Gowator

aRTee, I think the big thing is how to get people to take a first step and stay there. The most important part is keeping the new users happy and not loosing them. I had an funny experience with another UNIX guy at work where we are all forced to using Windoze crap for MSBloatWare and Lotus Notes. The upshot was the guy turned round and said you unix guys, I don't know how you do it, its so complicated. We just looked at each other. :?: The big hurdle for me is how to tell my mum to get down to a vendor and take a box home, plug it in and swtich it on. Apple have managed to do that. Lindows have to up to a point but it relies on fast unmetered internet and running everything as root. I read the for and against arguments and lets face it, if you drive into a country where seatbelts are not compulsary you don't take them off. Now advertising .... I think it would be on two front. Look at Apple! IMAC, well call it an Internet Surfer+ or something.... Then you catch the market of people who basically want an internet applicance. Then go on to advertise the + part, like includes software to edit your MS office documents .... Then you have the 'intermediate' users who might want to rip CD's, MP3's etc. maybee host a web site and that sort of stuff. Once you get to advanced users I disagree with Michels arguments, they might buy a pre-installed system for convenience but then they'd want to reinstall it, re partition it etc. so fine they go and buy Powerpack or whatever. Anyway, I think something like an XBOX crack might be a good idea. You have a CD capable of completely reinstalling the default (the rescue disk you talked about but the actual distro is located on the HDD. For the real newbies you need to stick with the basic stuff. Like one office suite, one browser (Konqueror?) etc. and have the other stuff installable through RPMDRAKE. I know this is limiting but it does at least help make it simpler. Your real problem comes on hardware support. Say you add a webcam, scanner, printer. The whole thing is pretty easy if its supported by a module but as soon as it isn't automatically configured theyre lost. Apple can only do it becuase they control the HW .. Another decision is do you include the PLF stuff, I mean for me its unusable without it. I wannna make MP3's becuase they play on my DVD player, Archos Multimedia player etc. Ogg doesn't. (p.s. TF1 are to offer Ogg streaming audio next to MP3 :-)) I think what your suggesting is easily possible but it needs to have boundaries set. This is actually a frequent discussion between me and a close friend who wants to get rid of all his MS stuff at work (and he's European IT manager for a big multinational so thats a lot of PC's). Anyway, and this will be a controversial point. I'm looking at doing it for fun but I can't see how to make it simple with RPM's. There are just too many dependencies that aren't satisfied etc. Before you comment try installing DVD rip on a vanilla Mandrake distro. you end up with the dependency chain reaction syndrome. It's like OK, i'll get avifilexxxx then you try and install that and you have to get something else then something else. So you have two alterntives, PLF or compile from source. Actually you can keep on stuggling and eventually get there but by this time you mightest well recompile. So Im seriously thinking of doing it with debian. Its a big step for me cos Ive no experience in Debian at all. .... Thoughts or comments ?

aRTee. What your thinking but not saying (I think) is that users coming from Windowland are used to having a OS forced on them they didn't want to pay for. In fact they are so used to it they forgot they were paying for it :-) Personally, first thing I do is wipe the damned thing away, my laptop came with XP Home Edition, a real half assed attempt at an OS.... So PC manufacturer needs a standard (accepted) and a way to image the disks. dd works fine !! Ive been doing it on Solaris for years. The point is you image a working system, not the install. Now the other bit. The packages should be somewhere on the disk so the urmpi db needs updating. Actually if you solve this (and thats not an area of my expertise at all). then kudzu does a pretty decent job of small changes. A NIC or whatever is pretty automatic so you could have a choice of disk, CD/CDRW/DVD etc no problem. If this were the case people would get a nice first experience of Linux in that it was working out of the box. I think its a good idea. The bottom line is if I told my mum to go get a PC I'd want one working out of the box. Root password.... tricky question but most of the config stuff sudo's. Set it to config or whatever. Macs do the same thing but seamlessly, like you said its only one more after the online passwords they have! Michel has a good point on the mime stuff though. Your loking at stage one .. getting the users on a linux system but stage II is making sure they can use it and don't get bored and go out and buy Windoze. You need to make sure its got language support for instance. This supposes you image a working system rather than the install and I think thats where Michel was getting. Then you need to decide swiss german or german german (same with french and italian). If you go for regional variants its less likely everything works seamlessly. I think the point is why image the installation disks. Why not simply image a working system. As you said why wait to burn the CD's, what if the user doesn't have another PC hanging round. (Some people don't). Then you take it home, plug in you keyb/mouse.screen and switch it on.

Sebastien, It sounds like two problems 1) problem reading the media (I have a similar one, did you buy it at FNAC?) Solution download 2) Not enough info but maybe you can get round this. 1st better safe than sorry. Unplug the 1st disk and set the jumpers on the second to be a master. Maxtor usually have a diagram on them. Any partitions etc which fail are at least limited to your 2nd disk ... Boot into rescue, (F1 at graphic screen) kinda hard when it cant read the CD but I guess just keep trying. Once its read into memory you won't need that part again. Now you can go to the console with the options but first let it scan and mount your partitions. It does this under /mnt automatically if you select the option. Once your in the console do a loadkeys <your country code>>. seriously, you don't wanna screw up something by typing the wrong thing by mistake. Now do a chroot /mnt This makes the root directory to /mnt so its now / If you don't do this you will have to manually add a path to get useful things like more or vi. From here you can check your partition. cfdisk is slightly friendlier but fdisk is more consistent ... I'd try a fdisk /dev/hda. Press the P to see your partitions (or not). I'd probably delete them, especially if you had an error. Now you need to recreate them ... you can use fdisk but cfdisk is easier. It defaults to /hda but you can pass it explicitly. Create your partitions as you intended. I'd try 512mb of swap with your 256mb RAM but you could do more ... Stick the rest as ext2 (or ext3). Hopefully this time it saves your partition info. (Im doing this from memory so give me a break) You might (I think but im not sure) have to reboot now. If you do then go thru the same routine ... Now back in rescue with your partitions under / You need to create a file system. mkfs /dev/hda1 should do the trick. OK, now you have a root file system and swap configured. Go thru the installation EXCEPT do NOT format any partitions. They are blank because you have just created them. Hopefully exerything should procede as meant to ..... At this point you have a descision, diskdrake may or may not have problems writing your partitions in future and we made it pretty minimalsist (2 partitions). If you try it be prepared to repeat the whole thing .... Now you need to get the think dual booting..... How is up to you... You need to plug in your 1st disk again and reset the jumpers on the4 second. If you do this youll just boot into windows and drive D: will appear unformatted. If you have partition magic you can use this to select the 2nd disk. If you don't then you can use lilo or grub. You need to boot into rescue (again) ... sorry. This time you can try and reinstall boot loader. from rescue options. it should pick up the first disk as /hda1 and your linux disk as /hdb1 If not (and I'd check before another reboot) go back to console with loadkeys and chroot. you can vi /etc/lilo.conf It should have a vmlinuz entry in /hda1, this needs changing to /hdb1 You should also have a windows entry, if not you can create it, try a man on lilo.conf (sorry no time right now but its striaght forward) After youve run it (and supposing you did a chroot) you can just type lilo. It should tell you its stuck in the two options et viola. Good look.

I agree its a please support us thing but Mandrake need to think about their image. The world is divided into 4 sets of people. Those who think MS is the best thing that happened since fire was discovered. (Quite a lot) Those who detest everything they do/say/manipulate (including me but a small minority) Those who don't really care what Microsoft do (The majority) so long as they don't get caught with the pritated copy of office. (A large majority about to be screwed over). Someone in a jungle in borneo who is more worried about his next meal. I buy the box set myself but it should confer some recompense. I buy it even though he manuals are in French (not my preferred language) so I thow them away and print the pdf's. (this is becuase I live in France). But then I find poor quality CD's, just feel the edges. (Well my sets anyway, both 9.0 and 9.1.) I checked with free cd's from mags and theyre much better. So I still odwnload and burn my own Cd's for backup. I don't mind to pay for the work they did but you should only pay once. They used to give support creidts with the box sets, not anymore. I don't have a problem with for instance buying a box set in a store and just getting the manuals and a link to follow... (well in theory) but they need to rationalise the whole thing. The number of packages/patches needed in 9.1 is horrific, it makes the box set redundant anyway. What would a first time switcher form Windows think??? I like Mandrake and I want them to stay around but they have a position to support. Most of their profits come from rebadging someone elses work but that's fine, its the GPL model. Also they have tried adding value too (genuinely) so I'm not attacking that but since they have reused work (correctly) and what they owe back to the linux community in general is a regard for the general image for linux. A windows user switching becuase of licencing, activation or general public good will be detered by the inference that they then pay for more things. Also the advertising is getting misleading. Plays your DVD's SHOULD not be on the box. Its an advert for MS to say, yeah but not any you can buy or rent from a video store. Yet, at least on the french version its written on the box.

Hey, I didn't mean that you should stop the creative writing, just that the only way forward is through writing, getting criticism and then improving. The main point is as you identify the length for someone who wasn't interested in the first place. :wink: It doesn't matter if you can tell if it was a native speaker or not really but its just a few odd phrases here and there. I'm constantly laughed at by friends for putting something another way in French when I speak. Its perfectly valid, its just people don't say it that way or its archaic. Your English is much better than my French anyway.... My written French is usually at the level of a 10 year old or whatever which isn't good for a written report! For your interest, take a look at Eric Raymods creative writing: http://catb.org/~esr/writings/ Keep it up anyway whether in ABN or English ...

I still don't think it matters! What is Linux anyway? No really! Most of the ideas of linux are simply reutilising code efficiently and using standard protcols. Its a building with a solid base and that base supports everything else built on it. Windows is a shaky base. They built the foundations into the walls and windows. Break one window and you rock the foundations. UNIX is simply a cleaner more idealistic design built properly and designed so if someone throws a brick through your window you just replace the window! Most linux programming is simply reusing the basic components or adding a GUI to an existing component (take XCDRoast or well ANYTHING in linux). You have a fundamental object (a file) which you pass arguaments, pipe the output etc. Xcdroast is a front end to cdrecord. GRIP just pipes through an encoder. All of this is open and avaialbe for any enterprising developer. It works because the source is open but also becuase the programs are fundamentally designed that way. If you want to direct ps output through gv you just pipe it! Now GV is available for windows too but try wrtiing a program to produce ps and then display it through gv. The mechanisms just aren't in place. Its wasted time on behalf of MS to try and emulate Linux becuase they are starting from the wrong place. Anyone who's seen citrix metaframe can't help but be impressed. I certainly was blown away. It adds multuser workspace and resusable binaries into Windows. Its an incredible peice of software really considering where they started. It would have been easier to redesign a whole new OS from scratch than try and work this into Windows. Now look at OS-X. Apple got smart and decided they would just rework BSD. Result a stable OS with the polish and flare apple are so good at. Choose your server from the list .... Apple, Microsoft or SUN. Well, depends what you want to do with it but at least you know the SUN and Apple ones are stable. p.s. I don't have an Apple

I thought someone knowledgable was saying that the only way to support Mandrake was through the club. I just purchased my shiny new powerpack (9.1), I thought I was helping out. It doesn't work though, not for me anyway. I guess I should get around to getting a phone line then I can get broadband :-) For me the CD edition is pretty useless, too many bugs if I don't have an internet connection. Basically (see thread on released to early) if you havn't got broadband the CD's don't help becuase theres just so many updates. I hope there is a release 10, in about 5 years! I'd rather see a 9.1.1 pretty damn quick! I don't want to see my favorite distro disappear anymore than anyone else but I ended up with Mandrake because of RedHat 7.0!

2. I constantly produce charts through spreadsheets. (OpenOffice) Now you have to use OO not SO since it was removed from 9.1. (No big deal unless you preferred SO) 5. I have a cable connection for the internet (8.2 and 9.0 did a great job on that). Seems better, especially if you live in France :-) since they added a Alcatel config tool! 6. I do use a TV-Tuner on my computer, and I want to know if any compatibility issues arised (XawTV). I have a limping system in 9.1, ironically the xvideo broke in 9.0 and I never bothered to sort it out! More ironically its one of the few things working in 9.1 (for me) 8. Movies and DVDs. Did MDK finally added support or is PLF still the only good solution? Erm, guess what, the company that brought you downloadable 256bit encryption if you didn't intend to become a terrorist is more scared of the media companies than the american government. I don't know if thats good or bad! Good luck .... Or let us know ghow you get on!

OK, so I tried a completely different machine, VIA chipset instead of MSI, the only common thing being the bridges since they were both Athalon based machines. New machine MGA400, old machine NVIDIA. Hmmm. Install prceeded well, or at least better. I didn't select any packages outside of the recommended base. I planned to do that later. So it went off and the hung on some packages. Attempted to get a response from the screen by going between DETAILS on off but it froze. Ejected theCD and reinserted and I get package @@@@@@@@ failed continue. Hmm. OK but that wan't the pacjkage described as being installed. This happened twice more and in both other cases packages were trivial (RealPlayer, npdf). Still, I managed to get to the end. Lilo screwed up though and I didn't even get the traditional 'LI' death message. Instead I got a nice set of 99 99 99 99 about 20 lines long. Tried the other machine (again) and this time I managed to get a little more sense. The nice thing was it bombed out real quick. The bad thing Kernel----.mdk.rpm couldn't install, proceed. Now I'm no expert but I think this might be an important package! :-)

Oops Ixthusdan, crossed posts. I was replying to the other one. Hey, noones complaining here. This board is rockin.... I think I had one meda (unfortunately CD1) with an error in 9.1. I strongly suspect if I use a CD rather than DVD as hdc then it should read it. The installer hanging in an endless loop is another story though. If I'd got a clean install in 9.0 (fault urmpi db) I'd try an upgrade. I might see if I can just add packages instead! Thx ....

Will the 9.1rc1 installer script work? Until I get broadband I'm a bit stuck looks like back to 9.0 for now! Did anyone having problems with the install try a clean 9.0 install andthen an upgrade to 9.1? Perhaps that's an option? I guess I might try and just add the RPM's I need to a new/clean 9.0.

Yeah, I could take a half days vacation and go back the the same store but its not really practical ;-). The point is the installer should be recoverable if it screws up the install: I found the reason for the hang (in 9.1) on the 'everything Linux forum'. So far Ive only seen one package drop out but I was doing other things at the time. http://www.mandrakeusers.org/viewtopic.php?t=3863

First time I ever got to hear my CPU alarm. The system has been running 24x7 for months without a hickup. The Installer has been a nightmare. Switching to a console to see the logs doesn't help when you need to hit the power switch. This is a real pain, I had problems with the 9.0 installer becuase the boxset media were damaged and it wouldn't finish. This is really bad though!

The reason I changed from RedHat (excluding the KDE3/RH issue) was due to RH7.0. A truly buggy release. I changed and I never went back! Releasing unstable critical software is STUPID. The installer is critical. In work I frequently have to work with a big vertical market software company and the most common complaint is just get the bugs ironed out, forget the functionality and provide incremental patches not complete new versions. Apart from the Mandrake configuration tools and the new Galaxy desktop what really is new? This could have been provided as a simple update instead of a new release. I'm having problems with the looping perl installer. If I didn't have a CPU alarm set it would have fried my CPU. I see from this topic that its a known bug! The whole version release war is crazy. A suspect a large part in Mandrake gaining popularity was at the expense of RedHat after version 7. Mandrake should maybe have learned from this! (For anyone that doesn't remember it was the release with the cludged glibc versions) Hardly a trivial library to screw up! The distro's need to slow down and stabilise. I'm not sure the Mandrake wizards are too important, Webmin still works ? The point is some things are critical and should be thouroughly tested. If the installer works reliably on defalut settings then stick and unstable warning next to individual package installation. And like someone else said, listen to the users doing the bug reporting. Even someone doing something through their own stupidity or lack of knowledge is doing something someone else will probably do.

I tend to agree that software subscriptions are doomed, Linux or MS. You can't expect a user sick with MS registration, support costs and registering online to breath a sigh of relief when they go out and buy a Box Set only to find they are directed to Mandrake Club (via subscription) and Mandrake Expert (via Pay as you go). This board rocks, I lost my password for MandrakeClub and I won't be going back! You used to get a credit from the boxset for Mandrake expert but not anymore. I think it would be better for Mandrake to either redirect suppoort here or make the Forum free on mandrakeclub. The problem for me is I felt I was doing my thing by purchasing a set (70 Euros) but then they want more money. They should at least off 50Euros credit or something if you bought it instead of just downloaded it. Its not just the money its the principle. Mandrake are not interested in (negative) comments from users anymore. Check out the site. Nowhere do you get a chance to give contructive criticism. This is just as valid from a first time Mandrake (or Linux) user as an expert. If they aren't taking comments from users how can they be working on making it more user friendly. Even the comments from beta testers seem to have been ignored unless they were simply something didn't work. OK I'm ranting but I've suported Mandrake for a long time and I think the 'subscription model' is OK so long as thats it, no hidden extras! Same goes for selling box sets or PC's at Walmart. When you combine the two though it starts to smell of MS. I don't mind paying for StarOffice seperately (or any other commercial software) but I think it should be transparent.

Yes I agree, this is a know thine enemy but MS are to arrogant to realise they might loose programmers over this. The whole debate is actually pretty simple. They see something nice in Linux, they try and emulate it in Windows, they get bluescreened and frustrated and throw the machine onto the redmond lawn. Linux works because fundamentally it is a simple logical documented system. Its modular and open. Microsoft programmers hide their source code from each other in a competitive environment (at least they claimed so when asked to show it). 100 people competing to build a bridge over a gorge will never produce a more stable bridge than 100 people cooperating. You can throw as much money and FUD as you like. By the time the architect has finished adding the optional aesthetics the underlying foundations are so shaken the whole structure is unstable. Think back tothe XBOX crack.... MS spent however many million making it uncrackable et viola. So they changed the encryption (presumably at huge cost) and a few days later it was broken again. They are wasting their time trying to emulate Linux. If they spent the time and effort making a stable OS they might win the battle but they are diverting their attention elsewhere. I'd be far more concerned about the ongoing pervasion of OpenStandards like HTML or TCP/IP.

Really the choice depends on what I want to do. Simple stuff I tend to Open KWord becuase its faster but as an office replacement I use StarOffice 6.0. I did have the pdf output working before an upgrade but not anymore so Im using Kword for that now. The only thing needs doing better is CUPS/Foomatic integration. IMHO The whole point with Linux is choice after all. On the Missing Applications debate (same Forum) a lot of stuff was said about OO not replacing MS Office completely. For 90% of users who don't use the macro editor more than the normal WP I can't see whats missing. Oh MSJET support. Hmmm. Thats like a waste of effort. I'd like a nice prototype database for Linux (i.e. Nice RAD tools) but the Jet database is just a clux.

This is just MHO (I couldn't do it better! but you asked for comments) Its kinda cute but takes too long to get to the point. You can tell it isn't written by a mother tongue English speaker although the grammer and words are correct (Its way better than my French though) they are obviously translated from French. This is a comment not a critique so I won't start quoting them. Its like a motherboard manual from Tiawan. You've read them ? What I mean is the company in question (insert MB manufacturer of choice) has all the technical ability to put together a pretty complex piece of equipment yet the English reads like its been written by a techy who would prefer to be tweaking part of the board. A cultural observation, Non latin cultures might not put so much emphasis on food quality and view it as not only important but critical. Personally I love food but try discussing 'the food' as a subject with most Norwegians! (No offense meant on this, specially to any of my norwegian friends who might read it) This is a bit like a car/gas analogy that might work in the States !! You chose a very difficult subject to explain to non techies but as commented earlier its a good attempt to put your thoughts on paper. The problem is plenty of techies exist who don't see the importance of FSF and OpenSource. What seems obvious to you and me seems to have been impossible to get across the American legal system. Don't be put off, writing is not meant to be an easy art and writing in a second language (or third) is incredibily difficult to get the nuance. Practice, criticism and more practice are the only way, even if you are writing in your mother tongue. Anyway, nice site. (Although I'm not sure about Boycot WineX) IMHO Wine just is..... Its partly good and partly bad for Linux....

What is there to miss about expanded bloatware? I had come to think the only genuine useful thing added to office since Word 2 and Excel 5 was the SaveAs HTML. So much for for that. The code is so full of MS crap that you need to use Frontpage to edit it. For anyone interested I tried a hello world in word. Its like 200 lines long. Powerpoint exports are .. well lets not get into that .. :wink: Perhaps some Word gurus use the automatic envelope maker but I just want a word processor. The only genuinely useful thing I miss is the grammer checker. This is great for checking conjugation etc. in another language. I use it at work all the time for emails. I don't have time for online games (I'm not sure if this is good or bad) but yes games are missing. That brings us back to Wine. I run a clean house, no nasty winboxes or dual boot machines. I occaisonally use VMWARE to run Harraps French/English dictionary but thats about it. Mdk 9.0 should allow me to use BlueZ to replace starting vmware to use bluetooth :D Over the years when I was young and impressionable I bought either directly or indirectly dozens of copies of Windows. I get a tremendous relief now to know that they are relegated to museum curiosities. Wine has held back a decent gaming API for linux (perhaps). Its also made more linux users by allowing them to run their paid for software on Linux. Is it good? Is it bad? No, but its a bit ugly :wink: While I'm ranting, I miss all those lovely protocols like NETBUI, at least M$ has abandoned them in favour of corrupting real protocols and misuse of the RFC mechanism. Great Topic idea .....

1) Yes, Powerpack. 2) Systems Tried: Easiest to describe first ;-) Mdk 9.0 Shuttle 41X with Creative DVD 12x on sec IDE (1/2 gig RAM) Athlon 1300 Laptop Fujitsu Seimens Amilo (celeron) 384MB combined CDR/DVD (sec IDE) Generic Athlon (name escapes me right now) MB with ADAPTEC AHA2940UW - sda = 36GB Seagate Cheatah (+HP Scanner), Primary IDE 40GB Maxtor, secondary IDE Panasonic DVD ROM (master) and Sony CDR (slave). 1/2 GB RAM. Various graphics/NIC/sound tried ! None of the systems have a CD slaved to the HDD. 1) It boots up and incorrectly loads the wrong SCSI driver in 9.1, in 9.0 it loads the correct driver. Actually it was hanging completely on some CPU intensive task. So I went to watch a DVD (on the patched shuttle :-)) finally it shut itself down on the CPU temp monitor! It usually runs at 55-60C with shutdown at 74, it has been doing this 24*7 for months and never overheats (and it shouldn't with the amount of fans) Once I got a vestiage of a working system up it did the same overheating thing when I booted into 9.1. Locked up and then over heated! 2) I chose INSTALL 3) The problem seems to be with the RPM database and what happens if it can't read a package. 4) No but I will tonight! 5) Yeah I can browse the whole CD but I can't copy it, it falls over on some of the RPM's (i.e. TOC is written but errors on media) same for the other disks (actually a couple are OK). 6) I think 5 should answer that! 7) And answer to Ixthusdan bought at FNAC rpm --rebuilddb (Yeah tried it, it didn't work but I forget the error message or exactly what happened. ) >>snip I've used Mandrakwe since 7.0, with purchased and downloaded media. It really is a good os. << Yeah, I supported it since I switched from RH (after RH7.0 AND becuase of KDE/RH issues). Ive had some really good experiences but starting with 9.0 this has all gone downhill. Removing MP3 encoding sucks, stilll no CSS decryption sucks when Lindows 1.0 had it by default. At least 9.1 has added support for my built in Winmodem on the Laptop (although I haven't tested it yet). My issues are the new RPMDrake which absolutely sucks, I mean seriously seperate apps to add or remove apps. I didn't see a single person who liked it during 9.0 beta II yet Mandrake went along and did it anyway under the escuse they were porting it to Perl for maintainability. Yeah like that means you have a seperate app for adding/removing packages! My issue with Mandrake is they have actually started to get a bit carried away with themselves. The advertising on the BOX is misleading "Play your DVD's" (yeah like my video store does unencrypted DVD's) Then the same thing with Mandrake Club/Mandrake Expert. I honestly have no issue paying for an OS and Mandrake have put a lot of work in but they are also loosing their roots. They lack the balls to put in CSS (remember 7.0 with the encryption where it automatically downloaded 128 bit encryption if you promised you weren't Sadam Hussein? I had 9.0 working quite well (after downloading the CD's I'd already payed for plus the PLF stuff) and its really kickass once its up and running but the package manager really sucks. I have less time than I used to have so I try and keep to RPM's and use the package manager, the times when the first thing I would do is recompile the kernel have slipped away!

I kept getting the umount -a failing becuase it couldn't unmount /net.

I purchased the FULL expert Mandrake Expert edition for 9.1 the other day and I'm dismayed to find the media seem **** and the installer falls over because of this. I have tried this on three VERY GENERIC machines with the same result. I had the same problem with 9.0 ---- lousy media and an install that falls over when it can't read all the packages. I PAID for this half to support Mandrake (though God knows why anymore) and half becuase I don't have an internet connection at home at the moment (except through WAP). Question: How do I actually fix rpm drake which keeps telling me oops everthing already insalled this isn't supposed to happen! I ended up in a infinite loop of ad media - pacjkage not found -add media before writing the MBR so everything had to be configured manually. (lilo ... X, you name it) Does anyone else have lousy media, (ps. all my hdc's are DVD players) In 9.0 I ended up downloading and remaking the CD's, somewhat ironic when I paid in the first instance!