Mitchell

Had trouble with burning things in gnome, at least with the native applications which came with Mandriva 2007.1 Live cd. THere wasn't much there. Iso support it fine, but not much else, and it would often crash on me. Didn't know about gnomebaker, I'll look into it. I've been using Gnome cd Master, which burns great, and has lots of configurable options. It's a gui to cdrdao, which I highly recommend. That said, I'm really curious about kde, and am installing it to use just now. Almost done I think...

Hi Tapska, great picture by the way! I have had similar problems, and no real idea how to fix them. I've tried to update my kernel several times, and each time I've managed to hose up my 3d desktop as well...only mine gets worse. I have no window borders, and can't move them anymore.... the only way I've found to change this has been to reinstal, or lately restore to a previous time (using Mondo Restore). That's a bit extreme... My computer is working fine now, but ran the command listed above, "glxinfo | grep rendering", and got this message: libGL warning: 3D driver claims to not support visual 0x4b direct rendering: Yes Anyone know what this means? Good luck, I hope you find a way to fix your desktop...

Thanks for that. Found the file, looks like I could figure out how to use it.... that was another question about kernels, as they kept coming up... anyway, sorted for now. Thanks!

Good point Michaelcole, I was thinking of MS updates for the operating system. I definitely don't want to disable it, so I'll take your advice and uninstall the other languages. Ta.

Hi folks, wondering if anyone has an answer for me , or if this annoying update issue will be fixed in the 2008 distro. Is there some way to get the auto updater to stop telling me about certain packages I don't want to install? Recently noticed that lovely little white exclamation mark in the red circle on the top right hand corner of my screen, and clicked on it to see what new and wondrous updates were available. The latest openoffice was a score, but I'm not interested in all the additional language upgrades. i can't speak czech, am not interested in russian, and my spanish is attrocious. Not to mention the tiny bit of french I speak, definitely not enough to warrant downloading more packages. Sooo.... as in the past I've only chosen what I want, and now I've got this bloody icon lighting up every time I log in to tell me about the language support I don't want. In the past I've just downloaded whatever was there anyway, just to shut that little icon up. I've thought about disabling it, but one thing I really like about Mandriva is all the updates, and the fact that there is a tool which tells you when there are updates available. Is there no way to get it to stop telling you about updates you don't want? This is a hole in this great plan. Hope someone can help me. Windows XP has this option, and this is one of the few things which seems to be done better by Microsoft...uggghhh.

There is some debate about the best way to install Linux alongside Windows XP, though I can only speak from personal experience. Having just recently switched from Windows, (May of this year?) I am by NO means an expert. I started with downloading the iso file for the Mandriva Spring 2007 Live 'One' cd, and after creating a bootable disk from the iso image, rebooted the computer from that cd. Using the disc (very self explanatory) I was able to resize my NTFS partition (where Windows XP is installed, NTFS is the format MS Windows uses) to allow room for Mandriva Linux. I think origianlly I allowed 20 Gb for Mandriva. I used the default installation options for Mandriva as set under the cd, I think the partitions were "/" (root), "swap", and "home". It was enough to start with, but since then I've looked at other options and have made additional partitions. One of the most important things was to make a backup of all my Windows XP data, which came in very handy later when I made the full switch to Linux. Firstly, the Live cd did a wonderful job of resizing my partitions and installing Linux alongside Windows XP. I now had a dual boot machine, where I could choose either Windows XP or Mandriva Linux when I rebooted. Everything was more or less fine (did notice Windows XP running slower than usual until I ran scandisk and disk defragmenter), until I decided to mount my NTFS partition under Linux. For some reason my Windows XP partition was never the same... Let me take a minute to explain that current distributions of Linux support reading NTFS partitions, but writing to them is a bit more complicated. It's generally thought that if you're writing to an NTFS partition, without additional software support, you'll trash it, likely rendering MS Windows unusable. There is software available which many people have used successfully, (ntfs -3g), but as I don't know much about it I'll save it for others to explain. (www.ntfs-3g.org) Another possibility is to create a larger FAT16 partition between your EXT-3 and NTFS partitions. Both Linux and MS Windows can read and write without any problems to this partition, and transfer information back and forth without ever 'seeing' one another. Anyway, to make a long story short I found running Windows XP side by side with Mandriva Linux problematic, to say the least. What I finally realised is that for whatever reason (and this may have been my installation), I needed a buffer between them. I finally created a swap partition of 1Gb between my NTFS (WIndows XP) and EXT-3 (Linux) partitions, and stopped mounting Windows Xp in Linux. This fixed most of my problems. That said, Mandriva Linux seems about twice as fast as Windows XP ever was, and it didn't take me long to get rid of MS Windows...almost completely. I now have Linux installed on both my hard disks (one 80 Gb and one 250 Gb), with Windows XP installed under Virtual Box within Linux. Am planning on getting rid of Windows XP very soon, as soon as I transfer all my business files from ACT2000 into the latest version of SugarCRM. Hope this is of some use. Personally, I find the versatility of linux amazing, and with Mandriva's usability see no reason to ever go back to MS Windows. I've even been thinking about purchasing Mandriva's Flash USB drive, as working on MS Windows boxes (while travelling) is a frustrating experience. Keep in mind I'm very new to Linux, and everything above has been gleaned from my own experience. Feel free to correct me if anything I've said is wrong people... Good luck

I have to wonder in the end if this is a good thing... we don't have a tv here, and aren't planning on getting one... how different is a computer though? Still planning on giving our son the old laptop, with some version of linux installed, for him to play around with when he's old enough. Will have to balance it with plenty of time outdoors, backpacking through the bush (what we call forest and such in Australia), and spending time as active as possible. After all, it's us they're imitating. Ah well, the mumblings of an over-enthusiastic parent... he's not even one and a half yet...lol.

My 15 month old son also loves computers...well...computer keyboards and the mouse to be exact.... the other week I got an old throw away keyboard from a computer shop, and he loves it! It's gotten old to him now, but for the first few weeks he would grab my finger, pull me away from my keyboard and over to his... the old mouse we gave him has had it's time being pulled by it's tail all over the house now... I love my boy...

Hi Jose, that's part of how metisse works. If you zoom out from your desktop, ('windows' or 'start' key and mousewheel scroll) you'll see you are actually working on a HUGE virtual desktop. You can move your current view around with your mouse, or the arrow keys. Individual windows (firefox, evolution, etc) can be pinned to certain areas of the board. I really like it, though certain features are difficult to use. Try typing /usr/share/metisse/doc/docs/using.html into your browser, or navigate there yourself (on your local disk). That will explain the features. Otherwise, my choice desktop has been Beryl. Really easy to use, and highly intuitive. I wouldn't consider Metisse unless you are really keen to use it's particular features. To change, open MCC, click Hardware, click 3D, then choose 3D desktop. Under that menu is either beryl or compiz. That will also fix the nine 'virtual desktops' on your main screen. Cheers!

I'm using an Epson R210 Photo printer with Mandriva 2007.1, and it works fine. Have had the printer under heavy use off and on for over a year now, and has been great. Prints beautifully, and also prints onto cd's. am ab le to print of photo-quality pictures on it, we don't take pictures to get printed anymore, we do it ourselves from our digital camera. Have had problems recently with the ink blotching for the first few prints after I refill the cartridges, which may or may not be due to refilling refillable ink cartridges. I'm planning on taking it into a local shop for a service soon. I recommend them.

Thanks Arctic. According to my repository list there is the 2.6.21.5 kernel available, and I don't have backports or cooker available either... Anyway, Thanks for the list of both sites, I'll check it out when I get a spare moment. I installed from the live 2007 spring cd, and uploaded everything else, so I might try that. Also, if I install from the 'free' version (dvd I assume), my understanding is that propriety drivers are left out. Can I download these from the mirrors afterwards, or do I need to install them specially? Cheers! ~Mitchell

I'm at Deakin Uni, studying theatre making. Being on a film-set is a first for me, and a great learning experience. I'm more familiar with creating live theatre shows with kids, my wife and I run a children's theatre company, Curious Legends. When the windows manager crashes, there is no option in the MCC to disable or select anything, they are all greyed out, and I'm told my graphics card doesn't support this (forget the exact words, been awhile). Also, I definitely want the 3d desktop enabled, as that is one of the best features in Mandriva. Was a huge deciding factor in migrating from windows. Any other ideas?

That's a great idea! Thanks for that. Am in the process of setting up another hard-drive anyway at some point, so I might buy some more memory and install on that. Actually, for awhile I was trying to fix problems on my desktop, and was using my laptop as a stable system. It worked, but as my laptop is over 10 years old, was a bit slow... Anyway, will look at that over the next few weeks, your right, there seems to be heaps of info out there on kernels. Really unsure why the x windows environment would play up though...possibly a problem with my ATI graphics card... Am in a film shoot with a Uni (university in Australia) course at the moment, and don't have much time to fiddle around with getting this setup... or with fixing my computer when I hose it. Am looking forward to this while I'm less busy. Question about cooker though, most of the kernels seem to be in the main suppositories, I can find a large variety in the package manager, which isn't currently configured to get cooker packages. While anything past 2-6-17-15 isn't supported offically, there are others there. Are these the ones you meant? Also, I installed from Mandriva Spring 2007 Live cd. How do I install this with the bare minimum packages? Everything was done automatically. Are there other sources I can use? Thanks Arctic, ~Mitchell

Thanks Arctic, that's good advice. There were several reasons for wanting to upgrade my kernel. The bug I was having with my wireless card was the first thing, I believe it was causing system freezes. Noticed bcm43xx coming up in my /var/log/messages file immediately before my system froze (could only unfreeze by doing a manual reboot). I disabled the firmware cutter, and it actually got worse, with error messages from bcm43xx almost continually in /var/log/messages. Was unsure how to fix it, so I pulled out the card entirely, and have since had no problems. Nothing similar in /var/log/messages, and no problems whatsoever with freezes. I was told in another thread ( https://mandrivausers.org/index.php?showtopic=43016 ) that it was very likely a problem with the bcm43xx firmware cutter, as they seemed only to support a few cards in the 2.6.17 kernel versions. This seemed to be confirmed to me by someone else with similar problems running a broadcom chipset in their wireless card (I was using belkin). I was told an upgrade to a more recent kernel may fix this. Of course it's possible this wasn't the problem, that there was some other configuration error, but there seems to be something in this. Currently my wireless card is pulled out. Before I buy a new one, I would like to test other possibilities. Secondly, when I looked into new kernels, I discovered several things. I am unable (supposedly) to use any more than 1 Gb of RAM with the 2.6.17.13legacy stock kernel. Also, I discovered that this kernel doesn't support hyperthreading. So in effect, I'm only using half of the processing speed my dual-core chip is designed for. My computer registers two chips, but documentation I've read says that regardless it's only using half the speed unless I have a smp kernel installed. Mandriva is still much faster than Windows ever was, but before I upgrade my RAM, I wish to optimize my processing speed. Thirdly, I'm determined to know Mandriva, and particularly Linux, inside and out. There are too many things I don't know how to do yet. Part of the reason for installing Mondo is so I CAN stuff my system (which I manage to do regularly) and return it to a time before I crashed it. This is part of the learning process for me. While I appreciate your advice about not touching it if it works, I need more than that. I want to understand WHY it works, and how to make it work better. Currently I'm running Windows under Virtual Box for business reasons, and VirtualBox runs VERY slowly. To fix this I'd like to upgrade both my processor capabilities and my RAM. I also want to figure out how to do this anyway... Thanks for your time Arctic, and I really do appreciate your advice. I would however, (even if I regret it later) like to learn what I need to do to upgrade my kernel, and fix these current issues when I try. Are you able to help me, or point me in the direction of someone who is able to? I'm aware that Mandriva 2008 is being released shortly, and that the new stock kernel for that release is 2.6.22. I'm under the understanding that this kernel will be able to support hyperthreading technology (hope I'm correct in this), and also will (very hopefully) have more support for broadcom wireless cards. We shall see. But before then, and actually, even after them, I'm determined to learn how to upgrade this kernel. Thanks again Arctic!

Just tried kernel 2.6.17-15legacy, same problem. Installed all the dkms packages... source code, etc. Same problem. Got error messages along the lines of "ndiswrapper bad exit status: 101" and "nividia71xx Build failed installation skipped". Got lots of build failed messages. With virtualbox, hsfmodem, etc. Am rebooting and doing system restore with Mondo. Any ideas?

Hi everyone, I'm hoping someone can help me out with my kernel dilemma. I'm running 2007 Spring on my Desktop, with the 2.6.17-13legacy stock kernel that came packaged with the Live 'Mandriva One' cd. All up I'm really loving it, and have gotten rid of Microsoft Windows as a main partition, and have it installed under Virtual Box for programs I haven't transfered over yet. REALLY looking forward to the day I can get rid of it totally, which is getting closer. I'm hacing trouble installing a CRM like 'Sugar' which will transfer everything across, but that's another story. Anyway, I have been trying to update my kernel to a more recent release, and my graphical desktop environment keeps crashing. I have tried installing the kernels, devel, and dkms packages for 2.6.17-14, 2.6.20, 2.6.22, and variations on all those themes with smp and tmb, with no luck. The same problem keeps occuring. System boots up fine, (minus a few error messages I'll get to), but after logging in to my X windows environment in Gnome, my graphical display is severely limited. Can still SEE al the same graphics, but I have no window borders, can't move windows anywhere, have no cube workspace (which is supported fine right now), and can only open one window at a time, which generally ends up in the top left hand corner, to disappear under another window if I open up another program. When I click on the 'show desktop' icon in the bottom right hand corner, I'm told that I have no display manager. Highly frustrating. Unfortunately, when I reboot with the stock kernel (2.6.7-13legacy) I have the same problem. The only way I've found to restore my desktop to normal has been to either a.) Re-install or b.) restore to an earlier time with Mondo. (which is basically the same thing) Can someone tell me what's going on? In the verbose boot up mode, I see that there are issues with the new kernels in installing my madwifi, ndvidia, and ati (graphics card) packages. There are a few others but I can't remember what they are. I've tried selecting the dkms and devel packages for these, and while occasionally I've been able to get them to build themselves in the new kernel boot up, I still have the same problems. Usually I'm told there are multiple versions of ati, and I must resolve manually. So I have gone into the linux src folder and removed all but the one I want (for some reason simply removing the packages won't work.) This fixes that particular error message on boot up, but nothing else. I've been wanting to update my kernel to fix a bug with my wireless card, and to optimize my computer's performance. Am running i686 architecture, with only an i586 kernel. My processor supports hyperthreading, and I'd like to install more ram... (currently with 512ddr RAM) For all this I understand I need to update my kernel. Also would simply like to know how to do this anyway. What am I doing wrong? What's failing on me, and what do I need to do to sort this out? Is it something to do with my graphics card, and somehow configuring the new kernels to support it? I've just installed the latest updates for kernel 2.6.17-15, have made a complete backup with Mondo, and am about to boot into it. Am expecting the same thing to happen. I'd really really appreciate anyone's advice who can help me through this. Thanks again in advance. Cheers, ~Mitchell

Another option which is worth looking into is Mondo, you can find it in the package manager. Urpmi in 2007 spring won't install all the dependencies needed, but it's easy to find them by reading the error messages when starting mondo for the first time. The extra packages are also in the package manager. Mondo can do everything you're asking. You first make a backup to your harddrive, or dvd's via an iso file, then you reboot from that. (if using hard drive you'll need to create a bootable disk through mondo first.) Once you boot into Mondo, you can restore a backup of all your files, and resize your current partitions. So have a look, it might just bee what you're after.

Thanks for that advice, that's what I was originally looking for when I found Mondo. Am very grateful for Mondo now, but will look into this. Cheers.

Thanks adamw, I'll give it a go.

Hi, I also installed from the 2007 Spring live cd, and am running an i586 kernel on an i686 system. I often run heavy load bases, and would dearly love to not only update to a i686 kernel, but also to an smp kernel that will support my cpu hyperthreading dual-core processor. Much faster than windows ever was, but would still love to optimize my performance. Have been however having serious troubles installing another kernel. I've tried selecting various kernels in the package manager, installing them with dkms and devel packages, and watched my system reboot with problems in my X environment. Basically I'm told I have no windows manager installed. There are no borders around my windows, can't move them, can only open one thing at a time, can't use ANY advanced graphical functions, and it sucks. When this has happened I've tried rebooting from the old kernel, tried uninstalling every package I installed to try and get the new kernel working, and no matter what I do I can't fix this problem. My only recourse has been to reinstall, or use Mondo to restore my system to before I stuffed about with any kernels. Any idea what's going on? Have I done something wrong? When I switch users the same thing happens, (i.e. I open another user while I have one still running) I have no advanced graphical features. I can always log out of the new session I've opened though, and return to the original with no problems. Anyway, would really love some help updating to a newer kernel, preferably one still supported by Mandriva for updates. Could part of my problem be trying to install some of the newer kernels that aren't built with third party driver support? How can I build these drivers myself? Thanks for any advice. ~Mitchell

Have you any stable way to back up your system? I've crashed mine several times trying to sort out various problems and not really knowing what I'm doing. I can't recommend Mondo highly enough. It will back up your ENTIRE system, anyway you like, so that you can restore it to a backup point on reboot. I've been backing up with this regularly. Mondo is in the package manager, though there are several dependencies (also in the package manager) that urpmi fails to install. Mondo tells you what it needs upon first run, just look at the error messages in the terminal. I'm fairly new to Linux, and as much as I've been told to stay away from "root", it's impossible if I want to learn how to use Linux properly, and configure my system. My advice isn't to stay away from root, but to have a stable and reliable backup system in place. Mondo does this beautifully for me. I've made a "/backup" partition of 10G on my harddrive, and have Mondo create backups there as iso files, then I burn them to dvd's, or cd's, later. At some point I'm planning on buying a second hard drive (so cheap these days...will likely get something with a few hundred gig of memory.) which will be my archive and backup partition. Hope this all helps, good luck! ~Mitchell

That sucks then... where is your xsession error message file located? I was finally able to figure out my wireless card was stuffing up by looking at my "/var/log/messages" file. Realized everytime my system froze, my wireless card was trying to connect, and spewing out error messages. I then reinstalled my system (due to lack of backups), and didn't reinstall my driver for the boradcom card (am using Belkin). Worked much better, no freezes for the first week, then my computer started spewing error messages at me again about not being able to find this driver. Uninstalled the bcm43xx package (firmware cutter), and got even more messages. Finally uninstalled the card and now everything is fine. I'm not sure what to do, I'll either sell of my Belkin equipment (for whatever reason the wireless router doesn't support SIP, so I can't make voip calls wirelessly), then buy a wireless card that is supported, or wait until October when 2008 comes out. Mandriva 2008 is switching to another stock kernel...from memory 2.6.20? Something like that anyway. According to one of the earlier posts, kernel's 2.6.20 and up seem to have better support for Broadcom cards with bcm43xx, so the problem might be fixed. Hopefully only a couple months away, so I might wait. Then again, that would suck if that's your only internet access....make sure it really is your wireless card. Final note, have you any stable way to back up your system? I've crashed mine several times trying to sort out these problems and not really knowing what I'm doing. I can't recommend Mondo highly enough. It will back up your ENTIRE system, anyway you like, so that you can restore it to a backup point on reboot. I've been backing up with this regularly. Mondo is in the package manager, though there are several dependencies (also in the package manager) that urpmi fails to install. Mondo tells you what it needs upon first run, just look at the error messages in the terminal. Hope some of this helps. ~Mitchell

Weird. Try installing the dkms-madwifi, you can search under wifi in the MCC. Hopefully this should rebuild your madwifi upon reboot. This might depend what version you're running, I'm on Mandtiva 2007 Spring Live CD. (well, started with live cd, but have now installed to the system and updated everything....not sure how different this is) Are you running Free? If you can't install from the package manager, try that website, or do an RPM search. Also, how have you gone otherwise with the 2.6.17.14 kernel? Tried to use it but my graphical interface totally stuffed, wouldn't restore properly when I rebooted with 2.6.17.13-legacy, the stock kernel. Had to restore my system with Mondo, I'm sure I did something wrong. Good luck.

I love error messages. No clue, but just for kicks try disabling your wireless card, if you can. I had to actually pull mine out of the computer before it stopped spewing errors at me....good luck.

Thanks Knoba, that cheers me up alot...I feel I'm so close... Yes, I have thought about buying another wireless card, though apart from the initial cost (again) there's the hassle of making sure I find something that will actually work. Actually, mainly it's the cost... I'm sure it's the bcm43xx controller, now that I haven't installed the driver to make my Belkin wireless card operational, there's no more freezes, and my system's been fine. Although last night when I switched it off, I found I had been running my box all night....had a look at the verbose shutdown menu (still going), and there was a bcm43xx message in a loop that had been running all night. Weird, it was also a first. The other really odd thing was the /var/log/messages file, which when I opened only had a bcm43xx error message. Well, with what I could read of it... that was about 2 weeks ago, and I wasn't interested in waiting long enough to be recent (other day). Am thinking of just pulling it out of my box until I sort it out. Unfortunately though I'm also running another belkin card (pcmcia) in my laptop. different plugin, but similar problems. Have been trying to upgrade my kernel, and as mentioned in my last post have been having severe difficulties. Can you recommend how to do this? Am thinking of staying with one of the stock kernels from Mandriva (either 2.6.17.13 or 2.6.17.14), as until 2008 comes out (October?) that's all they support. Hopefully 2008 will have fixed this problem? Would still like to know how to sort out my kernel installation issues, without having to restore with Mondo when it fails. I'm running hyper-threading technology with my intel processor, and would LOVE to be able to have this working. Am looking at running my box from the smp multimedia desktop 2.6.17.14 kernel. DOn't think the processor was using this with Windows, but then again it's hard to say. Windows was so bloody slow (XP). Anyway, any advice? Have never complied a kernel before, and would love it to be as easy as simply installing the right packages from the MCC. Thanks mate, ~Mitchell