sitor

Thanks for the feedback. Indeed, I should add a link to Mandriva users. Will do that first time I make a new version.

 

Any other hints for improvement are very welcome.

 

Ciao,

 

Sitor

Hello,

 

Quite some time ago (somewhere in october / november) I wrote a (dutch) article on what Mandriva Linux 2006 can be for normal home users. It is directed to people who have heard about linux and have some curiousity, but don't know really much about it.

 

I finally came to it to translate it to english, and to create a website to publish it. You can find it here: http://coulier.org/CMS/MDV_2006_homeusers_1_EN.html.

 

I used a creative commons license, so if you would like to translate, or use it for making another article or something, don't hesitate.

 

Ciao,

 

Sitor

Hello,

 

I've been struggling with this quite some time now. However I'm not a developer , or packager, so since there seems to be some problem with the Mandriva RPMs, I'm kind of stuck and hoping someone here can help me. For a full description of my problems, check out the bugreport I made on bugzilla.

 

If you know any way to get on with this, please help.

 

Thanks,

 

Sitor

OK, I did some more googling and testing, and this is what I got:

mknod -m 666 /dev/dv1394 c 171 34 did not create /dev/ieee1394/dv/host0/PAL/out. Apparently http://www.linux1394.org/dv1394.php is outdated. I found out that currently that command creates /dev/dv1394 plain and simple. Setting that in the preferences of kino did the trick. :D :D :D

However after rebooting, /dev/dv1394 was gone again. :( So I added mknod -m 666 /dev/dv1394 c 171 34 to the /etc/rc.local script. Now upon boot the device /dev/dv1394 is created automatically.:)

 

Of course it would be better if MDL 2005 LE would do this without tinkering from the user required. So I hope they will fix this anyhow.

 

Oh, yeah, in MDL 10.0 I always needed to run kino as root, or it would not let me control the camera. That is fixed now. That is a good thing. I must say that I am quite satisfied of MDL 2005 LE. Except for this one bug no real annoying problems, and that while having installed immediately when the new version was available only to club members! :D :D

 

Good work done by all the hackers of MDL!

 

Ciao,

Sitor

Hello,

 

I think this is a bug, so I already reported this to bugzilla, however maybe someone might help me with a quick fix or workaround. Please find below what I reported to bugzilla:

 

Hello,

 

I'm quite a heavy kino user (importing from camera, editing and exporting back to camera). I installed MDV 2005LE and started using kino. Importing and editing goes real good, however, exporting back to camera does not work at all. I have been trying to figure out why, but I'm not at all an expert in this kind of matters.

This is how far I got:

 

gscanbus gave me this result (but I don't have a clue how to interpret it):

SelfID Info

-----------

Physical ID: 0

Link active: Yes

Gap Count: 63

PHY Speed: S100

PHY Delay: <=144ns

IRM Capable: Yes

Power Class: None

Port 0: Connected to parent node

Init. reset: No

CSR ROM Info

------------

GUID: 0x00804580211492FE

Node Capabilities: 0x000083C0

Vendor ID: 0x00008045

Unit Spec ID: 0x0000A02D

Unit SW Version: 0x00010001

Model ID: 0x00000000

Nr. Textual Leafes: 1

Vendor: MATSUSHITA ELECTRIC IND. CO

Textual Leafes:

Panasonic

AV/C Subunits

-------------

Tape Recorder: 1

Video Camera: 1

Vendor Unique: 1

 

I checked the kino preferences for the export device. According to what I found on the kino site, it is set correctly to /dev/ieee1394/dv/host0/PAL/out. However, this device does not seem to exist on my system. I tried to create it (as root) with mknod -m 666 /dev/dv1394 c 171 34 as indicated on http://www.linux1394.org/dv1394.php, but that did not seem to work. I did not get any error, but in /dev there is still no /ieee1394 subfolder, and kino still can't do the export.

 

Don't know what I can do to further investigate.

 

Thanks in advance for any help.

 

Ciao,

 

Sitor

Just for info, I'm downloading the Mandriva Linux 2005 Limited Edition right now. Not really high speed yet, but that will come once there are more people starting the download.

 

Ciao,

 

Sitor

I'll definetely will upgrade my desktop from 10.1 to LE2k5. There are some apps of which I could not get the newest versions to run properly on my 10.0. They are in LE2k5 and my tests with RC1 were so positive that that made up my mind.

Hello,

 

I have Firefox installed on my Mandrake 10.0 OE. It works fine, but I'm not able to install extensions nor to use the automatic update function from within Firefox. I have the same problem on a test machine that was installed with 10.0 OE.

 

It does start to download the extensions and updates, but they don't get installed.

 

I get the message:

The following components could not be installed due to errors

(the file could not be downloaded, was corrupt, or for some other reason).

 

The in the detailed overview he shows:

data: Downloading [name of extension or update] (Read only)

 

I'm not sure, but I guess that he does the download but then stores it in read only mode on disk or something.

 

I've googled on this problem, searched the board, but not seen any hint of someone having the same problem. But to me it happened on both machines. Doesn't any Mandrake user try to install updates or extensions for Firefox?

 

How can I fix this?

 

Thanks in advance,

 

Sitor

I've been thinking about talking to the IT team that installs PCs in the shool of my kids. Never came to it. Probably they would not accept it because they run quite some commercial (semi)-educational games (only Windows of course). And even if I could convince them, nothing would happen unless I spent quite some time on this (these are all volunteers, so if someone has an idea,...). I don't have the time to start installing PCs. I prefer spending time with my kids. I recently created accounts for them on my PC, installed all the free games that are OK for their age. I created also an e-mail account for the oldest (7 years). He now knows how to boot the machine in Linux (its a dual boot), start evolution and how to receive and send e-mails.

 

Maybe some day? If Wine would mature enough so that I would be able to get those Windows only games working,...

 

Ciao,

 

Sitor

Marco,

 

Have a look in my thread here:

 

Thread on installing Mandrake 10.1 as VMWare Guest

 

I've put it on the Mandrake Wiki as an idea for 10.2: that they make sure Mandrake installs correctly in VMWare by default.

 

Ciao,

 

Sitor

Well Mandrakesoft clearly does not promote KDE 3.3. You need to add the KDE folder on the 4th CD yourself as a source in the Mandrake Control Center. Once that is done you have to select all KDE 3.3 packages for installation yourself.

 

I've done it, and it works. However there are still some problems with it. I tried to install Firefox. Didn't work. Tried to install Mozilla, didn't work. Did not spent much time trying though. Just the fact that the RPMs don't work is already bad enough for me.

 

Result: except of my test system, I will not do the effort to update to 10.1. Just don't see enough added value to do the effort. I'll stick with 10.0 for the moment.

 

Ciao,

 

Sitor

Hello,

 

I recently fell onto a webpage mentioning Qemu, which seems to be an Open Source alternative to VMWare. See:

Qemu homepage

and

The FreeOSZoo homepage that provides premade Qemu OS images

 

For the moment I have quite little time. If I would receive confirmation that this is a decent solution that is manageable for a non-geek, I would install it to compare it with with VMWare on my Windoze lappy, but also use it to ditch my dual boot on my desktop for a Mandrake only boot with Windoze in Qemu for the games of the kids.

 

Does anyone have any experience with it?

Difficult to use?

Does it perform well?

 

Anyone a clue why there is so little talk about it, while at first sight this looks like a viable alternative for VMWare that is discussed quite often as a very good solution but too expensive?

 

Ciao,

 

Sitor

If it might have to do with upgrade i.o. fresh install, why not try uninstalling K3B and some of the packages it depends on and then reinstall? Maybe it gets fixed doing that?

 

OK, not the best hack around, but it just might work.

 

Ciao,

 

Sitor

You might want to check out gthumb as well. It works perfect for me.

 

Ciao,

 

Sitor

What striked me is that when they give market share figures they say that the percentage of Linux PCs sold is much higher then the percentage of Linux users. How many of the Linux users have bought a Linux PC? Most of the linux users use a PC that originally came with Windows, because they could not get the model they wanted without it. That is not true of course for those who have build there own system, but unlike what SoulSe seems to think, most computer users tend to buy a prebuild system, because not everybody is able to build his own system.

 

Conclusion: In my opinion, the linux user market share is probably higher then what the sales of prebuild linux PCs indicates, not the other way around.

 

Ciao,

 

Sitor

One guy I know who had had a virus on his PC. His Win 98 was cleaned but broken. I installed Mandrake for him, and he found his way with it quite quickly. Should go visit him again to see if he needs some more explaining, but from his last mail, it seems that he's OK.

 

Might do it for my father as well. He's running XP on a lappy, but he's interested because of the virii, etc.

 

Ciao,

 

Sitor

Well, for me the reasons to download CE is most of all to help bughunting (that's why I install it in VMWare) but also because I just can't wait to see and test the new features in real action.

OK, I got it solved.

 

Just for anyone else that would want to get it running, this is how I did it (thanks to the help of some nice people on the Mandrakeclub, so it is usefull to me).

 

Mind you, I'm not at all an expert in these kind of stuff, so there might be a much better way, but this worked for me.

 

1. I installed Mandrake specifying that it should not launch x on booting (otherwise it tries and VMWare shows the 4 screens and you cannot read what you are doing).

2. I logged in as root.

3. I ran the xf86cfg command to start xconfig. It is a little bit searching how the interface works, but it was possible to change the adapter to vesa vesa as Joerg suggested on the Mandrakeclub forum.

4. I ran the startx command to get into KDE. That did work (took a while), but the resolution was not OK (the desktop did not fit on the screen). However, using the scrollbars that were present in VMWare I could get to the menu button which allowed me to launch the Mandrake Control Centre (MCC). This allowed me to change the screen resolution to 1024x768 (it was set to 800x600, which was the cause of the problem).

5. I logged of as root. Could not startx as normal user, but I could after rebooting.

6. After the rebooting I logged in as normal user and did startx again. This time I got into KDE as normal user with the good resolution. After that I used to MCC to enable autologin of that user and to indicate it should start X by default.

 

And now I can start testing.

 

I have just one question remaining. Is this caused by a bug in Mandrake (then I would file a bug report) or is this due to VMWare not supporting Xorg yet or something (then a bug report makes no sense)?

 

Ciao,

 

Sitor

Hello,

 

I tried to install 10.1 CE in VMWare, and the installation worked fine. However when I rebooted after the install, it would not boot in X. All goes well (there one failure to mount something, but that does not seem to be the showstopper), untill it wants to go into runlevel 5 and wants to start the Xserver. That does simply not work.

 

Could it be that Xorg is not supported by VMWare? I searched the knowledge of VMWare but there was no mention of Xorg at all.

 

Anyone with some helpfull hints?

 

I installed from the same discs on a test PC at work and that went pretty OK, no problem whatsoever. So the discs are fine.

 

Ciao,

 

Sitor

 

[moved from Installing Mandrake by spinynorman]

In the mean time I contacted the Mandrake Customer Support service for the same question. Within half an hour I got following response:

Dear Sitor,

 

Thank you for your message.

 

We are informing you that the Mandrakelinux Globettroter runs with the usb

1.0

but it's slowly than the usb 2.0 due to the transfert rate of usb 1.0. So y

ou

will be able to have your Globettroter on your laptop ! :)

 

Please do not hesitate to recontact us for further information.

 

We wish you a nice day

 

Regards,

Not very detailed answer, but it is to the point and really fast. Most of the time if I do an online inquiry with a company it takes several days to receive an answer, if there is one at all. I heard a lot of bad things about Mandrakesofts Customer Care, but this was a very positive experience.

 

Ciao,

 

Sitor

I cannot say with certainty how easy it is to upgrade to 10.1 but I am sure with the facilities already provided with GlobeTrotter it should not be a problem really.

Well, they mention themselves that it will be possible but not supported. I'm prepared to take my chances (I'm sure that the people her on the board will be helpfull enough if I run into trouble). Seems that if it does not work there is a recovery function that you can use anyway to go back to the initial state.

 

USB 1.0 theoritcally is 12 Mbits/s compared to USB 2.0 which is 480 Mbits/s

That in itself seems to be no problem to me. I would only store my mails and stuff on it. I'm only not sure that it would be able to boot a PC that only has USB 1.0. Would there not be any problems on HW level or something (I don't know much about this). For instance, this device gets its power via USB 2.0. Does that work then with USB 1.0 as well. If it doesn't, I would simply not be able to use it at all.

 

Furthermore you mention about transfering video, with USB 1.0 you cannot transfer high quality video DVD, but only VCD quality.

Well, the editing would still be on my desktop, so the video would remain on the existing internal HDD. I guess that once the PC has started up the software, everything is executed in the RAM and the video comes from the internal HDD, so the USB slowness would not have to be a problem for that. Or would the SWAP create problems? In any case the desktop will still be bootable without the GlobeTrotter (it already has MDL 10.0), so I can use it without GlobeTrotter for video anyway.

 

What do you think would this work?

 

Ciao,

 

Sitor

Hello,

 

I'm quite interested in the Globetrotter. I would use it with my laptop from work to be able to work anywhere + to work in the living room without annoying my wife with the noise of my home desktop. Would use it on my desktop for all video editing, dvd burning and other stuff.

 

But I do have some questions:

1. How easy would it be to upgrade to 10.1? I suppose you cannot just install the new version like that (it must include some special SW that is not included in the standard MDL SW, which you would delete).

2. I only have USB 1.0, not 2.0. Would that be a problem?

 

Thanks for your two cents,

 

Sitor

Same thing here. No fix. Sometimes it crashes so hard when starting it that KDE just doesn't get started at all. Then the only thing I can do is to shut down the virtual machine and restart it. And then sometimes it just boots as it should without any problems. But most of the time I get the Knotify message as mentioned in the post above.

 

Sorry, don't have a fix for that either. I can only confirm.

 

Ciao,

 

Sitor

From how I interpreted the initial post, Mandrake is already installed on the machine.

 

Mandrake has a very nice graphical UI to do partitioning:

simply go to Mandrake Control Center -> Mount Points -> Partitions.

 

It makes you clear what you are doing and it always worked great for me.

 

Oh yeah, if you are going to install Windows while mandrake is there already, you will break the bootloader (Windows doesn't like other OSses to be present). You will have to restore it afterwards (I think that you can do that using the MDK install CDs, but I'm not quite sure, there are threads on the forum here that have discussed that before, so just do a search, you will find an answer somewhere). But there is no need to reïnstall Mandrake completely, only to restore the bootloader.

 

In case Mandrake is not present yet after all:

First run the MDK installer up to the point you can do partitioning. The installer gives you the same nice GUI partitioning tool as mentioned above. Go up to the point where you create your partitions (custom partioning) and then abandon the MDK installer. Then install Windows on the partition you foresaw for it (take care not to use the whole drive, otherwise you will have to repartition later). Then use the MDK installer again to install MDK. It will set up dual boot for you.

 

Ciao,

 

Sitor

Yves,

 

Nice explanation. Way too difficult for my limited Linux knowledge however. Guess I'll have to wait untill some kind sole makes it more easy. I just don't have the time to do all this dependency checking and stuff. My wife already doesn't like the fact that I'm busy with the PC so much.

 

Let me know if you get the job done. I especially wonder for two things:

1. Can you resize dual layer DVDs to fit on a single layer one?

2. Some DVDs oblige you to go through several minutes of adds before you see the movie itself. Is it possible to remove that in the backup? That would be one more reason to view the movie from the backup instead of the original (except to refrain the children to mistreat the originals). And I can't do that on Windows yet.

 

Ciao,

 

Sitor