chris z

news flash from CNN.com.......read all about it :lol: http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/industry/08/0...e.ap/index.html Chris

if what mtweidmann described doesn't work for you, try the following: open a terminal->su to root->type "sndconfig" (without the " ")->hit enter. follow the prompts & let it detect your soundcard. it takes a little while & may seem to hang at points, but just let it do it's thing. i had the same problem with my soundcard after installing MDK & that's what did the trick for me. Chris

thanks for the OpenOffice tip! never thought about that. i'll add that to the list. won't get to try these things 'til tomorrow, but at least you guys are giving me some ideas. (anything to keep me outta Window$!) judland with OpenOffice templates, can you use your own cd cover art for front cover pictures, ala copping the covers from Amazon, & then just pasting them into a template? just wondrin'......... Chris

thanks for that link! i did come across that while Googling earlier, but i'm at work so i can't do anything about it at the moment. reading the description, i'm still not sure it's what i'm looking for, but i'll at least give it a whirl to be possitive. i'll keep plugging away. any more suggestions would be welcome, though. Chris

has anybody used these programs (gcover &/or kcdlabel)? i have them both installed & i've been playing with both, but neither of them seems to do what i want it to do entirely. neither of them come with any help sections. my problems are this: kclabel.........i can't get anything to line up (text wise) or get cd cover artwork to fit the whole size of the page layout. when i use a cd cover copied off of Amazon, it will always fit perfectly when i use Nero in Window$, but it's always too small in kclabel. also, there are options to resize, fit to shape, etc. but they're all greyed out & i can't find a way to make them functional. i have the same problem with text. i like the text feature better in this program because you can add multiple lines of text with each line having different fonts, sizes, colours, etc. but, i can't get the text centered in the cd page layout, & again, all the boxes to manipulate such an action are greyed out. i like this program better for it's text features, that gcover doesn't seem to support, if only i could get them to work. gcover........this program has more features than gcover, which i do like. it will fit cd cover art perfectly for the page layout. but the text features are very lame, or i'm just not getting it. you can only use 1 font, in 1 size, in 1 colour for text, which doesn't suit my needs for labeling. i like to get creative with my cd designs. again, with Nero, i can set up a cd back cover to have the name of artist, name of cd, song titles with any other info i want in there (track time, sub titles, notes). i can make background colours, patterns, insert images, & arrange the text to any way, shape, size, or colour that i see fit. i can't seem to do this in gcover. what i've accomplished so far is i've used gcover to print out cover art. i've tried playing with gimp to make a cd cover text template, but i've got a lot of learning to do, so i haven't been succesful via that method. i'm still plugging away at it & i've resisited the temptation to boot into Window$ solely for this purpose. but, if i can't get these programs to do what i want them to do, i may have no choice. :( if anybody can offer up some tips, tell me what i might be doing wrong or need to do, or direct me to some helpful documentation for these programs, i'd be eternally grateful. :D gotta get some work done now. TIA, Chris

gmac, MCC->install software->type xcdroast in the search box->put a check in the box for xcdroast when it comes up->install. it will tell you what dependencies you need & ask for the appropriate cd. also, did you include documentation (man pages, help....) as a package to install when you installed MDK? if not, do the same procedure to install those. Chris

yeah, anon.....we posted minutes apart! gmac..........another thing. i don't think that setting xcdroast will give you access to your burner & rom other than when you're using xcdroast. (somebody correct me if i'm wrong about that!) what you probably need to do is set user permissions for those things. you can do that by going to terminal as root & type userdrake. it will open up a box showing users on your system. click on a user, click the edit button, click on the groups tab. in the right hand column you'll see goups that are available to add to a user. in the left column are groups the user is already a member of. make sure user has permissions for cdwriter & cdrom. you can also access userdrake in the MCC under the system button & selecting it from there. or, a third way in KDE is kicker->configuration->other->userdrake. (isn't there always about half a dozen ways to perform a given task in Linux? :D ) Chris

xcdroast.......2 ways to access it....... if you're using KDE as you desktop, go to Kicker->applications->archiving->cd burning........but, in order to set it up & give users burning rights, you have to open it as root to be able to set those things, so..........open a terminal->su to root->type xcdroast........the program will open & then you can choose setup. on the last tab called user you can set the permissons needed for who can have burning rights & use the program, other than root. put users name in the appropriate box, select "allow all", tick all the boxes where it says "users are allowed to:", & finally click the bar where it says "change non root configuration" to enable non root mode. click "save configuration"->"ok". you can also set up things specific to your burner, player, speeds, etc. in that area. as for man pages, while in terminal, just type man followed by the name of a specific program that you want to read about. example: man xcdroast there are other flags you can use to get to specific sections of a particular man page, but that's too involved to get into here. if you'd rather browse the man pages in a GUI mode, (again, if you're using KDE) go to kicker->documentation->help. when the help center opens, go down to where it says "unix manual pages". i find it easier to read them that way (IMHO). Chris

can't you just use "export" (open kmail->open address book->click on "file"->click on "export"->export list) & export the address book file, then have your wife login & import it? Chris

pmpatrick.......... try installing the kickarts package from texstar also.......& did you reboot? i know that's sorta sacriledge when using Linux :shock: , but i've found out that sometimes you do need to reboot for things to take effect. if that doesn't work, then i'm at a loss, 'cause those are the procedures i followed & the sound is fine on my end, along with everything else KDE related. Chris

Dyslexic wrote: i realize that! :D this is starting to get off the original QuickTime topic, but what i was telling Turi is that texstar's rpm for KDE3.1.3 does not tell you that you need the aRts & multimedia packages as dependencies, whether you use urpmi or the GUI software installer. that's the (minor) bug with that rpm. if you just install the KDEbase3.1.3rpm, it will tell you which dependencies it needs, add them, & install. but since it doesn't include the aRts or multimedia as depends, you can't use KDE sounds or the aRts sound server. you have to get those rpm's seperately of the KDEbase package. (at least as of yesterday..........texstar may have fixed it by now) anywho, still not able to play QuickTime movies inside Konqueror, but i also haven't pursued it too much. been busy playing with other things. now, on to some serious drinking! Chris

again, thanks for your patience! now i understand. enough geeking & learning for a Saturday. time to mix the first G & T of the day! laters, Chris

cool! thanks anon, that worked for texstar's gpg. got the output exactly as you wrote. now........what about that asc file in the users download area for the .iso images? tried the same method with that & i get a "bash command not found" error. and, do all download sources (PLF, etc) have their own .gpg or md5sum files to download via this same method? (if i'm being a pain, tell me so. just tryin' to learn.) Chris

okay, i'm having a brain fart here, or just not understanding things. here's what the read me file in texstar's download area says. i tried that & it tells me that there's no file to import. can't i just copy the pubring.gpg file & put it in my home directory? also, does that mean the "home" directory itself, or "/home/chris" directory? and, can i do the same with the MDKusers .gpg file? sorry, but i still don't get it even after reading the read me files & the "how to" link you directed me to. Chris

that explained it to me a bit, as far as .iso's go. but what about rpm's? can you issue the same command to check an rpm md5sum? $ md5sum nameoffile.rpm i was getting the invalid md5 message with the latest texstar KDE3.1.3rpm. it's also happened a few other times with assorted rpm's. thanks, Chris

not sure if this is the proper place to post this question. if not, feel free to move it.............. how to i install/use the md5sums package? is it even a package? (shows his NOObie ignorance ) i see there's an asc file for that in the pub download section. reason i ask, is sometimes when i install a package (say a texstar rpm, for instance) i get a message that the md5sums are not correct or don't match. i always just click to install anyway & never had a problem with software not working. is this a big deal? if so, what do i need to do to make things kosher? as always, thanks for any answers.... Chris

turi, check out this thread, if you haven't already: http://mandrakeusers.org/viewtopic.php?t=6...e33f035f64aa0e0 you need to get those 3.1.3 packages for aRts & multimedia, or you may run into a glitch with having no sound for events. it doesn't affect playing music cd's & such, just KDE specific sounds. Chris

shen wrote: when i installed the KDEbase package, the KDElibs3.1.3 was one of the dependencies for that package, so it installed with it. the problem was i needed the aRts & multimedia upgrades also. shouldn't they be included as dependencies? Ixthusdan wrote: my sound card is ancient.....Crystal PNP, integrated. not sure about what module is loading. how do i find that out? during boot? regardless, i've never had a sound problem with MDK or KDE 'til this event. pmpatrick wrote: you really didn't need to restore a backup. if you just add the aRts & mutlimedia packages, you should be good to go. that's all i had to do. anywho, the sound problem is no more. i'm not a member of PCLinux forums. maybe i'll go over there & join & post about this bug. or, do they have a dedicated bug report section over there? or, can you just email texstar directly to report bugs? more caffeine & nicotine now....... Chris

nope, it wasn't mute. when i tried to run the aRts control tool i was getting a message that said: "sounserver failed-make sure that aRtsd is really running & that your KDElibs version is no older than KDEmultimedia" i checked running processes from terminal & it showed as running & it was ticked to run at KDE startup in KDE control center. i then went hmmmmm, checked textstars rpms. installed a texstar rpm for KDEmutlimedia3.1.3, Kickarts, & aRts & now the sounds are back & the "test sound" button is operational. just a heads up for anybody else that may come across this problem..........install the texstar rpm's for those 3 files & you should have your sounds back. (actually, i'm not sure if the Kickarts had anything to do with it. that's just a kicker front end to access the aRts sound server control. i installed it "just in case".) hope this might help somebody else out. thanks for your advice Scoopy. Chris

has anybody installed the texstar KDE3.1.3rpm? i just did. all seems cool (i loved the new KDE start up screen!), but.... it seems that none of system sounds are working. no mail notification sound, no startup or shutdown sounds. when i go to KDE control center->sound->sound system the button to "test sound" is greyed out (disabled) & i can't figure a way to get it to work. anybody else have this happen? if so, anybody find the answer to get sounds working? i'll play some more & post back if i find an answer. Chris

yer welcome :D Chris

here's where textstar's rpm's are: http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/linux/distribut...ontrib/texstar/ i just checked there & it doesn't appear that he has the KDE3.1.2 rpm's anymore. that's probably because KDE put out another update do to some bugs & security issues, so now it's version 3.1.3. texstar now has the rpm's for that. get the KDEbase-3.1.3 & it will tell you what dependencies you need. also, (i just learned this myself) when checking mirrors for the latest packages, you should update your sources first. you can do that from terminal by changing to root &: urpmi.update -a (to update all sources) or urpmi.update (name of source) to update a specific source you can also do the same thing in MCC by going to rpm sources, then clicking on the "update" button & choose which source(s) you want to update, then click on the "save & quit" button. Chris

on a side note........ the cd sources are what really had me stumped. every time i chose a new removable media source, i would set the path to my cdrom & give it a name, but it always told me that the source wasn't valid. then the moment of clarity........insert MDK cd1, mount the drive, THEN add the cd source.........TADA!!! it found the source, updated, & added. inserted the other 2 MDK cd's & followed the same procedure. tested it by trying to add a package, & it asked to insert the appropriate cd source & popped open my cd tray. sorry, but it feels so good when i can figure things out on my own. and, now i know how to update rpm sources, too! (and how to remove them :shock: ) Chris

sorry for not posting back. after that episode, i decided to drown my sorrows in cheap talk & gin. but...... :D i fixed it! all by myself!!! i gathered my wits & started reading the help & man pages (RTFM!). i have my cd sources working again, the update sources are good, & i re-added the various other sources. yes, urpmi.update -a woulda been the proper command. had i only looked before i leaped........... but, thanks for the useful info you posted. still on the learning curve i am :lol: . time to make the donuts now.......... Chris

ok, i goofed i was trying to get texstar's new kde3.1.3rpm, but my install software in MCC wasn't finding it. soooo.....i saw something about the command "urpmi.removemedia -a" & thought that might refresh the sources :shock: i shoulda known remove meant freakin' REMOVE!!!! now i don't have anything in my urpmi sources & i don't know how to get them back!!! no cd sources, no Mandrake update sources, NOTHING!!! can somebody please instruct me on how to rebuild those sources? PLEASE??? i can go to pclinux & add the sources from their "how to", but i have no idea how to restore the cd sources or the Mandrake update sources. i'll be waiting & biting my nails........ thanks, Chris