VeeDubb

This is simple. DirectX through Wine is not possible. I know someone is going to get on here and flame me for this, and post specific examples of wine successes with direct X, but those examples, are the only ones that exist. There is hope however. There are other projects besides wine that may get the job done. I suggest looking into Cedega, Win4lin and VMware. Chances are, one of the three of those will do what you want. I'd search for them on this board first, and then on google second. I have personaly posted long and highly detailed descriptions and comparisons of each on this board, and I know that you will find them if you search. Since your biggest concern is directX, I'd look into cedega, you might also do a search for WineX. It's the same thing, they changed their name this last year from WineX to cedega. Their website is http://www.transgaming.com and they have a forum over at http://www.transgaming.org/forum Lot's of discussion about what programs work with what versions of cedega. fare warnign though, the main target of cedega is gaming, so most folks won't know what you're talking about. But, since gaming is the goal, DirectX support is a must.

I have to disagree with the first part of this. I'm reasonably proficiant at both Photoshop and the gimp, and I'm self taught with both. I didn't think that the GIMP was realy any harder to learn than Photoshop. It's certainly different, but personaly, I think it's just as user friendly as anything else. I do agree about it being satisfying and maybe more useful though.

An important difference between this and programs like kpdf, is that the real reader supports fillable forms, and kpdf doesn't. Fillable forms are frequently used for things like job applications and tax forms. it's a small feature, but a veryt usefull one. Also, witht he fillable forms, the real acrobat reader will allow you to save a copy of the form with your info filled in without using the dodgy print to pdf function.

I can specificaly reccomend the Crative labs ModemBlaster external serial modem. I used it for a couple years and it's just a great 56k modem. Has both styles of serial plugs included, never fails, requires no special drivers in linux or windows.

A side note about converting people. You need to be careful about who you convert, because the reality as that linux is still deffinately NOT at a place where anyone can use it. It's getting there, but it's not there yet. When you try and convert someone, you need to make sure they understand how very different some things are. And how much harder they are going to have to work utill they get a hold of things.

I agree. I think the RIAA and friends need to realize a couple of things. First of all, there is not now, nor will there ever be, a way for them to completely prevent people from making illegal copies of their soft products. In fact, there's nothing they can do to even slow things down. Ask someon who rips a lot of DVD's, they'll tell you it doesn't take any longer to rip a region one DVD than to rip an unencoded one. The second thing they need to realize, is that all of their efforts, make things more difficult for good honest people who just want to do reasonable things, like put one of hteir movies ona CF card for their pda, or store some movies on thier laptop for long train rides, or God forbid, own an MP3 player.

NO, I don't think that's what he wants. CDDB is for looking up info on real CD's. Even KSCD, the most basic CD playing program I've found for linux uses CDDB lookup. And as far as I know, all of the ripping programs included with mandrake can do CDDB lookup. In any case, there's no problem there. For EQ, I know that many people have ahd good results running it with cedega, which will cost you at least $15 to get the full version, but that's not bad. I'f you're talking about EQ2, then you better check out http://www.transgaming.org/forum and see what people are saying.

In case anyone reads this and doesn't know, the commercial version of Cedega that you get when you pay for a subscription is NOT the same as the cvs version. The CVS does not contain several very important dll's, so don't expect the CVS version to work nearly as well.

I build and sell a couple of computers each year. There's no profit with as little volume as I deal in, but it's fun. Since I'm too nice for my own good a lot of the time, I offer a year of tech support to 'most' customers. I have just that EXACT experience, with WindowsXP. Customized desktop, Installed this cool program from some website that was suposed to do something, but I forget what, and now my computer turns itself on every night, and my mouse stopped working. No matter what system a computer is running, people can screw it up.

They got tired of doing 2 or 3 release candidates, so now they call the last release candidate Community edition and release it even if it's buggy crap. (though usualy, it's only a litle buggy) and then, a couple months later, they release the Official edition, which is just what it sounds like. In otherwords, use the Official Edition.

OKay, my router DOES have a section for port forwarding, but it asks for an IP port range. what on earth is that? There are two boxes, so it asks for "blank TO blank" if I just want to forward port 2000, should I enter '2000' to '2000 or should I be putting something else there? Thanks.

This is sort of a game related question, but since it is totaly a network/internet problem, I think it should go here. I just got a copy of Majest:Gold for linux this Christmas and a friend of mine who is a windows guy, decided to get a copy so we could play. However, we're having trouble wetting up the connection. It supports connection over tcp/ip given a hostname and port. What hostname and port should I use, or how should I figure that out? We're both connected to the internet through qwest DSL (different account in different towns of course) , so we're each on our own litle home networks. From my DSL router I can get the following info: Current Status Firmware Version: MAC Address Connection Mode IP Address Subnet Mask Gateway DNS #1 DNS #2 LAN IP Address Net Mask DHCP Server The gateway listed is the actual DSL node that my dsl router connects to. The IP and DNS's are the ones dynamicaly asigned to me by qwest. Behind the router, I use static IP's 192.168.0.2 for my PC. The LAN is IP address for back end of the DSL router that my home network talks to. 192.168.0.1 Same deal at my friends house, ecept the OS is WinXP. And I also know my local home network IP & hostname for my PC. Of course, If I have my friend enter penguin.office.home as a hostname to connect with me, he isn't going to get to me. If everybody is using windows, gamespy arcade can set up the connections for you, but that's not realy an option, since last I checked, gamespy doesn't have a linux version. And realy, why would they bother? Anyway, any suggestions appreciated.

If you are getting a true DOS promt as you describe, the problem is NOT mandrake, it's either your ISO's or your PC. Period. End of discussion. No question. No doubt. No alternative. No way. No how. No if. No and. No but. NOw that that's out of the way, let's try and figure out what IS going on. To answer one question that came up, no Caldera is not a linux distro, it is a software company. They have in the past, produced a linux distro, but they have also produced a DOS clone called caldera dr-dos. The most likely explanations are: 1. Bad ISO's downloading again does not preclude this possability. 2. Bad burn. Once again, a second burn doesn't fix this, if the cause is human error. You may be doing something stupid like burning the iso as a file isntead of an image and telling nero to make it a boot disk, giving you a basic dos prompt. That's m,y suspician. 3. You may have some other boot media present and have your bios configured to boot it before the CD. Not real likely, but sometimes, it's the REALY obvious things that are most insidious. 4. The last possability that comes to mind is that you have a REALY non-standard bios.

Agreed. I have upgraded this way SEVERAL times. You get all the bennefits of a clean install, without loosing personal files or settings. In fact, commercial software installed in your home diredctory, like ut2004 still works after a re-install this way. The one warning I'd add is that whenever you format any partition, there is always a 'chance' that you will crash your hard drive and be forced to format the whole thing. It's not real likely, especialy with linux, but you need to know it 'can' happen. I suggest that you back up every thing in /home onto cdr's or dvdr's if you have things that are irreplacable.

I have an HP psc1210. It is a multi function device. It creates high enough quality images scanning AND printing for any reasonable home use, is fully supported by linux, works out of the box in mandrake 10.1, and with little or no tweaking in other versions of mandrake and other distros, and best of all, you can pick one up just about anywhere for $99.99. I know it sounds too good to be true, btu it IS true. I have one, I've had it for a while, and I love it. I've sold several other people on them, in linux and in windows and everyone is happy. The ink is even reasonably priced. they're realy worth a look. So you know, there are now several revisions of the psc1210 such as the psc1210xi. Don't worry, they all work the same. There is also a slightly different version called the psc1349 that is the EXACT same unit internaly, but has several media card readers on the front of it. I ahve not used it in linux and have had mixed reports of how well the readers work in linux. The printing and scanning are identicle to the 1210.

I agree. I use linux because it works better for me. Yes, sometimes my desktop locks up, but that's because of the cheap RAM I put in it, not the OS. I don't hate MS. Despite all the anti-MS sentimate out there, especialy in the linux community, they're not that evil. Any company is going to look ultra evil when they get that big. The only spot where I'd like to point out some faulty logic is your resistance to change distros. You know the mandrake community rocks, and one of your biggest beefs with linux is that the community around your favorite distro's is not so hot. But seriously, think this out. Isn't switching to Windows a WAY bigger adjustment/disruption than just switching distros? Anyway, use what works for you. Linux isn't for everyone. I'm a linux user for the long haul now, but I used linux several times before and each time was a litle longer untill I and linux were both in places that worked together. ANd in between, I use windows.

One quesation, does it take you to the linux comand line as everyone here is assuming, or does it ACTUALY take you to dos? That is a remote possablity. If you're not sure, just post what the prompt says.

The one you want is called kppp. IMNSHO, it is without a doubt, the very best dialer program for dial-up ISP's in linux. If you're using kde as a desktop, it has a few extras, like the ability to close out completely with nothing but an icon in the task bar while maintaining your connection, but it's still the best, even with gnome or something else. if you have specific configuration problems, let us know. I used dial-up with linux for quite a while before switching to Qwest DSL. One tip: remember that the information you enter may be slightly different than when you are trying to set up the same conection in windows. In windows, the configuration is often done for you, but in linux, the initial configuration is always manual. If you are like me and used to set up your own advanced connections for dial-up in windows, then you will have no trouble. Anyway, an example is MSN internet service. Instead of entering your usingname or email as in windows, you enter MSN/username as a username. Each ISP is differnt in this respect, so you would do well to get online and find out what otheres ahve done to conect to your isp via linux. I can guarantee that you are not the first person to try.

Well, 'logout' should do it. Whenb you select logout from the menu you should get a pop-up box that offers 'End session only', 'Turn off computer' and 'Restart Computer' If you don't get that box, then go ahead and logout, and get yourself to a console, ctrl-alt-f3 will do the trick, and from there, hit ctrl-alt-del and it will reboot you. if you want to shut down instead of reboot, then you just hit the power button before the system is doen posting. Of course, that's just a temporary fix untill you can figure out why you can't shut down normaly

It is a Desktop environment. Other desktop environments include, but are not imited to KDE, icewm, matchbox, enlightenment, XFCE, fluxbox and others. EAch has it's own desktop related software and libraries, file browser, and integrated programs. KDE is generaly agreed to be the most well rounded and user friendly DE, but it can be quite resource intensive. Many people prefer fluxbox, XFCE, or icewm for their speed and efficiency, matchbox is usualy only found on integrated linux devices like PDA's and smartphones running X. Gnome is the second most popular after KDE, and while less functional all on it's own, it is QUITE capable and realy has greater pottential than kde if a user is willing to invest the time into configuration and scripting. Cahnces are, if you have been using linux so short a time you have to ask "what is gnome" then you'll be happier with kde. AND WELCOME TO THE MUB!

cks for shipping. Seriously, it's like &13.99 or less with shipping, and it comes quick. realy ont worth downloading at those prices. Plus, since it'w the power-pac the only way you could download it was if you were a club member. Otherwise, the version you downlaod will be stripped of all commercial software, like acrobat reader, RealPlayer and the nvidia drivers. You can downlaod and install those things yourself, but why?

Oh, and regular mozilla can do it too, you don't need firefox for that.

By going to edit > preferences ?advanced > mouse wheel, You can set the funcion of the mousewheel by itself, and also what it does with the shift, alt and ctrl keys. each can be different and there are four options, including regular scroll and text zooming. Personaly, I find the text zooming far more useful than setting a larger default font size.

Oh yeah, and welcome to the M.U.B!!!

to start, isntead of ctrl-alt-f7, try ctrl-alt-f2. That should bring you to a login prompt. once there, log in, and enter the following commands IN ORDER 'su root' (may require a password) 'service dm stop' (this will stop X and the display manager.) 'exit' (that will get you out of root and back to your normal user. 'startx' When you type startx, one of two things will happen. 1. the graphical server may start, then we can figure out why it's not starting on it's own. 2. More likely, you'll get a long error message that points you to a log file. if that's the case, post your results here and I or someone else will help more.