wahur

Hi all! I have been using Linux (mostly Mandrake/driva) for a long time. Yep, every next release gets better and better. But the single most annoying part of the game is that you set everything up, spend a week on finetuning it, finally have nice working setup (in my case not exactly trivial) and then half a year later you start all over again. I am beyond the age when tinkering with my comp was my favourite passtime, all I need is a working setup. I have considered simply not upgrading - but that's not an option either. New versions of software come out that I depend on and using old versions is often not very practical. So here is the Q: Is there any Linux distro that supports version upgrades? Suse? Fedora? Some other? Note that I am not friends with Ubuntu so suggesting it is useless. I know upgrade is possible in Mandriva, but AFAIK it is not officially supported and i know from my earlier experience that it is possible to get burned quite easily. I make my living on my computer and killing it with failed upgrade I cannot afford. With regards Wahur

Just to close the issue: I have not had any problems with that box since my previous posting. Obviously "urpme imwheel" was the magic formula this time. Wahur

I start another thread on that - this is not the only small annoyance I have with my current setup. In fact, number of those "small annoyances" is getting little beyond my tolerance. But not before this current serious problem gets solved properly - one issue at a time. W

Guess I have been WAY luckier with computer hardware than you. No significant failures in 7-8 years despite bying only price (and mentally accepting possible consequences). The more ironic would be failure now that I have bought more or less quality hardware. Your first suggestion is not OK as the box still has warranty and I would not open it. Memtest ran all night and reported zero failures so I think there will be no need, too. I removed imwheel and will come back later today and let you know how this worked. Meanwhile I came to a great idea to check logs ;) This is what I found in kernel error.log for every start: May 6 10:55:54 localhost kernel: pnpacpi: exceeded the max number of mem resources: 12 Maybe this will give us some clue? Oh, btw, for some reason time is also wrong here. Machine was started 7.55. W

AussieJohn - hardware problem crossed my mind. This computer is only one year old, though, so I am reluctant to accept the idea. Letting the box run overnight probably would not work. I have needed like 2 restarts a day so it will most probably freeze hard overnight. Can I run it as I work? Never needed this before... ianw - what this imwheel actually does? It seems its needed for mousewheel and I would not want to give up that functionality.

Hello! Had quite well set up and nicely working 2008.0 system on my box, but due to need to repartition HD decided also to upgrade to Spring few weeks ago. Bad idea - having used Mandrake/driva since 9.0 I haven't had a box hanging on a daily basis - and this one dies couple of times a day. Hanging happens gradually and starts from the mouse (ordinary Logitech wheel mouse). In the only occasion when I waited until complete lockup imwheel was eating up most of the CPU, with X using what was left to it, so I guess mouse might be the source of the problems. In fact, because I work a lot on a keyboard I do not notice always when it starts, just in one moment mouse pointer still moves, but clicking produces no result. Then usually window decorations get lost and while I am not completely sure of that, some keyboard shortcuts go with them. CPU usage is high, but not 100%. At that point I usually restart X which solves the problem for a while. Hardware ‎Dual Core Intel® Pentium® D CPU 2.8 Graphics GeForce 7300 GT ImExPS/2 Logitech Wheel Mouse

Well, thats what I thought. And thats why I am asking here. As I said, I failed miserably even when i tried to start my machine after moving the .vdi to another partition (/home was too small). So your surprise is serious worry for me - I may have many backups, but what's the use... W

So its out and i want to upgrade - there are OOo2.4 and few other things I need. Main problem is, I have Virtualbox setup running XP as guest. This setup is mission-critical and losing it would mean reactivation of Windows and re-licencing of some tools. This would cost money. How to back up existing setup so that I could use existing image/machine after the upgrade? I tested this once before and failed miserably, so now I am very careful.

First, I did: "Instead, when you open xorg.conf, you will find this DontZap option, commented out, in one of the first sections." But if you insist, beginning of my xorg.conf (Ctrl-Alt-BS already disabled) looks like this: # File generated by XFdrake (rev 230776) Section "Extensions" Option "Composite" EndSection # ********************************************************************** # Refer to the xorg.conf man page for details about the format of # this file. # ********************************************************************** Section "ServerFlags" DontZap # disable <Ctrl><Alt><BS> (server abort) AllowMouseOpenFail # allows the server to start up even if the mouse does not work #DontZoom # disable <Ctrl><Alt><KP_+>/<KP_-> (resolution switching) EndSection Wahur

I thought I already explained. You suggested adding DontZap option in a new section in the end of the file. Problem is, Mandriva xorg.conf already has that option, only its commented out. So adding it once more ends up with X not starting anymore. Therefore, Mandriva (and possibly, other non-Ubuntu distros) users should look for the already existing option in the file and simply uncomment. Difference is, indeed, tiny, but might save lots of trouble for someone not used to digging in conf files. Wahur

OK, for further reference to all Mandriva users. Do not do it the Ubuntu way like ianw suggested above. You will end up with X spewing errors and not coming up again. Instead, when you open xorg.conf, you will find this DontZap option, commented out, in one of the first sections. Simply uncomment, restart X, done. And then pray you never need it in emergency ;) Wahur, many thanks to everyone

No. In fact, now that i think about it, this might have been the case. If speed-typing and concentrating on the text, it is sometimes quite hard to reconstruct, what I did exactly. I do a lot of Ctrl-backspace and if because of Wordfast, finger goes to Alt a lot, this is probably what happened This does restart X, right? Now how can I get rid of this - its just another catastrophy waiting to happen?

Yep, that place I know, although the default settings there were not consistent with what really happened. I found two settings there - Log Out (Ctrl-Alt-Del) and Log out without Confirmation (Ctrl-Shift-Alt-Del). In my case C-A-D was quite enough to cause logout without any confirmation despite what these settings said. Which was annoying and caused actual loss of data. I disabled both just in case. Still, it would be cool to know if such disabling/enabling could be done depending on, say, certain program window being/becoming active.

Hi! Such a funny problem. I am using certain program (Wordfast) a lot, which is heavy on keyboard shortcuts. Including all thinkable Ctrl, Alt, Ctrl-Alt combinations. Result tends to be, that when typing really fast, sometimes I end up giving it unwanted three-finger-salute :( Is there a way to switch Ctrl-Alt-Del off, ideally only if certain program is running (it might still come handy in some other occasion)? Wahur

Did not see any configuration possibility, but 10 secs is much-much better :) Exactly what I was hoping for. Wahur, knee-deep in zombies and vampires :D