DragonMage

Some functions you see as superuser only (such as rebooting the machine) is executable by all unfortunately since the programs is located in /usr/bin. Maybe you can just make the executables runnable just by root account by changing the permission (chmod and chown commands respectively). Or better yet, just delete those two programs. Me, I like it better that way since I hate going to su to root just to shutdown or reboot the computer.

Download the nvidia driver from http://www.nvidia.com and install it. Search the board for tutorial how to install it. Anyway, when I reinstall my mandrake 9.0 because I just gotten a new HD (put the mandrake 9.0 in the new hd, natch). I found out that it was slower than before. It took me two reinstall to make it snappy again. The only two things I did different in my last reinstall is to NOT install the Japanese packages and NOT to update at the end of the install. I don't think you install other language so the only other suggestion is not to update until the install is totally finished could be one that can solve your problem. I dunno why but now my mandrake seems snappy again after I did (or did not) do those two things.. try it.

Hey, you never did update the page. Last time I check, my unit sent is close to 20 right now, in the page it's only 6. Maybe he sent something and you didn't know about it?

Hmm.. it's weird, but it seems that the questions are pretty old.. the newest Mandrake version available in the questions is 8.2

I have a feeling that he has a fear of penguins :) (If I offend you in some way, I apologize in advance).

I think the OO dictionaries for Canadian and UK English are included in the Mandrake CDs, the files are: myspell-en_GB-1.0.1-0.20020903.4mdk myspell-en_CA-1.0.1-0.20020315.4mdk Just install them and change the default document language to Canada or UK. I checked it with my OO and sure enough, using Canadian English, 'color' is marked while 'colour' is left alone. :)

Hmm.. searching in google yield me this: http://videl.ics.hawaii.edu/pipermail/luau...ust/009852.html Basically, rpmv is a program to compare the installed files to the files that is supposed to be installed according to rpm database. A comparison like that should take tons of processing power and memory considering how many rpms installed in a typical mandrake installation.

http://www.mostang.com/sane/ http://scanjet2200c.sourceforge.net/ That's just two of the links I got from using google. :) Looking at the page, it seems that either the support is preliminary or you can use the plustek driver for the hp to work. I am not sure since I don't have a scanner of the type to test (heck.. I don't even have a scanner period). Anyway, I hope it helps.

I am sorry to be a bearer of bad news, but reading the limitation link from the page where you got the driver from, the fax support is either very preliminary or doesn't work at all depending on the chipset. Anyway, the term linmodem means to describe a winmodem that can be used with Linux with a commercial or open-source driver. So the hardware is still winmodem, just work (somewhat) in linux. Basically, you have two choices, either get a real hardware modem (preferably a serial external since almost all serial external modem are real hardware modem) to get fax support or to wait until the fax feature is implemented fully in the drivers of your linmodem. Of course, you can always dual boot to windows if you just need the fax feature working.

Just about any router from a respectable company will do actually, especially if you are not planning to make a server in one of your computers. I have a D-link 604 (regular 4 port wired ethernet switch/router) and a friend have a Netgear (another one of the 4 port wired ethernet switch/router) and both seems to be setup quite easily. Don't buy a wireless switch/router unless you want to spend extra for buying a wireless card for every computer.

How much is it? And is there an English version? The supported printer list seems rather poor though with only canon, hp and epson printers, where are the lexmarks, the Panasonics, the Samsung, the Okidata?

Yes, USB printing is a much more pain no matter what OS you use, windows, linux, whatever. Parallel all the way baby :)

Well, Desktop/LX is a good introduction to linux, but it's just too crippled for me. One GUI, one way to do things, no server apps, etc. etc.. In other words, perfect for windows refugee. :)

Well, if you want to be quick and dirty about it.. edit a file named /etc/rc.d/rc.local and copy and paste the entire command at the end. It will run those commands during restart so you don't have to do it again and again. Of course you can just add the name of the install script into that file too and it does the same thing.

Nah, we won't boot you up.. we might rile you a bit about being a traitor and such, but it's all in good fun really :) . Seriously though, don't worry about the kind of distro you use. Just as long as you can help the community here, you can always stay.

Just tell them that the higher the speed and the lower the price, the crappier the quality of the things are made.. I still remember when my panasonic 20x cdrom cost 200 bux.. (and it is still running nicely 5 years later). A 200 dollars Plextor CDRW (8x4x32x) I bought more than 2 years back is still running nicely after constant burning abuse while the newer LG 24x8x40x (with the so called burn-proof technology) CDRW bought for half that price crapped out after around 6 months.

Well, you have to realize that mandrake is designed to be used by pentium class pc or above. It's the way they compile the applications, kernel, and the like. 7.0 is the last mandrake that have a separate version that can be used in a 486 class computer I believe. I second spiedra's recommendation of using peanut linux or slackware if you want a minimalist distro. Besides, I think mandrake stopped the support for 7.0 so I don't think you can get updated packages for that distro. Of course, maybe RedHat can work with that computer also, but I prefer slackware/peanut to RH for minimalist distro.

I have a feeling you didn't install the libqt and libqt-devel rpms.. Try installing them from either the mandrake cds or look for it at rpmfind.net

Well.. that's the first step of converting people to linux, start small.. start with something something doable. then move them slowly. Anyway, the menu system is another thing I hate about RH 8, it's just too plain simple. Besides.. Mandrake has a choice like that.. Check menudrake and there is an option in Action -> Modify menu style. You can see the simplified menu system there.. Me, I prefer the full menu with simplified menu system embedded (seems to be the default mandrake install). I like to pick what kind of apps I want to use for certain things. Unfortunately, RH tries to simplify too much and end up using one type of apps for one task. It alienates the more knowledgable users in order to make things simple for newbies. I agree that RH seems to have prettier face.. but Mandrake seems more intuitive in the end. I can change most of the configurations in my computer through gui, barely touching the command line at all. This is why I think mandrake really make my knowledge about linux go down.

Ouchie.. if you mean you want to input texts for language that uses non-Roman characters such as Japanese, Chinese, or Arabic.. well.. it's going to be really tough. There is no easy solutions for this if you want a ms windows like run NJWIN and plug away. For this, you really need to do your research using google and stuffs. Here are some links that I use when I was researching how to input Japanese texts in linux http://home.nyc.rr.com/computertaijutsu/jpninpt.html http://www.ugcs.caltech.edu/~diffusor/xim/ http://www.twics.com/~craig/writings/linux...ux-nihongo.html To tell you the truth.. it's very troublesome.. gnome2 is supposed to have doublebyte characters support built in.. but so far I haven't seen the implementation.. Anyway.. I hope those links help..

Coolness, now should I copy the information to tips and tricks (just so that it's easier to find) or just leave the information in this topic? Or would someone else who is better at technical writing write one for me?

The myspell rpms I mentioned should be in your mandrake 9.0 disks. If not, check rpmfind.net or something.. Those rpms I wrote above is basically what I got when typing rpm -qa |grep myspell

Gahh!!! Software Software, not hardware... I really need to read what I type before pressing the post button!

150 page document?! Sheesh.... what did you type in there? Isn't it easier to break up that document into smaller ones? And what's wrong with Laserjet III? I know its maximum resolution is 300x300 dpi but it seems to be good enough for most people, especially compared to inkjets.

Sorry if this offends you, but I have to ask this question. Why Canadian English if you are not Canadian? Yes, I know that Canadians in general speak better English than Americans, but isn't it a lot easier just to install the US English dictionaries if you just want spell checking ability? All you got to do is just install these rpms if you want to make sure that it has spellchecking capabilities in US, Canadian and UK English. myspell-en_US-1.0.1-0.20020626.4mdk myspell-hyph-en-1.0.1-0.20020727.4mdk myspell-en_GB-1.0.1-0.20020903.4mdk myspell-en_CA-1.0.1-0.20020315.4mdk Anyway let's do a bit of comparison.. I put the Local Setting to Canadian English and this is the first line in /home/dmage/.openoffice/user/config/registry/instance/org/openoffice/Office/Lingustic.xml <DefaultLocale cfg:type="string">en-US</DefaultLocale> and in ~/.openoffice/user/config/registry/instance/org/openoffice/Setup.xml <ooLocale cfg:type="string">en-US</ooLocale> <ooSetupCurrency cfg:type="string">CAD-en-CA</ooSetupCurrency> <ooSetupSystemLocale cfg:type="string">en-CA</ooSetupSystemLocale> Which means that no matter what I do, the default language for documents will always be US English, but the local will be English Canada.. Anyway, to continue the comparison, this is my dictionary listing in /usr/share/dict/ooo/ dictionary.lst en_CA.dic en_GB.dic en_US.dic th_en_US.dat en_CA.aff en_GB.aff en_US.aff hyph_en.dic th_en_US.idx Oh.. it seems that the language setting is saved to document. If you load a document saved in Canadian English setting, then OO will keep the setting and load the approppriate spellcheck dictionary. Anyway.. If you install all three dictionaries, be sure to enable them by going to option -> Language Settings -> Writing Aids. Press the edit button besides Available Language modules box and Put tickmarks into all the available language (In my case it's English USA, English Canada and English UK). The Canadian English spellcheck should work once you put the document into the Canadian English setting. Sorry I cannot help you any more than this.. I am having problems with mandrake's implementation of openoffice too. but I manage to make it usable enough for me.