right: they are crap. But Windows 2000 and XP are real solid programs and state of the art architecture. Windows has problems, the most important by far is security, but it's rock solid in almost every aspect. It doesn't need to take Windows to compare with. Other free projects have a different approach and get different results. You see, the first program I ran after installing MDK 10 was KDevelop. I wanted to know if it was a good candidate to develop (I used the nightmare called Anjuta in Gnome, and well, I think I don't need to say anything about it). I ran it and selected a template, then it crashed. After reporting the bug in the KDevelop forum, I got a reply telling me it was already known and could be solved in a future version. Well, I placed the class tree window to the left and the help to the right and it crashed. Again, I posted about this and got a reply telling me it was being addressed. When I restarted later Kdevelop it completly forgot about how I had arranged it. I posted again and got a reply telling me it was also a known bug. It won't be fixed in the near future. After other problems I checked the bug list to avoid posting known things. And man, it has one of the largest bug list I've ever seen :) It's the same history for other programs: Kopete, KNode, Karamba, etc, etc, are incredible: they seem to never have been tested. Take another open source project, like Eclipse. Each 6 weeks you get a new version. And the Eclipse project is not only the IDE, it's a huge project: it includes the widgets, the environment, EMF, etc. It's fantastic. Of course it has bugs, but by far not so many as you are used to see in Linux and certainly not so evident. Yes, it's true that Eclipse has an architect like Erich Gamma working on it, but what about linux ? It must have also great architects, doesn't it ? People is, without question, the best part of linux. And comunities like this one are fantastic (mandrakeusers.com is extremely friendly - I'm thinking on trying other distros, but this forum is one of the things that keeps me using mandrake). I think Linux has a great future, and I hope to give my grain of sand to build it. But it has problems, and the huge number of bugs is, in my limited view of it, the worst of them.

Hi, I'm looking for a faster and more stable distro than Mandrake, and since I'm a KDE user, Suse -one of the largest supporters- is a good option. Have you tried the new Suse 9.1 ? How does it compare to Mandrake 10 ? A good side effect from the move is that I'll get all the KDE releases faster than with Mandrake :) Thanks !

Well, I'm new to linux. I started using Fedora but I left it due mainly to two things: bugs and slowness. Mandrake is -in my limited experience- more stable and faster. But it is not enought. When I use my XP machine at work, I get a feeling of smoothness: everything works great: browsing web pages, working with windows, etc, etc. My home machine matches the office box: a 2.53Mhz P4 with 1GB RAM and a Radeon 9700 Pro. My premise is that speed diference in simple things like those should not be noticeable. However I can't remove from my head the feeling that I'm using a third world operating system at home. Solutions? 1. Give a try to FC3. People say it seems to be real fast now. 2. Use Gentoo. From everything I read, it's supposely the fastest distro around. However I'm new to linux, and I just don't have the knowledge to run it. 3. Recompile all what I can using a faster compiler in Mandrake 10. Where I need the speed is clearly in KDE, so this could be a good chance to compile the new 3.3.1 version. However, all its dependencies should be also recompiled. Do you know if it is very hard to change the default compiler from gcc to Intel's one ? I don't know if this is somewhat configurable and simple to do or if I'll meet hell in the process. Any comment on its viability would be really great. Thanks ! Moved from Software forum to Terminal Shell Commands, Kernel and Programming by Artificial Intelligence

Well, my very first Linux experience was with Fedora Cora 1. I wanted to install it to hdb, and it asked me if I was sure about it. I agreed. Then it formatted my hda. +/- 110 GB lost. I was "a bit" upset, but I gave it a try. After installing everything, I got several surprises: no mp3, no divx, no flash, no java.. at least I got s3m, xm and it support :). Well, I thought, this is linux after all, is a good way to learn how this works. Anyway the following 3 things were what made me leave Fedora (and almost give up linux): - Buggy: the linux kernel may be stable, but using gnome or KDE with Fedora was a real pain. Every day I had problems with a lot of programs (and since I was completly new to linux at the time, I didn't even know how to kill them). This fact alone was about to make me leave linux. Even now, I see linux as extremely buggy software, where everything is half-done, a world of a lot of hacks but no real arquitecture. A lot of things are a copy of some other program (in the CLI from unix and in KDE/GNOME from Windows). This may sound very strong but please, prove me wrong. I really want to change my mind on this. - Slow: compared to Mandrake 10 official, Fedora is really, really slow. To name a place that I specially hated: when you were scrolling down a web page, it was far, far from the smoothness of XP. It was choppy. - Ugly fonts: I inverted a long time trying to solve this, with a limited sucess. Again, moving to Mandrake 10 official solved the problem. I'll stick to Mandrake unless someone could provide me with a faster and more stable distribution (and Gentoo is not an option. I just don't have the knowledge to use it)

I don't promise anything, but I'll try to capture a frame and post it here. I've seen a Crystal theme in the www.kde-look.com page that is close to the window decoration they used in the series (and btw, this Crystal decoration rocks - I can't wait to see the new transparencies in Xorg- :) Best regards,

Hi, Thank you for your help, it worked. I downloaded all the packages, so I don't know what was wrong. Anyway I'll stick to the previous version until I jump to the next Mandrake 10.0.1 official release. Best regards,

Hi, I usually don't pay attention to computer screens in movies / series. They seem to be far from real and useful interfaces. This, however, caught my eye: every time the logan's computer is shown it has a clear and cool interface I was unable to see it in detail (I must record the serie :), but looks great. Just by chance, has anyone seen it? What is your opinion? Do you think KDE is customizable to this point :) ? Best regards,

After installing the latest Mandrake 10 XFree update. the fonts quality (mostly noticeable in the web pages) got worse. I've asked in usenet and it seems to be a general problem with this upgrade. My question is: how can I downgrade to the official libfreetype6 package ? A possible way to do this would be to uninstall the entire libfreetype6 dependency tree, and reinstalling it again (losing all the updates to the different packages). Do you know a better way to do this ? I think this is a rude approach :) Thanks in advance,

Hi, Ok, I know this can sound like a complete newbie behavior, but I rebooted my pc (I usually keep it always on) and it worked the next time. I spent several hours trying to fix it (and only to see it working after rebooting. Anyway, thank you !

It worked flawlessly ! Thank you !

Hi, I installed Mandrake 10 (clean install) and updated all the packages but I'm still unable to burn DVD-R's or even format a DVD-RW disc (using K3b). The recorder is a Toshiba SD-5002. It worked flawlessly with Fedora 1. Here is a paste of the K3b debug log when formatting a disc: ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- System ----------------------- K3b Version: 0.11.6cvs KDE Version: 3.2 BRANCH >= 20040204 QT Version: 3.2.3 dvd+rw-format ----------------------- * DVD±RW format utility by <appro@fy.chalmers.se>, version 4.8. * 4.7GB DVD-RW media in Sequential mode detected. :-[ START UNIT failed with SK=3h/ASC=31h/ACQ=00h]: Input/output error :-[ READ TRACK INFORMATION failed with SK=3h/ASC=31h/ACQ=00h]: Input/output error dvd+rw-format comand: ----------------------- /usr/bin/dvd+rw-format -gui -blank /dev/ide/host0/bus1/target1/lun0/cd ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Any help or comments would be really welcome. Thanks in advance,