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Mitchell

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Everything posted by Mitchell

  1. Hi Mudfish. To my knowledge there's nothing within Mandriva that lets you do a system restore... not be default anyway. That's a great windows concept, but not included by default with this distro... That said, like most things Linux, there are even better options than windows if you are willing to hunt around. Unfortunately I have no advice to help you now, except back up your old info and reinstall kde (gasp! Shock! Horror! Linux people... forget I mentioned reinstall). For next time however, particularly if you are into tweaking your computer, here are some great options: 1. Mondo - great little program in 2007.1 and 2008.0 repositories (not sure about Mandriva 10.1) that lets you restore everything in any configuration you want. If I went back to windows I would probably do it with Linux on a small partition alongside windows so I could use Mondo. Highly recommend it. 2. Rsnapshot - never used it, but makes differential backups of your system contunually, thus creating very easy restore points. sounds like a great idea. 3. urpmi-recover - neat little tool which keeps track of all the packages you install, and lets you rollback what you've installed to a certain time... I think the two above are better, but this is useful too. Good luck.
  2. Hi Urza, you've fallen prey to the same things that happened to me with that kernel... apparently it was all so easy to fix and sort out... I was told by several people that all I had to do was boot up with the new kernel installed, and if that didn't work I could go back to the old one... right... was also using virtualbox, and couldn't work without it... I had to reinstall my system. And as I kept trying to make the new kernels work, I had to reinstall it several times. Was much easier once I realized I could just leave the home partition where it was...lol... yes I was very new to Linux. Three options: 1. Keep going as you are and figure out what's wrong. You will make lots of people who have had this problem very happy. This may take some time. This is likely the best option, and if you have the time to wait, eventually you will find an answer. 2. Write off your losses, and reinstall your system files. This is basically a clean install, except you DON'T do ANYTHING to your home partition. This means that all your files, documents, settings, etc, will be the same. The only thing crucially important is to know what your user id is for each user, and to set that again when you reinstall. I.e., if your account is 501, your wifes 502, etc., make sure they stay the same. To do this run the command "userdrake" in a console as root. This will bring up a screen which shows you what you user id is for each account. Write these down. Of course, this is all assuming you have a seperate 'home' partition. I believe this is Mandriva's default, but I'm not sure. If you DON't have a seperate home partition you will loose all your info. I'd recommend using Mondo to back everything up (see below), then wipe everything, and do a clean install. 3. Use Mondo. I can never stress this highly enough. Mondo is a wonderful backup program that will restore your computer back to the state when you backed it up. It's specific to when you hose up your system like this. You can restore your whole system from bare metal, so if you're going to be doing lots of 'tweaking' to get your system to work better, I can't recommend it highly enough. You can use mondo to create additional, and resize, remove, etc, partitions when you are restoring. You can also back up any other file systems (ntfs for windows, networked, etc) that are on, or connected to your computer. - I would recommend backing up your system with mondo. It is in the 2007.1 repositories, and 2008.0, though 2007.1 was missing some packages. Simply install it, run it, ("mondoarchive" as root in console) and it will tell you what it needs. All dependencies are in repositories. After that back up your entire system. You can use cd's or dvd's. It takes awhile. - I recommend a clean install, preferably of 2008.0, as that kernel fixes many issues found in 2.6.17-13mdv. If you have a seperate home partition don't touch that, set your user id's properly on reinstall, set your passwords to the same as they are now, and don't restore anything from Mondo. If you DON'T have a seperate home partition, back up first with Mondo, wipe EVERYTHING, and do a clean install, still remembering to set your user id's and passwords to what they were before. Make sure you set up a seperate home partition this time. After you are done, install Mondo from the repositories, then run "mondorestore" in the console. Go through your system files in Mondo, and restore all the files from your old installation that you need to your new 'home partition'. This will likely be everything under '/home', and your virtualbox image files as well. I think by default these are installed somewhere in your '/home' directory, but might be under '/opt' as well. This should give you a clean install, a seperate home partition, and leave all your data intact. You will loose any custom system changes you have made, but will still have all your old files and documents backed up with Mondo, which you will be able to restore. You will need to reinstall programs such as Virtualbox. Good luck. I've written all this because I remember being in your shoes exactly, and it sucks. Interestingly enough though, I just was able to boot from the updated 2.6.22.9-desktop-2mdv kernel in 2008.0 (this was an update) without any problems. Virtual box works fine. Whatever the problem was in 2007.1 seems to be fixed. Feel free to contact me if you need any clarification of the above, I'm happy to help anyway I can. Also keep checking this forum. There are many, many, people who know much more than I do, and will likely have much better advice than I can ever manage. Also let us know what you decide to do in the end, and how it works. In this way you will help others who have similar problems. Good luck!
  3. Lol... maybe I should just try selling this phone... although as it's pretty crappy to begin with I'm looking forward to turfing it. Actually, my wife and I are thinking of (gasp) going down to one phone only, and actually spending more time talking to each other. An odd twist of events? Last night a door-to-door salesman came buy, saying he was with Optus (Australian Telephone company), and offering no phone line rental and better-than-voip rates... I hate dorr-to-door salesman. Especially at dinner time. I told him (politely) to go away, then realized he was offering a very good deal. Alas, he was gone. Lol. Oh well, this is off the topic, as I still need to get another modem anyway... Cheers folks. ~Mitchell
  4. Incidentally, if anyone does want a Belkin router, this one works fine. Seems silly to keep it if I'm getting a new modem anyway. Cheers.
  5. Here's something to laugh at, the crappy little wireless sanyo phone I bought about a year ago to use with voip, and never was able to because the call qaulity was so low, recently had a spin in the washing machine... one of those great frontloaders that you folks in Europe will know well...lol. Beleive it or not, it still worked when it came out! Temporarily... It's been about a month now, and the effects are starting to show. Can't receive incoming calls that well... so we switched to using it for outgoing voip calls instead... yeah, it's not any better than when I first tried it.... so... What this basically means is I have alot of new hardware to buy. My current ADSL 2+ voip modem/router is locked to an Australian service called TPG, and all attepmts to unlock it have failed. I wouldn't mind a great deal, except their service isn't great, and I can't have an inbound number... I can only make calls out. To make matters worse, I can't seem to use any softphone from my computer with this modem; because it's voip enabled, it does funny things with SIP packets. Apparently this is pretty standard with voip enabled modems. (voip enabled=being able to plug ordinary phone into it). It's also not wireless, so I've had a belkin router plugged into it. Sobasically I'm going to turf my old equipment. Anyone want to buy a Belkin router? I'm giving the old modem away, and would like to buy a wireless adsl2+ modem/router (preferably with at least two ports), and a seperate voip adapter. Seems I can get these for about $200 Australian, but I'm unsure what's going to work well with Mandriva. Any ideas people? Have looked into D-link for the Voip adapter, but no real punters yet for the modem. Needs to be wireless, needs to be adsl2+, and needs NOT to have any inbuilt voip capabilities. Thanks folks!
  6. Oh easy, just found Turboprint website, and seems my printer is supported... more or less. Doesn't exactly list R210, but lists R200 and R220... surely that's close enough? Any thoughts on setting up Turboprint to print directly to media, and do I need to uninstall cups? Is the paid version much better than the free wversion? Will have a look at the docs... cheers.
  7. I'm really interested in this... that's one difficulty I've found switching to Linux. I originally nought our Epson Stylus Photo R210 because as well as great picture printing, I could print on discs directly... while my printer works beautifully, this feature does not... haven't been able to bring myself to try using it under Windows XP in virtual box... Will Turboprint work with my Epson? Where can I find it? I don't mind if it's propriety, though I'd rather not buy it. Unfortunately my printer won't support usb sticks or flash cards, otherwise I'd try what John does...lol. Hadn't thought I'd ever use this feature so I got the cheaper model. Any ideas?
  8. Lol. I agree with you there... Have been looking at getting more RAM, but it might be a little while. Hard to convince my wife we need it, especially as I dislike windows to begin with.... ah well, a few more bits of hardware to buy... perhaps I can just add it to my list. In any event I'm not planning on needing to use Windows XP for much longer. Sound is working fine now. Thanks for your help people!
  9. Still are poopoo? Lol.... no swearing aloud hey? I've yet to have any noticeable problems with ATI, apart from problems which seem to be standard running a 3d desktop environment... these keep getting better in any event. This could also be because I don't use my system for much other than office related tasks, photo editing, and music, but most of the 3d effects under 2008 are brilliant. I can't use the 'water' or 'snow' effects, but I'm not fussed about this. Enough eye candy to keep me more than happy. My only real issue has been video editing, and I think this has more to do with the software I've been using than my graphics card... but it might be linked in. Perhaps If my system usage was more graphics heavy, it would be a problem. And Mindwave, judging by what you say, I think if you get compiz working you'll like it... I prefer Compiz-Fusion now, but compiz under 2007.1 works just fine... less buggy initially as well. Have fun! Also Metisse is kind of interesting, but I prefer Compiz. Easier to use..
  10. Thanks esulcer, I'll try it tonight. How much RAM does your box have? I use 512 mb of ddr2. VERY slow using Virtual Box. Have thought about getting more ram, but I don't like windows enough....
  11. NOt sure what a good cheap card would be, I'm running compiz-fusion on an ATI radeon (9500?), and love it. I'm also running the normal desktop with no 3d acceleration on my laptop, and love that too. There are advantages to not using compz, beryl, or compiz-fusion. 2 main ones: 1. User switching. I've yet to get user switching working on any of the above; while I can switch users I can't have the window manager working... this is a major drawback, and is no problem when not using 3d acceleration. 2. Dockbar. Apparently it is possible, but I've found this really difficult. I've tried lots of dockbars for both gnome and kde (running kde), and none of them work under a 3d desktop. Ksmoothdock comes the closest, but fails miserably when I try and hide it or use any advanced features.... Also, under 2008.0 Compiz-Fusions kde-windows-manager crashes all the time. THat said, I still love using it, it has made a huge difference to the usability of my box... just wish the above problems were fixed! Good luck.
  12. Could be a bug, have you searched any of the bug databses?
  13. Have been using XP within Virtual Box for some time now... works great, except I don't have sound and it's very slow... and I don't like XP much. Have needed it for my business database, which I'm working to transport to SugarCRM... getting there. Sounds like you are sorted, but one graet feature of Virtual Box (if you ever decide to do anything more than your tax) is saving the system as a 'snapshot'. THis is literally what it sayd, you can take a snap of XP at any time, and if you get a virus restore it exactly to where it was prior. Anyway.... Has anyone worked out how to get sound within Virtual Box? I haven't looked that hard, but so far I haven't found out how to get around the default permissions. Thanks! ~Mitchell
  14. This will probably serve to confuse you, and if you are happy with your previous backup and installations then stay with that, but personally I would upgrade to 2008, or 2007.1 for the supported updates from Mandriva... I have never used your MDK 10.2, so can't comment on that. There are often issues with User switching and such using Compiz and Compiz-Fusion (new 3d desktop managers in last 2 distros), however these can be disabled in the Mandriva Control Centre. I have found very few problems with 2008.0 doing that. Re backups, if you've just started playing around with them, I don't recommend what Mandriva has natively installed. I've never been able to get it working properly, though it's very liklely this is user error on my part. An easier solution for me has been a package called 'Mondo' (in software repositories with both 2007.1 and 2008.0. Unsure about MDK 10.2). Backs up your computer to a wide variety of media, and can restore from bare metal. There are lots of other neat features, such as being able to reorganize your partitions on a system restore (which I've never used to date), and restoring only chosen files. Since installing Mandriva 2007.1 (and Linux), I've 'crashed' my system several times. Mondo has been great for getting things back working again. Anyway, I'll stop rambling, good luck.
  15. Hi Cyanide, yes, this setting is also in Compiz-Fusion... I found it while I was playing around, and didn't like it either. Too difficult to use. It's under "Menu" (from the toolbar), "tools", "CompizConfig Settings Manager", then "Enable Cube Rotate". Untick the box marked "Edge Flip Pointer". Let us know if this solved it, and enjoy the rest of Compiz-Fusion!
  16. Apparently so, however the backports with Compiz-Fusion seem to run much better for me. Several bugs are fixed, including problems I was having with video on my desktop. One thing you could try would be to backup your system, enable the backports in the MCC, and update your system. The compiz-fusion packages will come up by default. I installed them using the same process, with a backup just in case, and have since disabled the backport updates... I use Mondo to backup, which is in the 2008.0 package repositories. Really easy to use program, it can back up to cd, dvd, another hard drive partition, and much more besides. It can be set to verify backups, and you can then compare them to your live system, just to make sure. It works by using a bootable media (in my case a cd), then restores from your backup media (I use a hard drive partition, though in the past I've used dvds and cds). You can restore in part, everything, you can wipe your partitions and recreate them elsewhere on your hard drive... I highly recommend it. I tinker alot with my system to figure out how it works, so for me this has been an invaluable tool. Good luck. ~Mitchell
  17. Haven't found it with open office, but periodically from time to time my windows manager crashes... very annoying. I have installed the updated compiz-fusion from the backports, and found this problem much better, along with a few other bug fixes. Are you running KDE?
  18. Just solved the audio problem, as you mentioned above... adding users to audioi group worked fine. Tried the same with the video group, but no luck. Anyone else have any ideas? Anyone from Mandriva able to fill us in on this one? Thanks. ~Mitchell
  19. Thanks ppcrulez... that makes sense about the sound, and is probably how I fixed it last time... I'll try later on tonight. I wonder if the same thing could work for the graphical interface? Does anyone know if there's a permission I could enable that could work with this? It almost seems like the same thing is happening with permissions for the 3d environment... any guess how I could change these?
  20. Just a bump people... anyone able to help with this?
  21. Hiya folks, here's a bug that's been happening since my early days with Mandriva... (Oh, about 7 months ago...lol) I've always used 3d, until recently when I was having some troubles I switched it off. AMAZING! I could actually switch users, and NOT have my windows manager disabled. What the heck is going on? Basically, when I have my 3d desktop enabled (both with Compiz under 2007.1, and now with Compiz-Fusion in 2008.0), if I switch users (eiter using "startx -- :1" or picking "switch users" from the panel menu) I can log into another account, and keep my existing one running, but the desktop manager is disabled in the new instance. I.e., no additional desktops, no windows borders, no sound, etc. Highly irritating, and it basically means I can't switch users... When I am NOT using a 3d environment, there is no problem. My only issue is that I can't use sound, I believe permissions are a problem with this. Before I installed 2008.0 I actaully got sound working on switched accounts by changing some device permissions, but unfortunately I had to do a clean install for 2008.0, and can't remember where I changed them.... So main question, how can I get user switching properly working while using a 3d environment? Is it something to do with permissions? Also, how do I enable sound again? To make sharing easier between accounts on my box, I've given all the users the same group, and removed the original user groups. I know it's probably a bad idea, but it's made life easier and my goal is for the user accounts to be able to see each other, not keep each other out. Security between accounts is not an issue for me. No account is world writable. Currently I have a 'shared' folder on each of my desktops linked to "/home/shared", which is writable by each user. Was much easier to do this when all the accounts had the same primary group. Anyway, anyone have any thoughts on user permissions for getting my desktop manager to work properly when I'm using the 3d environment, or any other things to try? Thanks. ~Mitchell
  22. Open Office in Mandriva by default has several European languages installed by default, the idea is to be as widely accessible to as many people as possible with little extra download or configuration. Likely somewhere (as Nexus pointed out) you've got your settings set to Greek, which I'm guessing is one of the languages it comes with. Your best bet is to find where your settings are set to greek, and change them. Another way around this would be to open the Mandriva Control Centre, go to 'Package Management', and type in "openoffice" in your search bar at the top. You should then have a list of all the packages under openoffice which are installed. There will be several language packages ticked, simply untick everything that you don't need. I only really need english. but as my wife speaks German I've left that on our box. My Language settings are all set to English, but I could change them to German anytime I needed to. This is also a good way to free up extra space being used by things which you don't need. Good luck!
  23. Mitchell

    Automount

    How odd. what version of Mandriva are you running?
  24. Hi RevJack. I'm not sure if there any any issues with a 64 version of 2008.0, but your main issue is that there is lots of software that is still unsupported. That's slowly changing, but unless you're interested in spending alot of time in front of your screen reconfiguring packages so they work with 64 bit, I don't recommend it. I looked at installing 2007.1 64 bit before 2008.0 came out, and foundit worked pretty well on my box, but as I didn't know much about linux then I thought it would make my life difficult. Now that I know more about Linux, I KNOW it would have made my life more difficult. For the increased processing power of some applications (graphically, mostly, I believe), I doubt it's worth the extra hassle, and/or lack of available software for that platform. That said, have a look at the erratta notes for 2008.0. I'm sure any issues will be listed there. Cheers.
  25. Hmmm.... just installed the backports of the latest compiz-fusion... fixed the problem about resizing video, but now there are issues about resizing Gwenview, viewing fullscreen slideshows created with microsoft powerpoint, and with the windows manager periodically crashing...though a lot less than with the last version of compiz-fusion. Also ksmoothdock isn't working properly... Have I missed a beat? Is it possible I'm missing some essential drivers, or need to make an update I haven't thought of yet? My system seemed more stable under 2007.1, apart from a wireless card problem. Am likely to disable the 3d desktop for a time until I figure out what's going on, or until some updates fix these problems... my system works beautifully then. Cheers People.
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