Bham

I would like to echo what previous contributors have said about requesting how to's and video clips. I would also like to see a 'solved' section or something similar where a weekly /monthly problem is explained in a bit more detail. For example I don't do anything earth shattering on my computer and when I read some the problems I am lost as to what the problem is. So I would appreciate an article/feature/discussion where a particular problem is highlighted, a few sentences or so to explain what the problem is, what causes the problem and then a few sentences to say it was solved this way instead of that and this worked because of blah blah. Not really a how to more of a why this was a problem (so thicko's like me could understand it) and then explaining why the solution worked. All to often I read that something worked but it would be nice to know / understand why it worked.

You could try and change the printer driver, I had to do this with my printer in mandriva 2007.

Last year a colleague retired and was cleaning out a cupboard and came across Red Hat 5.2 (or 7.2 I can't rememebr which) on a CD from a computer mag from 1998/9 and gave it to me because he thought I might find it interesting. This was my first linux. I could only get two eyes which followed the mouse cursor around. No it was not love at first sight. But a quick google and I came across the mandrake.tips.4.free site. I think it was the screenshots and detail which made it seem so easy to switch. I went out on bought mandrake 10.1 based on this site and have not really looked back.

Thanks for the replies. Cymbaloum thats exactly what I am looking for. Coming from a slightly older generation I have never played music or listened to the radio on a computer before, its all openoffice and tux games, so I gave Amorok a go yesterday for the first time, very impressive. I will have to dig out a few tutorials, (likewise with Gimp) but I think Amorok will be the show stealer for any student. I have also got 75 DOS games. They work great under Dosbox, a bit dated but they have a certain character which I think they will find appealling. I might issue live CD for home use. Once again thanks for the replies. Still on topic (I think) yesterday, here in the UK the BBC carried a report of a secondary school which has been encouaged to seek support from businesses. Microsoft have supplied all the IT equipment and software. I wonder what that would mean for anyone in a similar position to me of planning some non-microsoft based IT lessons?

I really like the bootloader idea, I never thought of doing that even though I dual boot at home, I could put it on floppies. (I missed seeing the wood because the trees got in the way). If I was to do that then the IT guys said they would have no objection to me putting Mandriva on a handful of the schools higher spec machines with 2.4Ghz and DVD-rom. That has now opened up a range of possibilities. Thanks for the tip.

I teach in a secondary school and I have the option to use some computers for four weeks before they get windows put on them (not my decision). I would like to take this opportunity to introduce the class to linux. Each computer has a 700 mhz Intel II coppermine processor, CD-rom, at least 128 mb of memory and 8Gb or greater hard drive. The school has broadband. I use Mandriva 2006 at home and have used other distros and live CD's. What I would like is advice / suggestions on projects or activities you think a class of 13-14 years old would find fun or a bit different from windows ? I want them to have a good first impression of linux. cheers

I have previously used a zoom V92 external modem with mandriva. It was detected no problem. This is just a thought but check MCC, security, firewall and check the net device is selected for ppp+.

I have had a similar problem and get a cable unpluged message if i try to use Windows XP after installing a version of linux. I use Gag to dual boot and found that after I installed a new operating system I had to re enter my windows partition information into Gag. This fixed it for me. Just a thought but could it be a bootloader problem.