yossarian

I suggest you read Adam's post in this topic. I guess it is best to do it from the DVD/3 cd's versions, this way you don't depend on the quality of connection.

I try (on my 2007.1) to download BitTorrent program through the urpmi (so I can download the 2008 edition), and unable to do it for the last day (connection to the repo too slow, or databases locked, depends when I try).

Wow, thanks for the info. It's all news to me. It's a bit late and I've got a (too) long day tomorrow, but I promise to read this guide in the wiki ASAP. So actually, you are saying that not only I was wrong and *there is* a way to upgrade through the network, there are actually two ways. Again, I'm going to read all about it tomorrow night (24 hrs from now). Adam - You are all doing a great work, already wrote you in the blog that I am envy of you. Keep up, the results are fantastic.

Hey, good luck! Since I haven't seen the 2008 release I can't express my opinion about it, but I would like to repeat something that I already said when 2007 Spring got out: I think that the One release is important to attract new users, but it's also important not to leave the existing users behind. I'm not sure it's possible technically (though I believe I did see a few distros supporting this feature), but IMO the best way to enable the upgrade is through a network connection. If I'm not mistaken (And if I am, please stand me corrected), the only way to upgrade Mandriva is through the DVD release. The One CD and the full 3-cd's version don't support this option. Personally, I don't have a DVD burner. What are my options? And another question: In the mandriva site it looks like only KDE version is available. Where can I get the Gnome version?

Welcome, mon ami.

I'm not sure it's the most natural straight-forward way to do it, but still, as a bypass - it works. On the desktop, right-click the mouse and choose "create launcher". Under Type choose "Application" and give it a name (e.g. "Win partition"). In the Command line write "nautilus LibraryPath", where LibraryPath stands for the path to your windows partition (e.g. "/media/win", or wherever you mounted the windows partition to). Under Comment write whatever you want. Choose an icon, click OK, et voila! Bonne chance!

Welcome.

Hi grimx, When I read your post it sounded very familiar. I had a similar problem about 3 months ago. I'm not sure it's going to be helpful for you, but the solution I found is described here. I suggest you give it a try (especially running the autogen.sh file manually). Good luck, let me know if it helped.

Welcome aboard :) That might be a problem. Wifi is mandatory for me. I need to check it out somehow before I buy it. Maybe Ill try to mount from the Live CD in the store, if they allow me. I'll check it. Thanks for the detailed answers. Hey, man, I thought of it before you did... Great minds etc. :) As I said, not all models are arriving to Israel, especially UMPC's, and even more especially UMPC's with Linux, not to mention it belongs to Asus, and not to a giant label like Lenovo or HP. I would love to put my hands on the EEE, I just don't know when I will go abroad next time, and I'm afraid to lose my (maybe) only chance for a long time.

Oh, the touch screen is part of the "nice to have" part. (Although you can be certain that once I buy it I'll come back to this forum to ask how to configure the touch screen...) BTW, does an old IBM X-series (e.g. X-31 or even X-21) have a better chance?

Hi everyone, Next week I'm going to Singapore and I thought of buying myself a laptop/UMPC. The reason I'm mentioning I'm going abroad is that in Israel we don't have a great variey of models, and the prices are about 10%-15% higher than anywhere else, and in some things (like UMPC's) the difference can get even to 50%. I have some very unique requirements: it has to be VERY light (no more than 1.2 kg), and very cheap (no more than 700 - 750 $ US). It also needs to have a wireless connection. The upside is that I don't care about the specs that much: the CPU can be quite slow, and I don't need 1 GB of RAM, even 512 MB will be enough for my Mandriva :). Also I don't need more than 10GB of memory, and any toys like webcams etc. are only nice to have. I thought of buying a Kohjinsha SA1. I looked for it in the Mandriva comapatibility database and couldn't find this firm, so I have a few questions: Does anyone have any experience with installing Mandriva or other Linux distro on this machine? If not, according to the specs, do you think it will run? Will mandriva be compatible to this hardware, in your opinion? I plan to install the OS through an external optical device, as it doesn't have an optical drive of its own. Do you foresee any problems there? Do you have any recommendations for other laptops which stand in my crazy standards? Thanks!

I love it when you talk dirty. :D

Have you tried scilab? It has an IDE with an editor and a debugger and everything, which is an advantage IMO. Besides, they are running a sub-project called scicos, which is supposed to be similar to Simulink. Doesn't work at all, from what I have noticed in the three minutes I tried it, but nevertheless, you must appreciate the courage. It's quite ambitious, to say the least. This OHLOH site got into my favorites. Thanks!

Hi Ofri, The sites you mentioned - are they examples to sites FF can't load? Because I can load Gmail in my FF, for instance (running Mandrive 2007.1 with Gnome). So maybe the problem is not with the browser. When you try to load those pages, do you get any messages, or does the page remain empty? Regarding installation of the jre, I would recommend installing it from the repos, but I haven't tried it myself. And welcome to the board. :)

Hi menendez, Again, you can do it through the configuration files (this file is called fstab under /etc), or through the MCC. Take a look at a discussion we just had the other day, here. If you are more interested doing it via the GUI, focus on AussieJohn's answer. Good luck.

You are welcome. If you have any more questions or problems you are most invited to ask them here, from my experience people here are real pros and very patient with newbies like us.

Hi Menendez, You have another option: using the MCC - Mandriva Control Center. This way you don't need to edit any files, but do things from a GUI. Go to System -> Administration -> Configure Your Computer. Enter root's password when asked. On the MCC choose the last tab, called Boot. From the menu choose "Set up how the system boots". Click Next. Choose the windows entry and click the Modify button on the left. Click the Defualt flag. Click ok and Finish. That's it. In general, in Linux there is a mechanism of users that is intended to protect them, the data and the system itself. There is a special user, called root, who has all the privileges of modifying definitions in the system. Whenever you want to change things like that, most probably you will need to enter root's password, or login as root (either from a terminal or on the Login screen, which is not recommended IMO). in Mandriva there are two ways of doing things, directly by editing the configuration files, of from a GUI (the MCC). If you want to get an impression from the options you have in the GUI, I suggest you take a tour through some of the available windows in the MCC. This way when you want to change things later you'll know where to look for them. Just pay attention not to change anything by mistake and then save the new preferences. And welcome to the board. :)

Oh, thanks for the clarification.

Hope it's not a stupid question: will it be possible to run Kompozer on Gnome? I know that some KDE programs demand full KDE environment, and even if not, the dependencies might just be an over-kill (depends on how many dependencies there are, of course).

If I may, I'd like to add something: scarecrow, I don't think that in these matters there is wrong and right. It's a matter of personal taste, and as long as the user feels comfortable with his/her choice, everything is fine. I believe that up till this point we all agree. I beg to differ on the argument that working directly on the files themselves is always better than using the GUI. Sure there are places where investing some time to learn how to operate things "the hard way" can be very worthwhile in the long run. For example, calling menus of the OS GUI or of the programs is something I prefer to do from the keyboard and not my mouse. I find it much faster. Nevertheless, the preference depends on two things: how much effort am I required to put in, and how much will it save me in the future. Adding a mount point to the fstab file is something I don't do every day, or every year for that matter. On the other hand, although the fstab is well-documented on a numerous places on the web, reading and understanding this documentation might take some time (especially for a newbie), so I can't say the effort required from me as a user is negligible. So if I need to do the trade-off, I have no doubt that if I had used the GUI the first time I had added a mount point, it would have taken me less time than what it took me "manually". And I didn't need to do it ever since. Regarding the sense of control you were mentioning - I agree that for a techie the challenge itself may increase one's confidence, but I'm not sure everyone is interested in this confidence. Let me walk in John's path and use another motor example (I swear I thought about it before he published his message. You can ask my wife :) ): Does every driver need to know exactly how the gear in his car work? To what level of details? And why should a computer user be any different? To conclude, I agree with John that this is part of the beauty in Linux, everyone can find his own route. I hope you understand that I don't try to convince you this way or the other, just to emphasize that every way has its pros and cons. Besides, I'm sure that in the bottom line we all do see eye to eye, so spending so many words on the subject makes me feel a bit argumentative. I hope no one feels the same, it wasn't my intention.

Hi AussieJohn, I agree using your way is much better. In general, I prefer to use the GUI MCC whenever I can, I just wasn't aware to this option. So thanks, I learned something.

Isn't gedit a Gnome app? And isn't console a KDE app (or at least konslole, I believe in Gnome it's called terminal or shell)? If I'm wrong please correct me. Of course it doesn't matter the recipe dramatically: still one should login as root, use "mkdir /mnt/windows" and add the line in /etc/fstab. BTW, if the line that was mentioned doesn't work for you can try also: /dev/driveandpartitionumber /mnt/win ntfs defaults,umask=0 0 0 If you have any more problems or our answers weren't clear enough, come back and ask more questions, there are some real professionals hanging around here who are very friendly that will be happy to help you (not me, of course, I'm just a newbie. Take my answers with a limited guarantee. Ixthusdan is a more promising option). And welcome aboard. :)

Assuming you are using Mandriva 2007.1, for the regular users:: Go to Applications -> System -> Configure your computer. This will open the MCC - Mandriva Control Center. Type the current root's password when asked. Click the System Tab. Scroll down if necessary, and choose "Add, Remove or Change users of the system" Right-click the user you which to modify and choose "Edit". If you want to delete you have a "Delete" button on the upper ruler in the window. For the root (which I think you can't delete, only change the password), I believe you can only do that from a console. I don't know exactly how, you'll have to wait for one of the experts.

ekiga has only one disadvantage: you can't contact skype users with it (AFAIK), and in these kind of applications, the popularity is sometimes more important than the quality of the software.

An ignorant spin-off question, if I may: actually, why isn't Skype itself in the repos? I know there are proprietary issues, but I believe there are also repos for proprietary stuff (drivers and software), and Skype is a free software. Besides, I believe I saw distros that come with Skype. Isn't it possible to get to some kind of agreement with Skype? It is a very popular application.