AussieJohn

By the way David, I am glad to see you here fairly often now. :D Saw your many excellent posts over in Mandriva Forum and very extensive too. :thumbs: Cheers. John.

Thanks Adam. It's all quite weird but doesn't matter any more since I fixed the problem there has been no trouble since. Cheers. John.

What size Hard drive are you using that you need to be so concerned about the size of K3B ???. Probably the best burner bar none and that includes Nero. You mention that a number of dependency's have to be also downloaded. Most often all these other burners actually use those same dependency's as well. :unsure: and to even use cli , those same packages need to be installed in the first place. Cheers. John.

In a single sentence.......You have not installed a kernel-desktop which recognizes up to 4Gbs. When you do then your full 2Gbs will be seen. Easy to do by just opening MCC ...........Install and Remove Software.......type the word kernel (make sure both tabs show All) in the white box and press Enter. Scroll down the list and pick from them the one that reads kernel-desktop....etc . You will see it mentions 4GBs. When that is installed then reboot and select that new kernel from the Grub Menu and when you get into your account again it will be handling your entire Memory. Cheers. John.

Hello adam. I could accept your statement if it weren't for the fact that I totally deleted /var/ cache/urpmi on many occasions and then doing the update sites thing which recreated the folder but still not placing the MD5SUM and media.cfg files in Partial. They are both in there now since I did the urpmi install change and so urpmi works properly now. I deleted the /var/ cache/urpmi again before doing the urpmi install so there was nothing for the install to rearrange, the same as there was nothing to rearrange when I tried using the original urpmi numerous times. Therefore the trouble in /var/cache/urpmi was not the cause of the problem, it was a victim/result of the problem. What I find very interesting is that when I first tried to install the urpmi from the DVD Disc, it would not let me because it said it was trying to install an older version over a newer version. This confirmed that the one in use was an update. My having to use nodeps to uninstall it was because it also wanted to pull out a bucket load of other packages. Since getting urpmi running properly again and checking all updates I am amazed that there is no update for urpmi now. I have a sneaking suspicion that that update has been quietly withdrawn. There is no update in Main Testing or Main Backport, however there are 5.19-1mdv2008.1, 5.19-2mdv2008.1 and 5.20-1mdv2009.0 in cooker and I am quite positive that I did not download any of these three from cooker but I vaguely remember something like 5.19-1mdv2008.1 being the one that was installed. Looking at the 5.20-1mdv2008.1 changelog it says the following........ * Tue 03 Jun 2008 08:00:00 EST Pixel <pixel@mandriva.com> 5.20-1mdv2009.0 + Revision: 214211 - 5.20: - urpmi: o --auto-update should behave like urpmi.update when mirrorlist is outdated (cf http://forum.mandriva.com/viewtopic.php?t=86837) o fix --replacepkgs when a package appears more than once in urpmi db (#40893) (need perl-URPM 3.14) - urpmi.addmedia: o add missing mark in "Do you want to add media '%s'?" message (from Nikos) - urpmi.addmedia, urpmi.update: o fix checking synthesis MD5SUM o check downloaded synthesis/MD5SUM is not invalid HTML code, and try another mirror from mirrorlist (#39918) (useful for servers not returning a valid HTTP error) Note what it says about an MD5SUM problem correction. Interesting coincidence Huh. I don't think so. Cheers. John.

Well I took the plunge and deleted urpmi by, as root in Konsole, using rpm -e --nodeps urpmi. Installed urpmi from the DVD, using kpackage, then reran the urpmi update sources in MCC and it now fully properly works again.......Phew. It would seem that the updated package of urpmi is buggy whereas the original as per the DVD is ok. I think my present problem can be described as resolved but not solved. That is something Mandriva needs to do I think. I will wait for a further updated version of urpmi before I will touch it again. Cheers. John.

Thanks Adam. Following your reply I waited till now before attempting again. Still the same result. It does seem that the problem is in the packages on my system that control all this for some reason so what should I try reinstalling and how. If this cannot be done then it looks like a clean reinstall needed. (not a big deal to do this since it doesn't take very long and considerably quicker in most cases.) I tried a dummy upgrade but that made no difference either. Cheers. John.

Hello Yves. What do you mean regarding " "synthesis" file instead of "hdlist". Could you explain it for me please then perhaps I can try what you did ???. Thanks. John.

Thanks Adam. Tried that but it made no difference. Since you pointed to that particular folder i.e. /var/lib/urpmi I renamed the folder to urpmi.old and ran the update program. It produced a new urpmi folder but without the parts related to Main so I deleted the new /var/lib/urpmi and the old and tried again. Again a new urpmi folder minus the Main was created. See screenshot. Something seems to be telling the system to not download the particular files related to Main or is deleting them after doing so.. Cheers. John.

Hello Ian and Jim. I have cleared the entire urpmi list at least a dozen times and used a different mirror in each case but getting the same result as seen in the snapshot. Notice the ticks in Main updates and Contrib plus Contrib updates and Non-Free Plus Non-Free updates., but not in the Main itself. When I am in my alternate Spring (for experimenting and learning how to use Wine, if possible) I can clear and use any Mirror I want and the procedure runs perfectly OK. Hence my being pretty positive that the mirror sites themselves are not the problem. I think I am going to have to uninstall rpmdrake and or urpmi. Or is it likely to be something else ???. But if I do then there may be a problem of how to reinstall them if you see what I mean. If I do then what is the best way to do this ????. Yes Ian, I know it will most likely require doing it via cli :D :D :D Obviously since MCC is basically gui then once either or both of rpmdrake and urpmi are deleted hen there is no gui for them in MCC to be able to do the reinstall. Cheers. John.

I am having a small problem in that when I went into MCC and started updating repository Mandriva sites, I found that I can update everything except the MAIN sites. The problem does not appear to be in the Mirror websites selected because it occurs no matter what Mirror sites I select and those sites are aok when I am in another partition also running 2008-Spring. In this second Mandriva, in /var/cache/urpmi/partial I see two text files which do not occur in my main Mandriva. I tried copying them in but in running the site update routine it deletes them. The two files are media.cfg and MD5SUM. The message is as shown below :- " Unable to update medium, errors reported:Unable to update medium, errors reported: retrieval of [ftp://mirrors.usc.edu/pub/linux/distributions/mandrakelinux/official/2008.1/i586/media/main/release/ media_info/synthesis.hdlist.cz] failed (md5sum mismatch) problem reading synthesis file of medium "Main (Official2008.1-1) ". Of course with no MD5SUM then obviously the message. It appears that the process is not storing the MD4SUM that it downloads or for some reason is not downloading it in the first place. As you can see in the screen shot, the other sections are handled OK. I do not remember making any changes anywhere so I am at a loss here. Ideas anyone ???. Cheers. John.

Thanks Greg, I also got the one directly from the Mozilla site just in case. I plan to keep them for friends who use may not be using the Fox at the moment. I plan to wait for the Mandriva version which I expect will be in the not too distant future. :D Cheers. John.

I guess I recognize it easier because I had years of involvement in politics where I saw such sleaze and cronyism all around me. It sickened me so much that I withdrew from all political activity after about 12 years. Especially around a certain Prime Minister whose name started with W. I like to think that I have lost my naivety in that regard at least. John.

Got mine now. Definitely Firefox3 and from same site as Lexicon. Cheers. John.

From my reading of the complete story and other articles on the subject I think the cronyism comments are very reasonable and most likely correct. I cannot see how comments, by recognized Open Source bodies, being sour grapes when the "winning ???" company has never been heard of by anyone in the Open Source Software world. Cheers. John.

Thanks Iphitus for that info. I've been searching for 3 days for such info but obviously looking in the wrong places. I am hoping Bigpond carrys it but I don't if their downloads will be counted so I will download from Mozilla as well. Cheers. John.

Hello Ken. How long have you been using Linux or Mandriva ???. I am curious as to how you came up with the view :- "Anyway, I have less confidence in GUI solutions. They generally tend to be pretty interfaces to more simple commands, like kbdrate." Not being critical, just curious. If you had used Greg's suggestion properly you would have had your solution quickly but I suspect you didn't try it because you think cli is better. Control Centre is in the menu as Greg stated (also was pointed out that it is known as KDE Control Centre) and if you had clicked on it you would have found Keyboard under Peripherals. I checked and it is there. I see it everytime I do an install because also there is Mouse and in it I select single click instead of the Windows inspired default double click. I have been using Mandriva for years and only twice had a problem with a gui that I needed to use the cli to recover. It was the results of updates to MCC that proved to have bugs but that was years ago.The other rare times I use cli is when there is no gui to perform something. Cheers. John.

I wasn't slamming anyone least of all you Ian. I have never never criticized anyone for using cli and never would. I am fully aware that the cli is important in a number of situations and always will be. If you feel offended then I am sorry for you but not for the comments I made which are based on observation. Is it a bit of the cap fitting ???. I trust not and hope not. From your posturing in your post it could be easy for me to take offense but I don't because I don't believe your comments could be applied to me. I still believe that this is still basically a site for Mandriva users (newer or longer term) where we Mandriva users can help oneanother of whatever Linux ability by offering the simplest methods to solutions first, not necessarily the quickest ( if seconds longer are a problem then I can't help anyone there) Remember that although you may know that ilia is okay with cli solutions, the solutions offered here are for the benefit of others too who may experience the same or similar problems. Your comment about .... "If you don't like CLI John, you don't have to use it. I'll remember not to ask you to use the CLI to solve a problem though"...... is so petulant and unlike you that for a moment I thought it might have been written by someone else. I use the cli a little for those things that could not be done via a gui so I am not afraid to use it. However when I offer a possible solution to some seeking help then I always offer the gui method first because I make NO presumptions of capability about the person seeking help. A couple of clicks through MCC is time consuming ???. You wanted to learn the ins and outs of Linux and you have a list of certificates now to prove it so good for you. Myself and most others just want our Mandriva to work and when it breaks we want the simplest means to make it work again. That is all we want. We learn things along the way but we do not necessarily want to have to learn the cli for everything nor have it suggested that the gui is a waste of precious time (seconds), hindrance or mostly useless. John.

I prefer Adams suggestion. Far simpler, more fool proof and does not require using cli to edit text files. While cli users are quite at home with cli, the vast majority of us are not and never will be so I think that gui methods should be the first suggested solutions and then cli as a back up response if the Gui method does not solve the problem. No wonder so many newbies think that Mandriva and Linux usage is cli driven when first suggested solutions offered are cli. Cheers. John.

Hello fminmexico. In the part .............mkinitrd-v-f/boot/initrd-2.6.24-desktop-1mnb.img--ifneeded2.6.24.4-desktop-1mnb) you will notice that 2.6.24-desktop-1mnb and 2.6.24.4-desktop-1mnb are not the same. I could be wrong but I suspect that during the install process you made incorrect settings in Grub. You could wait for someone with greater skills than I to help you out (this is a weekend of course so could be a long wait.) I suggest doing a dummy upgrade and and let it setup up grub without your intervention. Would only take about 20 minutes or less and you would be happily on your way. Just on the small chance that doesn't work then a Fresh Clean Install would only take another 30 minutes or so. :D Sure you want to learn how to do things in Linux but you can gain that knowledge over time but first you need a working system. Cheers. John.

A warm welcome to MUB, bxiong. It is quite simple. Open MCC (Mandriva Control Centre) ..........Software Management............Install and Remove Software. Set the Top left tab to All then set the adjacent tab to Installed then in the Find part, type in kaffeine then press enter. Remove the tick/s from the item/s you want to delete and click on Apply. Cheers. John.

Kaffeine is rather simple to set up. Just take your time. I didn't let it overwhelm me and actually found it was pretty simple to set up. Don't get all technical about it. Cheers. John.

Try Kaffeine and see if that works for you . It does for me. I found most of the other Tv programmes to be useless. Cheers. John.

NNNNNNIIIIIIIIIIIIIICCCCCCCCCCCCEEEEEEEEEE. :thumbs: :thumbs: Good one Ian. Cheers. John.

Yes it is much too stark. The white font is too thin against the opaque black. But even if it was bold it would still be very tiring on the eyes I would put it another way.... it is too geekish and lacks the warmth of "stay and read me". Cheers. John