ac_dispatcher

Well - by installing a few distros I got the linux bug back. So far Im on Mandriva. My .02

First boot

This thing is slick. I had nvidia drivers installed and compiz on first boot. Man that rocked.

KDE3

very nice - just like the rest of the KDE distros.

MCC

Very nice "Control Panel" that a lazy man like myself likes.

I installed KDE4. Thats when the pain started. Took me a while to figure out how to install it - until I read somewhere on the forum what package to install. Like others have said on this thread its a KDE4 problem and not a distro issue. KDE4 is junk IMO for the current status. I have high hopes though.

I booted to KDE4 - hit that widget button on the top right and selected pager widget. Moved the pager to the top of the screen. Then I browsed to the konsole app from the menu - rightclick on placed it on the taskbar.

logout out > logged back in. None of the work I just did saved. It was a default KDE4 screen. Seems Mandy KDE4 also don't save me stuff :(

Also I dont use xinerama for my dual screens. Each screen has its own taskbar / menus. Works great in KDE3 but left screen nogo in KDE4 (again).

I have another issue the mandy but thats for another thread.

I downloaded it - checked md5 sum and booted.

It booted up fine but failed to install. I even tried to reburn the disk at 2x speed and still same problem.

hmm - May try Mandriva then. I set up dual monitors (1 nvidia card) via the nvidia utility fine. But when I enabled the compiz it would lock up at times or just not work very well. For a time it wouldnt even remember my compiz settings.

(this was on Mint)

I couldnt get dual monitors to work in KDE4 either. When I logged out of KDE4 and into KDE3.5.9 it worked great.

Ill try the new Mandriva this weekend then. KDE4 in the standard urpmi repos from the easy urpmi found on this site?

I think you are right. IMO (off topic) if Ubuntu (Kubuntu) came out with a MCC / YAST "Control Panel" it would be icing on the cake for them.

I just read the the newest Mandriva can be upgraded to KDE4 via the repos. Anyone done this yet? Was KDE buggy or work well? Its been a while so I may give Mandriva another go.

Wow - I made this how to a long time ago. I'm not sure how relevant it is now. May want to bury it.

I also found that Compiz with dual monitors is a pain in the back side. Hopefully in the future it will be worked out.

Wow - thanks for the fast reply!

Ive tried Kubuntu a few times in the past. I think the KDE4 version is in beta right now.

I dont know - Im probably wrong here but the the KDE version (Kubuntu) seems like an after thought for Ubuntu. Because the distro 's main focus is Gnome when you go to look up anything via google its easier to look up via Ubuntu and then look for the KDE equivalent. Plus no central "Control panel style". Yea Im lazy.

I think if Ubuntu / Kubuntu had a YAST or MCC like program it would really rock.

Hi guys!

Ive been a member of this forum for some time now, but its been a while since Ive posted. I decided to try out Linux again. My old Distro of choice was Gentoo but frankly I'm to lazy for it now a days.

I'm looking for a Distro to come back to - Mandriva may be the one but I'm not sure. Here is what I would like to see in a Distro:

1. Im a hard core KDE user but I want KDE 4. I want something new to come back to. I would prefer to have KDE4 come with the distro - not have to upgrade it to KDE4. Having it come with KDE4 tells me it was built for it and not a "upgrade".

2. One time install. I want to install the distro once and be done with it. Upgrade from there till eternity.

3. For lack of better words a "Control panel". I really like YAST , MCC and like programs. A one stop shopping center to get it all done.

4. I don't want to have to search for repos on the web.

I just got done trying Mint Linux. It comes with KDE3.5 and was very polished. It didnt have the MCC,YAST I was looking for but I have had luck and like ubuntu distros in the past. I tried to install KDE4 by adding the repos and installing the "core" as instructed on the Kubuntu page. KDE4 was not working well at all. Didn't remember my settings on logout. I have my dual monitors set up but every time I booted up KDE4 the left monitor didn't work (worked with KDE3.5).

Finally I thought I may have to dist-upgrade to get it to work good. So I changed my repos to hardy logged out of KDM (prefer dist-upgrades out of GUI) and apt-get dist-upgrade. 1 hour later I was done and rebooted to make sure it took. It dropped me to a terminal (no KDM). When I tried to even login I couldn't - for some reason my typing came out as Arabic I think. I couldn't read what I was typing - and couldn't log in because of it.

Im thinking Ive got another 6 months or so before KDE4 comes stable and standard right?

btw - I tried the Suse with kde4 - it was a mess. I couldn't install half the repos and couldn't install the nvidia drivers. It was beta though so no fault of Suse.

Also - by my sig you can tell I have a amd64. Id like to try a 64bit Distro but do they still have flash issues? Are the 64bit package repos as big as the 32bit now a days? thanks

btw - good to see some of the old faces again. Anyone seen btv around?

Good info - Ill try it when I rebuild my computer. It decided to do a magic trick and turn into a very large brick.

Heck - Im no guru but Ive been running Linux for a few years now. When I ask for help I still want folks to explain stuff to me like Im stupid.

I may just (and do ) learn stuff - and find out things are different then what I thought. No harm intended - no foul. :)

Thanks

not to take over this thread but -

Can anyone off the top of there head give me the urpmi command that tells me the total number of packages available via the urpmi repos?

I want to make sure when (if) I get synaptic working that it has the same amount of packages loaded as urpmi.

Anyone else trying out synaptic with Mandy? I figured since they bought Conectiva they would have more support for it - even though urpmi is a fine system.

One thing that comes to mind is: There is a sevice that tries to configure hardware at boot I think its called hardrake - it might be an issue. Not shure if it would do it to the ndiswrapper. It kept trying to configure my xorg making it kdm unable to load. I turned it off.

Also -

If there is a set of commands that he uses to start it up my only thought is to put it in the /etc/rc.local file. That way it runs when the system starts up.

lol - yea. Im stuck between Mandriva and PClinux right now. I prefer PCLinux's synaptic instead of urpmi - but like how Mandy has more of a package selection.

Like kernels - PCLinux is a 1 size fits all but Mandy has a selection to choose from in the repos.

Sorry - I went OT

Just an FYI -

I installed Kubuntu and the auto usb mount worked. After a few days and installing Gnome and Xfce it stopped working. I also now get an error saying HAL failed to initialize when I start gnome. /etc/init.d/hal restart says OK but it still gives me the error.

So it seems you are not alone.

Shot it the dark here but -

I first thought it was due to the mounting arguments. You see I had a hard time sharing a fat32 filesystem over samba until I used different arguments in fstab. Im not at home but I think it was the umask=000 option.

I think usbdrives are commonly fat32 (guess) so it may be the mounting arguments. Just a thought.

I was able to get a few Repos into the sources.list but the backports seemed not to take. Contrib / main / PLF backports came back with errors.

I really like synaptic so Ill keep trying to get it to work. I may end up going back to PCLinuxOS.

Nothing wrong with urpmi just I prefer apt-get / synaptic.

Ok for some odd reason I found what fixed it for me:

I opened kcontrol (Control Center)

Selected: Regional & Accessibility >> Input Actions >> Mentor Office Wireless Keyboard

I selected Decrease volume then Keyboard Shortcut - it was the XF86 key but I reset it to something else I dont use - say F11.

I did the same with Increase volume and set it to F12.

Relogged so my xmodmap what reset and - fixed

Am I missing a package?

[acdispatcher@dfilan Kmenu]$ xmodmap -pke | grep XF86Audio
keycode 144 = XF86AudioPrev
keycode 153 = XF86AudioNext
keycode 160 = XF86AudioMute
keycode 162 = XF86AudioPlay
keycode 164 = XF86AudioStop
keycode 174 = XF86AudioLowerVolume
keycode 176 = XF86AudioRaiseVolume

Prev / Play / Next / Stop / Mute all work - volume doesnt

I am running PClinux and Mandy. I copied my Xmodmap from PClinux to Mandy. Ive used the config and several Distros.

I think the commands: XF86AudioRaiseVolume and XF86AudioLowerVolume do not work in Mandriva 2008.

Here is the howto Ive used for all my Distros:

http://gentoo-wiki.com/HOWTO_Zboard

I have changed the mapping for several keys to initiate the XF86Audio... function - ones that worked as let say "s" just minuted before.

I also opened up my kcontrol >> Regional >> Keyboard shortcuts - then selected a new function - hit custom button then hit my volume up. It identified it as "XF86AudioRaiseVolume" so I know the key code is sending the command but it does nothing. Anyone have some input on how I can fix this? thanks.

fyi : I use the same xorg and Xmodmap in both PCLinux and Mandy. Mandy is the only distro so far that the volume buttons dont work on.

Have you checked the logs yet? /var/log /messages (Me thinks that is what it uses). Plug it in and check the log - make sure it sees the darn thing first.

At least from the info on the log (if it sees it) you can manually mount the darn thing.

I have a question about Mandriva in general -

I last used Mandrake back at around 9.2 then went to Gentoo. Im currently on PCLinuxOS. I really like the distro - frankly Im to lazy for Gentoo these days.

What brought me to PClinux is the ability to install 2007 and upgrade the Distro from that point. No need to reinstall a new system when they come out with the next version.

If I install Mandriva 2008 and when they come out with the next version - whatever the name. Will I be able to simply reload my repos with the new release and dist - upgrade?

I have a second partition for Disto-hopping but for my main distro I always want constant - no reinstall - Im lazy. Since PClinuxis a "fork" of Mandriva and from what I see they are very much alike, I may switch to Mandriva as my main.

Use this:

http://www.thinkgeek.com/tshirts/generic/991e/

Takes up no cpu power at all

I went to PClinuxOS a few weeks ago (not that it makes a diff) - Ill try that stuff this week - thanks guys!!