Leo

But presumably you don't get the option to buy each piece separately, your choice is to buy the bundle or not buy the bundle (you just get to know how much you are paying for the parts you don't want/need)

I am currently using a dial up connection and want broadband (but do not want to pay the earth for it) does anyone have any recommendations. I am based in South Wales I do not live in a cabled area I do not want to go for a limited service (i.e. not the BT 1GB limit). I will be using it to download Linux bits and pieces, browsing, email and possibly setting up a website (once I get more confident). It will also be used for music downloads etc... Other than that I am not really sure what I need to look for as I do not understand a number of the limitations set by the providers or what hardware I need (other than a modem). What should I be looking for? Prodigynet seem to have a fairly good offer, has anyone got any experience of them as a company/provider? Thanks Leo

Have you installed the drivers for the modem? It sounds like the same problem I had (9.0 also, but common to all) and is to do with winmodems (software modems that work perfectly under windows but are a bugger to get running under anything else. try googleing for your modem model and see what comes up. searching the forum for modem or winmodem may also be of use as it is a very common problem Oh and welcome. It can be tough but is worth the effort..

Evolution is fantastic, but I also have issues with it freezing and occasionally crashing completely. Don't know what causes it.

Started with DOS something or other moved to unix (don't know whose) back in college used windows 3.11 at work then NT and now 2K at home got my first pc with windows 98 pre installed and got MDK 7.0 off a magazibne but didn't install it (too scared :unsure:) Built my own pc and realised I couldn't re use my wiin 98 disk so bought MDK 9.0 powerpack which I still use.I tried FreeBSD but never really got on with it then also installed Slackware 9.1 which I prefer currently. I have MDK 10 currentl;y awaiting installation whuich will happen soon.

The links look really useful, thanks Roland. I shall give Samba a go. I'm not bothered about the NT machine since it is a machine I "acquired" so the version of NT will not be staying when I get around to using it.

I am attempting to network some pcs together and am having limited success. I currently have: one pc with win 98 and MDK 9.0 dual booting one pc with slackware 9.1 a laptop dual booting win 2K and Slackware 9.1 an old low spec (not sure about the CPU) 64MB RAM 6GB HDD currently running Win NT (this will change) I also have a 5 port switch box. all four have ethernet cards (the laptop has wireless capability). none of the machines are left on (I only have 56k modem connection to internet from the MDK machine) My aim was to shift the modem into the old NT box and run slackware on it (without X)to use it as a firewall and internet connection for the network (possibly overkill given that it is only a 56k modem and not always on but I am only playing) I can share files between all the Linux machines when they are on and connected as well as open remote shells (I am working on Wake On LAN). My main problem is that I cannot get the win 98 box to recognise the network (or be recognised by the network) when it is logged in. I have read around a bit and think that I need to get Samba set up but am confused as to exactly what I need to do. I did not want to have to leave any of the pcs on permanently but have a feeling that in order to get windows networked this would be necessary as Samba would have to be running on a pc to network windows. In order to get windows into the network (whenever the machine is booted into windows rather than MDK) do i need a network server with Samba on it? The obvious choice for this would be the NT machine (with a new OS on it) but I am guessing that this would rule it out as the firewall (from a security point of view). Any other suggestions?

Check your pc first to make sure that it does not already support firewire/ieee1394 as it is quite common to have this included on newer pcs and motherboards. If you do not have it already you can pick up pci cards fairly cheaply (mine is a pninnacle dv500 and is recognised fine by Harddrake, although I have not attempted dv editing yet). You will also need ieee1394 cable to connect the camera to the pc.

Does your camera have I-Link (this is what sony call firewire/ieee1394), I had a quick search but could not find a spec for your camera. If so then you should be able to load the ieee1394 modules (ohci1394 and ieee1394) once these are loaded you should be a step closer to getting kino to recognise your camcorder. Leo

Are you using ALSA? If so it may be that the sound is just muted.

Is it just me or does this remind anyone else of the "if Windows were a car" comparison? Leo

I get pays for surveys too.

I recently installed Slackware on a pc with windows and did not want to write over the Master Boot Record (MBR) or so needed an alternative way to boot into Linux. Since the machine did not have a floppy drive a floppy bootdisk was not the answer and I want to bugger about with the kernel so using the install cd was not an option either as it would use the kernel image on the disk. I wanted to install a boot loader onto a CD that I could boot from and which would allow me to select the kernel from the hard disk. After Googling for a bit (alright, bloody ages!) I came across LinuxQuestions.org Which all but answered my questions. So here is what I did (the vast majority of the code and method comes from homey at linuxquestions.org) This was all done on a second machine that has a floppy drive, cd writer and boots Linux (Mandrake 9.0) using Grub. First (as root) I copied the existing /boot/grub/menu.lst to a temporary file. #cp /boot/grub/menu.lst /boot/grub/menu.lst.copy next using vi I amended menu.lst to add an option boot my Slackware partition as though it were on the current machine (it exists on hda3 on the other machine) title linux kernel (hd0,2)/boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/hda3 devfs=mount hdc=ide-scsi having saved the changes I then formatted a floppy and created a /boot/grub directory on it before copying my existing /boot/grub directory contents into it. #fdformat /dev/fd0 #mke2fs -m 0 /dev/fd0 #mount -t ext2 /dev/fd0 /mnt/floppy #mkdir -p /mnt/floppy/boot/grub #cp -pa /boot/grub/* /mnt/floppy/boot/grub #umount /mnt/floppy Next I created a text file /home/stuff using vi #vi /home/stuff and wrote the following grub install script into it: root (fd0) #the following is all on one line install /boot/grub/stage1 d (fd0) (fd0)/boot/grub/stage2 0x8000 p (fd0)/boot/grb/menu.lst # quit The next step was to install grub onto the floppy disk using: #grep -v ^# /home/stuff | grub --batch this ran the install script by ignoring any line beginning with a # This gave me a floppy bootdisk. I now copied the contents of the bootdisk into a file boot.img and created an iso image using the boot.img file and using the El-Torrito option (-r) that let me make my cd look like a bootable floppy to the bios. I also had to specify the pathname of the boot.img #mkisofs -r -b boot.img -o bootcd.iso /home I was then able to create the bootable cd by copying the iso image to a cd(remembering to get the correct device using cdrecord -scanbus): #cdrecord -v speed=4 dev=0,2,0 -data bootcd.iso Finally I replace the amended version of /boot/grub/menu.lst with my original (no really, I did, I didn't forget and try rebooting my machine with the wrong version in it ): #cp -f /boot/grub/menu.lst.copy /boot/grub/menu.lst I was then able to boot my pc with the Slackware distro using the cd so now when it boots I get presented with the Grub loader screen. If you have any suggestions for improvements to this please feel free to add them. And once again I would like to make clear that the vast majority of this is transposed almost verbatim from a reply by homey on LinuxQuestions .org (linked). Leo

Thats really useful, I wish I had seen it before I installed Slackware, it should help me iron out some of my outstanding issues. Thanks cybrjackle

have you tried adding a modeline labelled "1024x768" to you monitor section and then in place of the virtual entry in the Display subsection, adding mode "1024x768"

Not sure if anyone has seen this already but it was quite interesting, also it is nice to see articles like this in national newspapers not just tech press. Guardian article

Is it possible to put Lilo onto a cd and boot from that? If so, how? is it as straight forward as creating a bootable cd and copying the Lilo.conf file onto it?

I used a free version of Acronis PartitionExpert 2003 on my W2K laptop and it resized fine. The only issue I had was that I created an unformatted partition and when I rebooted it seemed to think it was some kind of boot sector (no ill effects just a bit worrying to see)

I think this may be a silly question but anyway... When I turn on the laptop it goes through starting windows, Win 2K professional, another wndows start process then prepares network connections. I then get presented with Novell Login v4.83.0.0 SP1. Although I think I may have just answered my own question... If I install Lilo it will handle the boot process before the machine even gets to the first starting windows process won't it? So everything else ought to work without any problems. Is this correct?

I want to install Slackware on my laptop but currently have W2K which I need for work. When I log in at work I get the Novell login stuff up following boot. If I install slackware with a Lilo boot manager will this screw up the Novell network stuff? (I really don;t want to srew anything up as it would mean having to get the tech support people invovled and all they do is wipe the entire thing and reinstall half the apps I need. (plus I don;t want to have to go back tail between my legs and own up to breaking it in the first place by buggering about with it ) Thanks Leo

Not sure where you found your instructions, but I got my fuji finepix to work under 9.0 by following the instructions from The Linux Documentation Project (a fantastic site for all sorts of stuff) hope this helps Leo

Not tried it myself, but 802.11g is meant to be compatible with 802.11b. Apparently you only need the two cards to get a workable network (as with your crossover cable) any more and it starts to confuse the issue (but is not impossible). I don't know anything about the security aspect. let us know how you get on, I have been toying with the idea of this myself but need the £££ to get the cards. Leo

I had the exact same problem, it turned out to be a problem with the drivers for the modem. Have you checked for updated drivers (you can find the necessary files either by googling or asking for assistance here) Leo Edited after reading original post properly

I agree whole-heartedly. Offtopic: Although I would like to say a word in defence of marketeers (being one ) we very rarely, if ever, get to decide what goes into a product or how it works, we just have to work out how to sell it and who to sell it to :D .

I do not believe that Windows is irrelevant. Comparisons are both healthy and useful in order to improve Linux (that is not to say that other OS should be ignored, far from it). As you rightly point out, to develop a better OS we should be looking to ALL OS out there and emulating their best features (and adding some of our own too). Windows, for all its faults, creates an interface that the average user finds pleasing to look at and straight forward to use, if any OS is to emulate the success of Windows it cannot afford to ignore the average user (or even the below average user). It is preferable to understand how it works but it is not necessary (the same as with a car, if you can fix it yourself you will save a packet but there are a whole host of people willing to fix it for you (at a price)). Linux allows us to bugger about with the engine (provided we are prepared to accept the consequences) but it should also enable us to merely drive it if that is what we the users want (provided we are prepared to accept the consequences).