chris z

...........and another set of instructions begats another set of questions.......... Xthusdan, i'll try your instructions to edit my lilo.conf. don't know if i'll have time tonight, (all breathe a sigh of relief), but tomorrow, for sure. but, before i do that, my new questions are thus: i know by screwing around with the lilo configuration, with one mistake you can render MDK unbootable. i have no clue how to restore it to it's current state if it won't boot. so, by editing this one line (& making a backup file) is there a (worst case) chance of me not being able to boot to MDK, or only that my cd burner drive just won't function? when you say: do you mean reboot from terminal or reboot using KDE? if it's from terminal, i've never done that, so is the command "reboot"? i'll await further instructions & leave you all alone until tomorrow (i think)! Chris (note: as i've said before, i am a newbie, but i want to learn, so i hope i'm not being too much of a pain in the a**. i've used MS products since the days of true DOS & Win3.1. i am quite proficient & comfortable using DOS & while i find a lot of similarities in various Linux commands, there's a ton of stuff that's totally alien to me. using a GUI almost exclusively for the past several years has made me complacent, i guess. until yesterday, i had no idea what "fstab" was, did, or that it even existed. i've got a long way to go, but try to bear with me. again, thanks to all of you for you patience & help.)

not to beat the proverbial dead horse, but......... i'm so close & yet so far. not being able to use k3b as anything but root bugs me. i was playing around with things before work this morning (went through setup again, re-edited fstab entries again) but it always comes out the same way......my burner & cdrom show under root & i can burn that way, but under chris, only my cdrom is functional. my burner under chris is listed only as "drive" & k3b can't read it. something makes me think it has to do with what was mentioned near the beginning of this saga about scsi emulation, since my cdrom is ide & my burner is scsi. if that's the case, could somebody please (again) tell me EXACTLY which line(s) in my fstab (below) to edit & how they should read to do what is described above. /dev/hdc7 / ext2 defaults 1 1 none /dev/pts devpts mode=0620 0 0 /dev/hdc10 /home ext2 defaults 1 2 none /mnt/cdrom supermount dev=/dev/scd0,fs=auto,ro,--,iocharset=iso8859-1,codepage=850,umask=0 0 0 none /mnt/cdrom2 supermount dev=/dev/hdb,fs=auto,ro,--,iocharset=iso8859-1,codepage=850,umask=0 0 0 none /mnt/floppy supermount dev=/dev/fd0,fs=auto,--,iocharset=iso8859-1,sync,codepage=850,umask=0 0 0 /dev/hdc1 /mnt/win_c vfat iocharset=iso8859-1,codepage=850,umask=0 0 0 /dev/hdc5 /mnt/win_d vfat iocharset=iso8859-1,codepage=850,umask=0 0 0 /dev/hdc6 /mnt/win_e vfat iocharset=iso8859-1,codepage=850,umask=0 0 0 none /proc proc defaults 0 0 /dev/hdc9 /usr ext3 defaults 1 2 /dev/hdc8 swap swap defaults 0 0 /dev/ide/host0/bus0/target1/lun0/cd /mnt/cdrom2/ auto ro,noauto,user,exec 0 0 /dev/scsi/host0/bus0/target0/lun0/cd /mnt/cdrom/ auto ro,noauto,user,exec 0 0 i did look at lilo in MCC before i left for work this morning, but i wasn't sure what to append, where to append, & how to append using that. now that i've giving everyone another headache, i gotta get some work done. thanks to all for putting up with me & helping me through this. Chris

one final update/comment, before i go to sleep............when i doubt, i rebooted.......(bad Window$ habit, i know). after reboot, k3b now see's my cd drives when i run it as chris, but my recorder is not listed as a recording device. double checked, & yes, chris is listed under the cdwriter group. i even removed chris from cdwriter group, saved, closed userdrake, reopened, added chris to cdwriter group, saved again, & closed. well, at least i'm a h*lluva lot further along then i was 4 hours ago. maybe the Mandrake user Gnomes will stop by when i'm sleeping & make things perfect. sorry to be such a pain, but this is far more of a learning curve then i was expecting. not giving up the ship yet, though. laters, for now....... Chris

AHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!! (see.....i even used an emoticon!!!) ROOT!!!! that's the main part of the puzzle! so, following various instructions, running various commands, running many k3b setups, i'm at this point..........i succesfully unmounted the drives using the fstab entries that Ixthusdan spelled out for me. i ran setup (for the umpteenth time), made the mount points match my fstab, blah, blah, blah. still, nothing was working in k3b when i ran it as user "chris". i followed paul's instuctions to run as root in konsole. WALLA!!! my cdrom drives were listed & usable! :D better yet, i burned the freakin' .iso in no time flat, successfully!!! so, to play some more, for sh*ts & giggles, i re-edited my fstab to reflect supermount. got my working desktop icons back, ran k3b as root, & it still shows my drives & works! soooo...... i can use it currently, even with supermount enabled, only if i run as root in a terminal. i do have "cdwriter" in the userdrake permissions for chris set (per steve's info), but i still can't run k3b & make it work properly as chris. it will only let me run properly as root. and, i did add "chris" to the users at the end of the setup, as cdwriter group. now that i'm 90% there, any suggestions on how to get k3b to function as it should with chris as user, & not only as root? man, this is enough to drive me to drink.......................more! as always, thanks, Chris

did as you instructed. i now have 2 icons on my desktop that each say "hard disc (cd) (not mounted)". through trial & error (by placing cd's with data in each drive & clicking on each icon) i've discovered which icon is for the burner & which one is for the cdrom. great! nope....more confusion. so, in order to even play or use a cd now, i have to insert the cd, right click the icon, click "mount", then i'm able to use the cd. but.....when i try to eject the cd, it won't eject. it's locked. soooo....i now have to right click the icon, click "unmount", & push the eject button, then my cd drive is unusable again until the next time?! okay, so i opened k3b, hoping that would work. nope.....it opens, none of my drives are listed, none are recognized, none are accessable. soooo.......i'll wait a bit more, maybe get another answer or a wap upside the head, & if it still doesn't work, i'll restore the fstab file that i backed up (right???), & forget cd burning in here until i can figure out a way to make it work. sorry, but this just seems like a huge amount of work for something that should be so simple. frustrated, i am.......... Chris

sorry. in my haste i neglected to mention (don't know if this will help or not) i also tried unmounting my cdroms using the icons on my desktop. when i right click & select unmount, it tells me i need to be root. when i'm in root, i have no icons on my desktop. also, i went to MCC, mount points, but i had no idea what to do once i was there, so i canceled & backed out of that. ok, back to that gin now.......... Chris

sorry, but i'm f***ing frustrated, so ignore my anger & ignorance, please. i've been playing with k3b for the past 2 hours, to no avail. i tried Anna's method from a previous post. no go.......... tried unmounting..........can't figure out how to do it. tried k3b setup a dozen different ways...all i get is an extra icon on my desktop that i don't know what to do with, or i lose all of my cdrom icons & i have to reboot. remember, i've only been using MDK for less than a month. the command line stuff throws me, big time. i'm still heavily dependant on GUI, but i'm still willing to try commands. thing is, i could have had this stinking .iso image burned using Window$ & Nero 20 times in the time it's taken me to go nowhere with k3b/Linux. could somebody PLEASE look at my etc/fstab file & instruct me, exactly, what to edit, proper syntax & all, to make this work? PLEEEEZE!!! and, before i start editing a file that makes my cdrom's usable, could you explain how i go about mounting them when i need to use them, since i can't seem to figure that out for the life of me either. it's 5:32pm, EST. i'm going to my deck to cool off, drink a gin & tonic or 3, & try to fight the urge to fire up Nero. i'll check back here a bit later, hopefully a bit more calm & in a better state of mind. thanks, sincerely, Chris /dev/hdc7 / ext2 defaults 1 1 none /dev/pts devpts mode=0620 0 0 /dev/hdc10 /home ext2 defaults 1 2 none /mnt/cdrom supermount dev=/dev/scd0,fs=auto,ro,--,iocharset=iso8859-1,codepage=850,umask=0 0 0 none /mnt/cdrom2 supermount dev=/dev/hdb,fs=auto,ro,--,iocharset=iso8859-1,codepage=850,umask=0 0 0 none /mnt/floppy supermount dev=/dev/fd0,fs=auto,--,iocharset=iso8859-1,sync,codepage=850,umask=0 0 0 /dev/hdc1 /mnt/win_c vfat iocharset=iso8859-1,codepage=850,umask=0 0 0 /dev/hdc5 /mnt/win_d vfat iocharset=iso8859-1,codepage=850,umask=0 0 0 /dev/hdc6 /mnt/win_e vfat iocharset=iso8859-1,codepage=850,umask=0 0 0 none /proc proc defaults 0 0 /dev/hdc9 /usr ext3 defaults 1 2 /dev/hdc8 swap swap defaults 0 0 /dev/ide/host0/bus0/target1/lun0/cd /mnt/cdrom2/ auto ro,noauto,user,exec 0 0 /dev/scsi/host0/bus0/target0/lun0/cd /mnt/cdrom/ auto ro,noauto,user,exec 0 0 btw: my burner is cdrom.....my cdrom is cdrom2

Anna says: i have another thread going concerning k3b problems. http://mandrakeusers.org/viewtopic.php?t=6...8b840e4f2650e7f if you look at that thread, i am being told, several times, that supermount needs to be turned off for k3b to work correctly. now Anna says it doesn't. which way is correct? i'm at work so i can't check things until tonight. i may not have all the libraries installed (mkisofs, etc.) so maybe that's my problem. i'll look into that. but, could somebody clarify the supermount question? i don't want to have to mount/unmount manually if it isn't needed. thanks, Chris

about mounting & unmounting devices via desktop icons........since my drives are automatically mounted during boot up at the moment, i already have icons on my desktop for them. if i right click on any drive, there's an option to unmount them. this being the case, would k3b set up properly if i would first right click my cd rom drive icons, select unmount, & then run k3b setup? again, it's early, going to work soon, but i'll have time to play with things tonight. just wondrin', though....... Chris

can you explain mounting & unmounting & auto/supermounting in brief, please? i mean, i understand the theory, but i'm at work & have no man pages or help to read. when you unmount a drive, does that mean that everytime you want to use a CD (or floppy) in one of your drives that you have to re-mount it? what are the benefits vs. the negatives of having to do that? wouldn't it be easier just to have your drives mounted & ready to go at all times? (excuse the dumb sounding questions........just tryin' to learn) and, yes, once i get a chance to sit down & work with the k3b, i would like to be able to have icons available to mount/unmount my drives, so if you could supply instructions on how to do that, i'd really appreciate it. gotta get back to work. Chris

just to update & end this thread, i think i'm just gonna live with the slow boot up until i get the courage to tackle a kernel recompile or get the $$$ to buy a newer (faster processor) computer. thanks for all the advice, though......... Chris

thanks for the tips. i already have gcombust installed, but i haven't tried using it yet. i'll check in to what that's about later tonight or tomorrow when i have time. as i said in my original post, i've never played around with mounting or unmounting drives, since everything mounts automatically on boot up. (i know......i gotta learn some time, but i'm trying to keep things down to 1 problem at a time) is there any "all in one" cd burning software for Linux (Mandrake) that's simple to set up & use without having to go through mounting, unmounting, etc? something along the lines of a Nero, that would work in a Linux system? i think that would be nice, instead of having to use different burning programs for specific burning functions. anywho, i'm at work, so i'll play with things later & post back with results or more problems. Chris

i've been trying to use k3b to burn an .iso image (the Mandrake updates .iso from the downloads section here) to no avail. i've looked for k3b help, but it doesn't appear to be anywhere. when you click on help in k3b, it just brings up the KDE user manual, but there's no section for k3b. my problems are thus..........i ran the k3b set up, that's supposed to be super easy. well, it did seem super easy. detected my cd-rom (Atapi) & my cd burner (TDK). went through all the screens, clicked finish. that's when i get 2 red error marks on the finish screen, telling me that my cd devices weren't found. (even though it clearly showed each of them during the set up process) when i closed the set up dialog, i had a new icon on my desktop called "hard disc (cd) (not mounted)". i don't know what that's for. when i open up k3b, it didn't show any cd rom device. so, i ran the set up again. this time i played with the mount points, thinking maybe it wasn't detecting where they are mounted. after i finished set up, there were no errors this time, but when the window closed all of my desktop storage device icons (cdrom, cdrom2, floppy, & the new hard disc one that k3b put there) were gone! i know nothing about manually mounting & unmounting cd roms. when i installed MDK, it was all done during the install. (i guess i have what is called "supermount"?) anywho, confused & somewhat panicked, i rebooted (yeah, i know.......loser!). when i rebooted, all of my storage device icons were back. both cd rom drives work (i tested each with data & music cd's). so i had another go at setting up k3b with the same results (cd drives not being detected, then all the desktop icons gone) cd burning would be a big plus for me in MDK. i know it can be done & i've used CDRoast succesfully for music burning, but that apparently doesn't support data/iso images (from what i can tell). soooo.......can anybody offer up a tutorial on properly setting up k3b, using it, &/or mounting/unmounting cd rom devices, or, point me in the direction of a good tutorial. i use Nero in Window$ without any problems & i know i could just go there to burn the .iso, but i'm trying to wean myself from everything M$ related. i not nearly ready for that yet, but i'm trying. as always, any help would be greatly appreciated. TIA, Chris

the only 2 spots that it seems to hang at boot are "loading/checking modules" (i forget the exact wording......i'm at work now with no Linux in front of me) & "checking for new hardware". it stops for a good 10-20 seconds at each of those. i have no hangs at network, internet, or eth0. excuse my ignorance, but does checking for new hardware need to be running, & if not, where do you turn it off? also, what's the "....modules" thingy all about? the "new hardware" is self explanatory & i was wondering if it's needed, unless (of course) you know that you added some new hardware. gotta get back to work. i'll check back here later if i have time. thanks for all of your help! Chris

tried the non graphical mode as suggested.........no difference. i timed the boot up. from the time my Lilo menu shows up & i choose Linux (in graphical mode) until my KDE is loaded it takes 3 minutes (+/- a few seconds). in non graphical mode, with text login, it takes the same amount of time, i just don't get to see the pretty colours. again, since i'm new to Linux, i still have a Window$ way of thinking. my Win98 partition goes from Lilo to a fully loaded desktop in a minute. maybe it's too much loading with the Kernel. i haven't tackled a Kernel compile yet. been reading about that & understand the theory of it, but it seems that every tutorial on Kernel compiling that i read has slightly different instructions & i'm not sure which ones to follow. also, even though the "can't learn if you don't break it first" motto seems to be quite prevalent in the Linux community, i really don't feel like going through a reinstall after i've come this far & got things running pretty smoothly. i'll play around with some stuff, but there's really not much more i can do (or disable). i have services down to a bare minimum. so, thanks for the advice, but for now i'll just make a Gin & Tonic, pour a shot, light a cigarette, & clean the cat litter while i'm waiting for it to boot up. Chris

thanks for the tip! i'll have to wait 'til tomorrow night to give that a try. i never thought about graphical login vs. non graphical. (remember, NOObie here) i'll post back with the time trial results tomorrow. Chris

i don't know about the DrakGw, but if you want settings to stick in KDE, (i'm not in front of my Linux machine right now, so i'm going from memory) when you open file manager, Konqueror, KMail, etc., look at the options at the top of the tool bar (IE. tools, settings, etc.). one of them has "save view profile" or "save (something) profile". click on that & choose apply/save for that particular window & it will open that way for you each time. Chris

i have a 333mhz K6. i know, i know..........i probably should be more up to date, but as always, $$$$ is an issue. my machine, though 4 years old, is in tip top shape. many upgrades (RAM...hardrive....burner added....etho card....all by me) since it was bought. i keep it well maintained & everything backed up, so as long as it's running as good as it is, i'm in no need of a new 'puter at the moment. i'm still new to Linux (a bit over a month now) & i guess i'm just used to how a lot of things are faster under Window$. if my speed problem is a processor issue, i'll have to live with it for now. just trying anything i can to make it a bit more responsive under MDK. so..........any ideas on the XTOOLWAIT? Chris

just bumping this 'cause i haven't seen any more suggestions or comments. maybe there are no more, i dunno. but, since my above post, i haven't done much with Moz1.4. it's still running along side Moz1.3.1, still Java-less. since i don't want to go through these headaches again, i've been leaving well enough alone until i got some more advise. i saw on another thread that somebody was having font problems with Moz1.4. was this version released too early, maybe? it seems to be full of bugs. anywho, i was just hoping to get this resolved. if nothing more comes of it, i'll probably just get rid of 1.4 'cause i'm quite happy (so far) with 1.3.1, & i use Konqueror more often for my surfing because it's a lot faster than Mozilla (i think). Chris

here's a link to the website for this tool http://www.hacom.nl/~richard/software/xtoolwait.html . i came across this package while i was fiddling around in MCC add packages (it's on disc 2 of the Mandrake distro). it's supposed to decrease the loading time of Linux by managing various "X" processes, from what i understand. (rememeber.....NOObie here) it's only a 9K file, so i installed it, but now i'm stumped. i read the instructions at the above website & in the help file on how to use it, but i still can't seem to get it to work. has anybody used this program? is it even worthwhile to try? my startup time takes dreadfully long (i haven't timed it, but i'd bet it's close to 3 minutes from when i start booting Mandrake until KDE is up & loaded) i've done the usual things to speed it up, like disabling uneeded processes at startup, but if i could get it to load faster, i'm all for it. again, TIA......... Chris

.......& what does it do? is it needed? still learning here. i read the manpage about it, but i'm still lost. when i go to terminal & run "ps a", i get this PID TTY STAT TIME COMMAND 1786 vc/1 S 0:00 /sbin/mingetty tty1 1787 vc/2 S 0:00 /sbin/mingetty tty2 1788 vc/3 S 0:00 /sbin/mingetty tty3 1789 vc/4 S 0:00 /sbin/mingetty tty4 1790 vc/5 S 0:00 /sbin/mingetty tty5 1791 vc/6 S 0:00 /sbin/mingetty tty6 3361 pts/2 S 0:00 bash 3391 pts/2 R 0:00 ps a why are 6 of these processes running? do they take up memory? decrease performance? as always, i searched the forum & Googled without any satisfactory answers before i posted. TIA, Chris

yep, i wanna try to run it from terminal, but i don't know the command to do so.......... nope, klogviewer doesn't work..........neither does logviewer, syslog, syslogviewer, xlogviewer, xsyslog, & several other variations i've tried. (i've tried running them both as user & root) any other ideas? i can't even find anything in the MAN pages about the log viewer. (if it's there, i'm missing it then) not really a major problem, but it's the little things like this that bug me & make me wanna know why! if i come up with anything in the meantime, i'll let you know. Chris

glad you got it worked out! Chris

(told ya i'd have more questions!) i'm having a problem with my system log viewer. when i try to run it by going to "kicker>start applications>applications>monitoring>system log" it asks for root password, opens the sytem log viewer panel, seems like it's loading, but then it bombs & i get an error message box that says "error....unknown error" & my only option is to close the error box. i can still view logs if i got to Mandrake Control Center & use the log viewer there. the log viewer was working fine a few days ago. i'm wondering if this could be related in some way to my Java/Mozilla 1.4 problems (see thread) http://mandrakeusers.org/viewtopic.php?t=6...5b2841b04ed61aa because it seems to have only started after that dilema? is there a way to run the log viewer from a teminal? if there is, i was thinking maybe it would give me more detail about the error, but i can't find a command to run it. once again, if anybody can shed some light on this problem, it would be appreciated. thanks, Chris

don't know if you checked out this thread i started http://mandrakeusers.org/viewtopic.php?t=6...3293f6e165a9cda but i've been going through Mozilla 1.4 h*ll. read through that thread & you should be able to get Moz1.3.1 working again. if it helps, the shortcut excute command in my Moz1.3.1 is /usr/bin/mozilla %u . that opens up version 1.3.1 for me (adust the path to reflect your Mozilla location). i also have a shortcut & working version for Moz1.4, albeit without Java support & lame fonts (see above link to thread). i'd think if you just delete the Moz1.4 directory, you should be able to use 1.3.1 again because that would be the only version of Moz on your computer. anywho, i'm just a Noobie, so maybe somebody else will have a different answer, but that's what worked for me. Chris