chris z

i'm at work & not at my Linux box, so i'm doing some guess work here..........i'm also not a terminal command line expert. so, be warned. but........ what i was trying to illustrate to you, was, MDK only works with my ATI card using that ATI (Utah) driver (whatever a "Utah" driver is). even though MDK has an exact driver match for my ATI mach 64 rage pro, it wouldn't work. and, in Window$ i can use a 1024x768 screen res. with a 70hz refresh rate, but that doesn't jibe for me in MDK. i had to bump the refresh rate down to 60hz to get things working, in addition to using the non matching video driver. soooo........you may want to give it a whirl with that "custom" setting but try a lower resolution & refresh rate. oooor........you may want to try another ATI/Radeon driver & see what results you get. oooor........you may want to wait until somebody else comes along with a possitive answer for you. also.......i know i've read about problems with certain ATI Radeon drivers in MDK. i don't know if that's still true, but i know they could be troublesome, as recently as a few months ago. gotta get back to work now. sorry, but that's the best suggestion(s) i can come up with at the moment. Chris

the blue wave background &/or flashing background with the alternating watch & cursor is indicative of an incompatable video/monitor driver choice &/or incorrect screen resolution & refresh rate. i had that same thing happen to me during my first MDK install. i changed the video driver & bumped my resolution & refresh rate down to 800x600 60hz & it worked & got me into KDE. after that, i played around with the monitor settings in MCC & got the resolution working at 1024x7?? (i forget the 700#). it still wouldn't work with a higher refresh rate or the proper video driver, so i left it as is & things were fine ever since. (BTB.....my video card is an ATI mach 64 rage pro....MDK has a driver for that, but it only works with the ATI (utah) driver for some reason :roll: ) try changing those settings if you're having no other luck. Chris

if you haven't heard, read all about it......... The Story Chris

pmpatrick....cybrjackle........ no offense taken whatsoever. didn't think that either of you were trying to diss me. (i have sarah31 to take care of that! :wink: ). i agree that Linux is a rock solid OS, can do anything that Window$ can (& then some), is a great learning experience, & many other superlatives to boot. if i thought it was that much of a pain, i would have given up during the install! i just tend to agree with some points in that guy's article. the various distros need to be more uniform. they need to focus on bugs, installation procedures, "upgrade", etc., & they need try to make them as bullet proof & trouble free as possible, as opposed to just trying to come out with the latest greatest program that can do what ten other programs can already do. know what i mean? i mean, how many CD burning progs are their for Linux? a dozen? 2 dozen? 3 dozen? choice is good, but it becomes ridiculous after a point. all have different setup schemes, some are gui, some not, some rpm's, some .tar's. why can't somebody take the best of those CD burning programs, focus on the weak points, & come up with 1 or 2 or even 3 great Cd burning progs that work & install without a hitch? same with media players. MPlayer.......Xine....Kaboodle....Zapping.....AviPlay..........they're just a few that i know of. all have quirks & problems of their own. MPlayer can be a bear to set up if you're new to it. i'm just looking at this from the Noob point of view. i worked my way through the most difficult part of the Linux learning curve. many people won't even bother trying to get past install. face it, MS/Window$ has spoiled a whole generation of computer users. for Linux to ever take a good foot hold & make some inroads as the OS of choice, or just a viable alternative for the unexperienced, they're gonna have to make some things easier to do & makes things have a more uniform feel & appeal. i do have hope for that to be a reality. i won't give up on Linux, even if an upgrade hoses my setup. i'll be pissed, i'll grumble, i gather my composure, start over, & hopefully will have learned something in the process. but............that's me. that's the way i am. many people don't feel that way, & that's just gonna be more people that will never know how good this OS can be. gotta pay some bills now. (contrary to popular belief, i do pay for things.....) :lol: Chris

see, that's just the thing. i don't have any idea what the guy that wrote that article is trying to do. i'm talking about simple installation of programs that could send a less determined newbie into apoplexy. i had a very good knowledge of the workings of computers when i jumped into the Linux pool. i read up on Linux as much as i could before i even tried it. still, it wasn't as easy as some people said it was, & i was an MS veteran of 12 years. an example of what i'm talking about is a simple CD burning program. anybody using Window$, for even a few weeks, should be able to install Nero, Roxio, etc. & be able to use it with litle fuss. some of you may remember my threads of frustration concerning K3b. for a newbie, or anybody for that matter, to have to go through the K3b setup routine just to burn CD's is too much, IMHO. K3b......install K3b rpm. hopefully it will tell you it needs cdrdao, cdrecord, & mkisofs. if not, then you'll find out you need them when you try to run setup & have to go back & install them. then, if you have ide cdroms, you have to figure out that you need scsi emulation. (also, there's no help whatsoever that comes with K3b, so you'll be having to figure all this out by Googling or finding a cool forum like this one :wink: ) after figuring out the scsi thing, that means you'll have to edit lil.conf. but wait! supermount also dicks with K3b, so you have to figure out how to disable that. that means you have to edit fstab. but wait! you need to be root to edit fstab & lilo.conf, so hopefully you figure that out. now, we can finally run K3b setup. (we'll worry about figuring how to manually mount & unmount cd's later, after we've already become comfortable with the way supermount handles those jobs) hmmm.....K3b setup. it's not detecting the proper mount points for my cdrom & burner. (hopefully we noticed that, 'cause it doesn't tell you) so we have to reset those mount points. also, they don't tell you not to let K3b write to your fstab, so if you don't stumble upon that little tidbit, you're gonna have to start over again. ok, we've got mount points set, we didn't let K3b edit fstab, we're almost at the end. add users for cdrecord, click finish! but wait......there's a cryptic message that asks you if you want to discard the changes you made! discard the changes? what chnges?! ok, you guess the answer is "yes" & hold your breath. you fire up K3b as user.......ARGGHHHH!!! it doesn't detect my burner or cdrom. ok, don't panic. let's try to reboot, even though we shouldn't have to. reboot.....fire up K3b as user.......ARRGHHH........it detects my cdrom, but not the burner. ok, let's try it as root. hmmmm......it detects both as root. why not as user? could it have something to do with permissions? did i do something wrong in setup? let's run setup again. ARRRGGHHHH!!!! ok, let's post some questions on the MDK forum. wait for answers.....try things.....wait some more........get really frustrated.......& so on & so on & so on. finally, after several days of futility & aggravation, you stumble upon a Google search that tells you you should set cd burning writes in XCDRoast also, 'cause they overwrite K3b settings.......XCDRoast? what's that?! ARRGGGHHH!!!!! to burn a CD in Window$.......insert Nero CD in cdrom. click install. click ok to license agreement. watch it do it's thing. click ok to reboot. read some of the help files if you want, but it's really not necesary 'cause it has a wizard to walk you through things, even though it's so easy to use that you shouldn't need the wizard. start burning CD's 'til your heart's content, all in the course of a few minutes. ok......don't flame me. i was trying to use a litle humour to make my point. but, do you see my point? the whole K3b thing is just one example. i know my way around a computer. thankfully, i found this forum. imagine somebody who doesn't have that knowledge? they'd be turned off by Linux before they even got started, probably never to return again, & relaying their bad experience to anybody they know that's thinking of trying Linux. that's the only point i was trying to make concerning software installation & a need for some comformity there. and the "upgrade" dilema. but, that's another story. i'll write an essay on that when the time comes for me to get 9.2 final. gotta shut down things here at work now. time to go home. WOOOHOOO!!!! Chris

that's a good article, & pretty much my feelings about Linux (MDK) at the moment. i've been running & using MDK since June of this year, so i still consider myself quite the Noob. <begin minor rant> but, even though i'm getting more & more comfortable with terminal commands, dependency issues, & such, it's still a nerve wracking & time consuming hassle to get even some basic programs installed & working. i much prefer urpmi or MCC-> install software over tar/gz .configure, make, make install. think of how the total newb feels when trying to install a package that doesn't come in a managable rpm form. and, this has been brought up in other threads, but the "upgrade" option needs some serious looking into. when 9.2 becomes final, i don't want to have to start from scratch with a new install. i want to be able to "upgrade", with a minimum of hassle. it's taken me over 3 months of work, tinkering, some headaches, & lots of learning to get my system to it's current smooth running problem free state. if i do an "upgrade" to 9.2 & it fubars what i've accomplished so far, i'm gonna flip shit! a unified distro, with everybody working from the same page towards a common goal is the only way to go, to truly make MDK (or Suse, or Redhat, etc) a viable alternative OS that people will embrace whole heartedly, Microsoft be damned! <end rant> i've come this far with MDK. i want this to be my sole OS. i hope i can get that wish. Chris

just wondrin'............where did you guys install Flux from? i installed Texstar's rpm of Flux 2 weeks ago. i also use KDE as my main desktop. i have had no problems with KDE since installing the Flux rpm from Texstar. maybe there was something funky with the Flux packages you installed. were they .tar/gz files? did you get any weird errors when installing them if they were? hmmm....... Chris

for those of you who may have missed this, here's MDK's official statement about the whole affair: http://www.mandrakelinux.com/en/mdkads.php3 if that's the case, i'm not too concerned (personally). it's all easily removed & if it helps them with much needed cash flow, so be it. Chris

i did the update yesterday (9-12-03). i used GUI->MCC->update. i got all of the Xfree86 packages that were available (the font libs, the devel, etc.) all installed without a problem. i rebooted (just in case) & have been running smoothly since. i don't have an Nvidia card, though, so i don't know how it might affect users with that video card. my video card is an ATI/AGP rage pro Mach 4. Chris

if reinstalling menudrake didn't work, answering a couple of questions might help in troubleshooting this problem. what version of MDK are you using? what version of KDE? before this happened, what were you doing? IE: did you try a KDE upgrade & this started happening? did you install a package/program/security-bug fix & this started happening? if the menudrake reinstall doesn't work, here's a couple of other things you could try. upgrade to KDE3.1.3 or 4, if you aren't using one of those already. the MDK version of KDE is 3.1.1 (or 0....i forget right now). Texstar has rpm's for the latest KDE version. beware if you use Texstar's KDE rpm. it will remove your cdrom icons from your desktop if you're using "supermount". there's an easy work around for that though, discussed elsewhere in this forum & on Texstar's site. worst case scenerio, remove the whole KDE package via MCC, then reinstall KDE from the cd's via MCC. i'd only try that as a last resort, though, because you will lose all personal KDE settings & it would be dependency & package hell. ok, maybe not hell, but it would be a drastic measure, IMHO. Chris

i'm at work, so i don't have KDE in front of me. but, have you tried going to KCC (KDE Control Center), then go to "look & feel". there's settings in there for what you want to appear in the Kicker menu. as to why they dissapeared in the first place........... :? Chris

along with cdrecord, you should also check if you have cdrdao & mkisofs installed, especially for k3b. and, also for k3b, you need ide-scsi emulation enabled. here's a good "how to" on setting up k3b: http://www.jennings.homelinux.net/k3b.html there's also another good tute on k3b in the forum's faq section: here Chris

thanks for the input, all. Gowator, a while back i (inadvertantly) used the .removemedia -a command thinking that would also update. oops! but, i learned how to add the media back by doing that, so it was all good. i know all of my sources are current, so that still doesn't explain to me why i can't get the updates. Kmack, thanks for the links, but i already use easyurpmi. i've looked at the old docks here at the forum. i know i should learn more about command line & terminal, but all i want to do at the moment is get the updates that should be available & MCC->Mandrake Update is the easiest way. it bugs me that it no longer works properly & i wanted to figure out why. basically, i don't want to have to learn terminal commands for everything i need to do. i know that may be sacriledge. terminal for certain things, yes, but a simple update should just be that....simple (IMHO). why offer the update function in MCC if it doesn't work properly? gotta get back to some other things now. i'll play around with urpmi & sources later. if i can't get it to work, then i'll just have to do without, i guess. Chris

ok, i've figured out how to add the source that Germ suggested, but it still shows "void/no updates needed". still not sure what do do about the rpm's that Germ suggested. still no updates available. tried SoulSe's urpmi.addmedia. all i got was help info about various flags you can use with that. i'll check back later to see is anybody can help me more. thanks, Chris

ok, please enlighten me a bit more..... SoulSe said: i'm not sure what you mean by that. i've always added/changed sources using MCC->change update sources. i've never done that in terminal. are there other procedures or commands to use? also, which source would i choose, since none of them seem to work? Germ said: i went to the mirror you suggested, but there are several different rpm's for some of those packages. which ones would i use? and, again, i've always installed rpm's via MCC->install software. i don't know how to do that in terminal, nor do i know what -Uvh means or how to use that command. and...........if this was a known bug, when i did it become known, where/when was it announced, & why was my update function in MCC working ok until just a few weeks ago? little help, please! :? Chris

i'm glad it works for you! i've had headaches with the update mirrors for a couple of weeks now. i see there are various security & other updates on the MDKLinux site. i check the mirrors to see when they were last updated. i'll change my update mirror to one that should be good. but, it always give me the same message about the updates being void or you already have the updates. i know both of those to be untrue. i also do urpmi.update -a, but that doesn't seem to help as far as the mirrors are concerned. for instance, there's an update or 2 (i forget how many & what right now) that came out 6 days ago on Sept. 2. i know i don't have them. all the mirrors i use show they were updated with them. but, i can't get them. what gives???!!! Chris

thanks anon! i came across that same info you did while Googling. both are disabled now & everything is running as it should. but, how do you think they got there in the first place? the only one of those sites listed that i've ever been to is justlinux.com. that's where i got some info on the Privoxy program. do you think that when i installed Privoxy, it also installed & enabled those? Privoxy was starting at boot, too, but i disabled that a week ago. just curious as to how those things got there without my knowledge or permission. Chris

.....and, what exaclty does it do & do i need it? i was having some e-mail problems this morning, so i decided to check MCC->services, to see if anything looked funky there. i noticed that i had 2 things loading on boot & running that i don't remember being there before, nor do remember installing them. one is "slpd" the other is "ez-ipupdate". the slpd info said it was "OpenSLP daemon for the Service Location Protocal" (whatever that means). i disabled the "slpd" & my mail started working again. i haven't disabled "ez-ipupdate" yet. from what i could find out, it's a program that updates dynamic ip addresses. i have an adsl connection with a dynamic ip address, so i was thinking that maybe i need this. but, as i said, i'm sure it wasn't running or even in services before & i don't remember installing or enabling anything like that. anybody have any info on this, &/or the "slpd" thing? any ideas as to how they got installed? is it safe to disable it? the only thing i can think of was a week ago i installed "privoxy" & played around with that a bit, but have since disabled it. could those 2 programs have something to do with the privoxy install? any answers will be welcome. Chris

diabling supermount is not that difficult & won't take you hours to set up. the easiest way to disable it is to go to terminal, su to root, & type: supermount disable to enable would be: supermount enable what i did though, which was a bit more involved, was using "set mount points" in MCC i reset my burner & cdrom mount points that way, because i was having other supermount related issues due to K3B settings. if you do this, you can then right click on the KDE desktop, choose "configure desktop"->"behaviour"-> & where it says "devices" at the bottom of the configuration screen, check "display devices on desktop" & then choose which devices you want displayed. after you do that, you can right click on the devices, choose "properties", & change the icons & rename them if you like. to use a data disk, after inserting the disk into the drive you just right click on the drive icon & click "mount" & you will be able to use that drive, right click & choose "unmount" to unmount the drive & be able to eject it. music disks don't need to be mounted. they will play automtically. Chris

turi, i checked out the MDKLinux link you posted. from what they were describing there, i'm still convinced it's monitor/video settings related. i also upgraded to Texstar's KDE 3.1.3 & have had no problems with my desktop, icons, or anything flashing. the behaviour described & screenshot provided in the MDK link are very symptomatic of incorrect or uncomaptable video settings. when i first installed MDK i had a very similar problem. KDE would start loading, the desktop would flash a couple of times, then i'd get thrown to the blue KDE bootscreen background & my cursor would alternate from an arrow to the "busy" timer. even though MDK told me that it found my correct video drivers during setup & they tested ok, what i ended up having to do was pick another video driver & lower my refresh rate. i have an ATI RagePro Mach64 video card that uses a 70hz refresh rate under Window$. that doesn't work for me under MDK. in MDK i had to use the ATI (Utah) driver & lower my refresh rate to 60hz to make things work. it might be worth checking out (IMHO). Chris

read this thread (link below). it should explain it all. i had the same shock when i upgraded KDE. basically, yer gonna have to disable supermount & create links to your drives on the KDE desktop. read through this thread, see how frustrated & tee'd off i was, & follow the instructions there. if you still can't figure it out, let me know & i'll give you step by step instructions. the problem you're having starts about 1/2 way down the first page. click here Chris

just guessing here, so take this with grain of salt. could your monitor refresh rate be set too high? you might wanna try lowering it a bit. i use KDE & never had that problem. as i said, adjust refresh rate at your own risk. if you set it too low, you may not get any desktop at all, or it may hang. set it too high, you risk damaging the monitor. maybe somebody else will have another idea. Chris

okay then........ did you install OOo from rpm or tar? if it was tar, maybe try installing via rpm instead. also, have you tried running it from terminal? by doing it that way, you should be able to see some errors that might help pin point why it's bombing. to do so in KDE: open Konsole-> cd to your OpenOffice/program directory (mine is in usr/lib) so: cd /usr/lib/openoffice/program type soffice that will start (or try to) OpenOffice. post the error(s) you get in Konsole here. maybe i (or someone else) can figure it out with that info. EDIT when you install MDK, OpenOffice should be installed by default, unless for some reason you didn't select that package. so, there's no need to run "setup". also, the OpenOffice folder in your /home directory is linked to the main install in /usr/lib. the folder in your home directory just contains user specific settings for the main OOo program. Chris

hmmmm........what desktop/window manager are you using? i've heard of similar OOo problems with people that are using Gnome/sawfish. if you're using one of those, let me know & i'll give you the work around. Chris shit........here's the answer if the above does pertain to you. no sense in waiting, huh? Symptoms: On trying to start OOo, the splash screen appears, and, depending on the speed of your machine and the --purge-delay option to gnome-session, a window may appear briefly, but then it closes. For certain machines, opening a document and pressing keys in it before it closes will keep it up, too. Workaround: simply unset SESSION_MANAGER before starting openoffice. You can also workaround the problem by increasing the --purge-delay parameter to gnome-session. Chris

yep, it sounds to me like your burner is taking a shit. i've seen that scenerio before & every time it was a dying burner. i would urge you to spend a few extra bucks on a name brand burner with a decent warranty plan. i've seen so many cases of "bargain no name" burners dying way before they should. and, with all the rebate offers you can get these days, you can sometimes end up paying around $40.00 (US) for a $100.00 (US) burner. that's the deal i got with with Best Buy & my TDK burner. cost $110.00, got a $40.00 rebate from Best Buy, a $30.00 rebate from TDK & a 1 year manufacturers warranty. that was a year ago & my burner is still cranking out disks flawlessly. at the same time my both my brother & a friend decided they'd get budget no name burners & were gloating that they only paid 50 bucks for 'em & didn't have to wait for rebates. guess what? they both have new name brand burners now, 'cause their no names died on them. Chris