SilverSurfer60

You don't need to install another kmixrc, kde will use the correct one. Looking at the output from the 'amixer' command I can see the speaker output is called 'Line Playback' which has a switch setting, also there is a setting for 'Beep Playback' switch and volume. You can configure kmix by right clicking on the volume control icon on the systray. In the configuration dialog you can activate/deactivate any or all of the controls shown by the 'amixer contents' command. What I would do is activate the ones you may think is the ones I have mentioned (or any you wish) and you will then have them easily accessible via the systray icon. You can use them just like any other control. When you have done you can then disable what is not needed otherwise you will have a massive mixer control on your desktop.

I think the next thing to do would be in konsole type amixer contents that will give you a list of all the available controls on your sound card. Look to see if you have separate controls for the internal and external speakers. If you have, then you can mute them separately with amixer commands. Take a look at man amixer for all the options. Once again if you can control the volumes separately then we are back to the kmixrc file. I had a similar problem on a laptop that I have and used the above method to track down the source of the noise. It turned out to be the on-board modem.

If you think five years is old for a computer then mine is definitely well past its prime at 15years+ It has two new mother boards & two power supplies in that time, one took the other out. Apart from that it has had memory added, hard drives and cd rom changed. So the cost effective way is more ram, you will certainly see the difference 1/2 meg makes, however if you are looking for an excuse, get yourself a shiney bright new outfit. Go one spoil yourself. You must have that option in mind or else you would not be asking the question. :D

Sorry but I hadn't quite grasped what was happening. I assume you are using a set of external speakers with a jack plug on the end for plugging into the sound card. If this is correct then when you do plug the speakers in usually the internal speaker is disconnected, therefore unusable. I also assumed you were using kmix as a mixer control. If this is the case then the channel map is in .kde in your home directory, if you are using kde 3, and in .kde4 if you are using kde 4. In either case the mapping is in the share/config sub-directory/kmixrc. However you don't need this file in your case. I am not familiar with your sound card so there may be settings that I don't know about, but as far as I am aware you can only use either external speakers or internal speakers but not both at the same time on the same card.

Boy that is heavy bedtime reading. From what I gather from the limited reading I have done M$ have patented a GUI to provide SUDO functionality, not the underlying code. Maybe I'm totally wrong there as my knowledge of US law is about zero. :) It certainly seems a hot topic none the less.

Have you checked your mixer channel settings map? What sound card have you got? It would appear to be the channels that are not set correctly seeing as the internal speakers are working but not external ones.

Gnome is the way to go on an older laptop, I found that out with 2009. Live disks take forever to load as the entire system has to be loaded up from cd. It may be a bit quicker with gnome, adn stop the freezing of the mouse etc.

Glad you got it sorted Kieth, unfortunately your method seems to be the only method of fault finding at the moment. I disabled pulse on my system to get it working properly, never had to before.

It's all in the scheme of things, or not as the case may be. If the there is no css/xml for the scroll bars the default is used. Now when I can be bothered to find the default I will alter that to something better.

Thank you for that, but I can change the theme no problem but when I change the theme the scroll bars and in particular the menu selection colours do not change. They used to though.

Maybe this will help with some problems. Also with the 3.5 Firefox you can manage your plugins and extensions from the Tool menu.

I can't seem to be able to change the colour of the scroll bars in 2010.0 That is not a show stopper, but what is a little annoying is a can't change the colour of selected items in the main drop down menu in apps like Firefox for example. Using KDE that is. Any ideas anybody please? Has anyone else got this problem or is it just me?

It may be the upgrading method that doesn't go too well. 2009.1 has quite a lot of kde3 support whilst 2010.0 has none. Is it possible for you to do a new install of your 2010?

Glad you got that sorted. Quite a worry when you get something like that.

Are you saying the good bank of memory that you had will not boot now? Have you tried it with just the one bank of memory in? If either of the above questions are yes, it is looking quite serious I'm afraid to say. Let's hope not.

You look to have 1/2 meg working there Kieth. Either you have one stick of ram that has gone bad or its not seated correctly is what I would think.

Sorted. I disabled pulseaudio again. This time using MCC and rebooted. When kde surfaced I got a dialog telling me that sound devices had been removed and gave me the option of configuring the sound devices. Took the option and found 6 devices listed instead of 1. Tested each device until I got desired result and applied. Rebooted and whoopee sound was as I left it.

After more fault finding I discovered that the channel mapping seems to be at fault. I'm using kde with a via 8235 sound card by the way. Anyway all channels seem to be controlled by 'Master' & 'Pcm'. I tried a cd this morning and sure enough I had to adjust the 'pcm' slider to adjust the volume. I have tried disabling pulseaudio without any effect whatsoever.

I am unable to answer that for you so I will leave it 'till someone is able to offer advice.

There is a problem at the moment with usb devices with 2010.0 not being detected. Once the system is up and running there is a work around for the problem, however if you are booting from a usb device this may be the reason for the boot sequence not completing. Welcome to the board.

A rather annoying problem has arisen since installing 2010.0 which is rather odd. The 'Master' & 'Pcm' controls reset to varying degrees of loudness depending on what is played. No matter where I set them they always return to some preset settings usually after the sound stops, regardless of the sound being played. I really am at a loss on this one, so if anyone has an idea I will be grateful for it. Thank You. [moved from Software by spinynorman]

I think you are right there Scarecrow. I have it working somewhat now, don't ask me how as I don't know what I did. It's still hit & miss with ordinary cd's but dvd's are ok.

Not tried that one but I'll give it a go. I don't think that will mount none dvd's though. Maybe I am missing a library.

Well on the whole I found the install a pleasing experience and the distribution a good one. However I have come across what seems to be a broken hal-daemon. It fails to mount the cdrom's. Whilst it identifies that a cd/dvd has been inserted the only option given is to copy with k3b. I am unable to mount either of my dvd writers no matter what I try. I have had a good look on the Mandriva website and found a good few posts about the problem but mainly about usb devices. There is no entries in the logs either, so I am a bit stuck with this one. I'll keep trying though.

The 'i586' is a 32 bit version. The 64 bit has 'x86-64' int the filename. As I understand it.