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yep, I intend to try ubuntu again, I just wanted to get out of the install screens, and get a working system again. I'll find out more on ubuntu installs this time - before installing again. I'll try a reinstall again in a day or two. I'm not mad about ubuntu, I'm sure its a great distro, I was pretty sure it was what I did during partitioning. Partitioning is a weakness of mine, but every time I install or reinstall something, I learn something more. The "not playing audio CDs" in mandriva is a gnome problem, not a mandriva problem, at least according to the thread in Software - so nothing to get ticked off about mandriva there I guess.

yes, I am using gnome. Thanks for that info, artic. I didn't know that. Good to know that its not me. During my latest reinstall, I selected both KDE and gnome, so I'll give KDE a try for a while.

nope, I'd never buy (intentionally) one of those. I tried playing several CDs anyway, ones that I have played before. edit: I just found one CD that CD Player would play, but xmms would not. every CD I put in, xmms says WAV audio is an unknown type. edit 2: Found out that by right clicking xmms and selecting play directory, then browsing to mnt cdrom, it starts playing the CD. Weird. My past installs of distros I was able to double-click music files and have xmms start playing them.

that was my first thought. oh well, next time, I'll install without it and just do / and /home. my 3rd mandriva install is already pissing me off again...ha ! Now it doesn't know what an audio CD is... (I just started a thread under Software) thanks!

I'm on my 3rd install of mandriva 2006. If I put in an audio CD (purchased), nothing will play it. xmms doesn't know what it is, amarok says it doesn't know what the cdda protocol is, CD player won't play it. Everything says unknown file type. Unbelievable...! I've got a few other probs already worked out, but now this...!

I rebooted out of the ubuntu installer, stuck in my mandriva DVD, and reinstalled mandriva. Installed fine, no problems. Guess I'll give mandriva another go. btw - i googled the ubuntu problem I had during install, and found out alot of other people were posting the same problem... hmmm....

hmm... won't install here's what it says: Base System Install Error The debootstrap program exited with an error (return value 1) check /target/var/log/bootstrap.log for details In my install experience, RH9, all four FC distros, and mandriva 2006, none has ever bombed out during install.... :unsure:

ok, thanks. I changed the #1 partition to be mount point boot. Here goes nothing...

I'm installing ubuntu 5.10 over my mandriva install. It is now at the partitioning screens. Here is what it shows: #1 primary 106.9MB ext3 /media/hda1 #2 primary 16.8GB ext3 / #5 logical 182.6GB ext3 /home #3 primary 534.6MB swap swap I selected the #2 partition and told it to use for root files, format it and mount as /. I selected the #5 partition and told it that this was my /home partition and not to format it (keep existing data). I don't know what the #1 partition is, do I leave it as shown? The #2 and #5 shown above are after my changes. When I first told it to leave everything as is, it told me that it at least needs a "/" mount for the root filesystem. So I marked the 16.8 partition as such. I just want to keep my mandriva existing /home files safe. I did backup my non-music files, but I don't want to backup 48GB of mp3 files. Want to be sure they are still there after installing ubuntu. thanks for any pointers

regarding slow ripping problem: I disabled Paranoia and Extra Paranoia in RipperX and in grip. Did not help ripperx speed - still around 1x to 1.3x. However, it did help grip speed - now it is ripping from 2x to 3.8x - still slow - but much better. After I first installed ripperx (urpmi ripperx), it ripped pretty fast. I wonder what happened to it since then...? Guess I'll try reinstalling it tomorrow. thanks !

I'm using the ubuntu live DVD now. Working good. How do you access your existing /home files when you temporarily boot with a live CD? Or maybe it can't be done due to security purposes...?

yeah, the first thing I tried way back was to disable extra paranoia. I did not disable paranoia also. OK, I'll try disabling the Paranoia and see what happens. However, I don't think that will affect the freezing problem after a couple of tracks.

I'm not really complaining about mandriva. I admit I had some problems (and still have some). Most of my linux experience (a few years alternating between a win2k box and a RH9 box-then FC1,2,3,4) is with the FC distros. So I want to broaden my experience by trying some of the other popular distros - like mandriva & ubuntu. I mostly like mandriva, I still use it daily, and I'm posting this reply with my mandriva box right now. However, things like grip & ripperx ripping at 1x to 1.5x, and then even freezing (not responding) after ripping a few songs - I don't like problems like that. I can't completley rip 1 CD cuz it freezes a few minutes into it. Now, all my experience with the FC distros - after installing grip it worked great forever more - ripped at between 4x and 10x usually. Never any freezes or anything like that. I have not been "monkeying around" with my mandriva box. It is just a DVD powerpack install. All I did was set up the easy-urpmi sources and install a few things. So I don't see how I could have screwed anything up to cause these problems. also, when I use one of the urpm commands, now I get some error messages about the DVD sources... I posted a queston about that very thing last week (in Software I think), but I think it still has 0 replies, so therefore, I want to return to the Other Linux Distros forum - where help is always plentiful. I am not complaining - this has always been my favorite linux board and probably always will be. I'm d/l the ubuntu DVD right now, its halfway done. I'll give the live CD a try tonight, then maybe install it permanently if I like it. Can you do anything with a live CD? I mean, for example, since the ubuntu live CD will be in my only DVD drive, will I be able to try out ripping and burning a CD under live ubuntu....?

I was checking out the ubuntu website, and browsing thru some screenshots of the install screens (from the 5.04 release). I'm wondering about the partitioning section. It is not as nice (ie graphical) as the FC installer or the mandriva installer. When installing FC or mandriva, you easily see what you are formatting or not formatting. The ubuntu installer looks a little more cryptic. In other words, I don't want to format /home, but I'm not sure how it will show up when I get to the partitioning part of the install. Will it show it as the /home partition, or will it say something like hdb...or ? I can't tell from the install screenshots - the example screens are for the Erase Entire Disk option. Thanks.

I assume my /home stuff will all be ok after installing kubuntu over mandriva (without formatting /home)? When I installed mandriva the first time (over FC4, did not format /home) some /home files would not open - mostly openoffice files. On the mandriva reinstall, I formatted /home then restored all the backed up files to it, and then they opened fine. Don't know why they would not open at first. Had same user name, same password, etc. I will try out kubuntu as you say, the best way is to actually try it. Just curious, who are the ubuntu gurus on this board?

As a long-time FC user, a few months ago I thought I would give mandriva a try. After a couple months on mandriva (DVD powerpack install) I have have many more problems than I had with FC. I just read thru the entire ubuntu vs mandriva thread over in Everything Linux, so I know a little of what to expect. Brief recap of probs with mandriva 2006: first install (kde) worked fine for about a week, than nothing worked right. Found out had to "urpme kat". Then did a reinstall with gnome instead, worked fine for a month or so, but programs are starting ok, but sometimes freezing or not responding after a couple minutes. I was pretty dissapointed in the distro. I wanted to try out some distros not named FC... ha. Wanted to see how some distros worked where more stuff worked out of the box - like mp3, multimedia, 3D drivers and stuff like that. Got tired of always fixing that stuff in FC. Now have tried mandriva, but did not like it. Want to try ubuntu. Will my prior FC experience help me with ubuntu ? After a ubuntu install, what stuff will NOT work? I know mp3 support will have to be installed. What else - like nvidia drivers, dvd playback, multimedia stuff on the web, and all that. Will nothing multimedia-related work at all (just like after a FC install...)? Is kubuntu the SAME as ubuntu (but with kde instead of gnome)? When's the next ubuntu release coming out? thanks for any info oh yeah: another reason for trying out mandriva was for the increased help on this board. However, I found out that the best help I ever got on this board has come in the Other Linux Distros forum. Funny, but true. I may still have one or two mandriva threads out there in Hardware or Software, or somewhere with still -0- replies. Not that I'm complaining...!

Is this anything wrong ? [root@localhost Desktop]# urpmq --list-media unable to retrieve pathname for removable medium "The Ultimate Linux Desktop DVD (cdrom3)" unable to retrieve pathname for removable medium "The Ultimate Linux Desktop DVD (cdrom6)" unable to retrieve pathname for removable medium "The Ultimate Linux Desktop DVD (cdrom5)" unable to retrieve pathname for removable medium "The Ultimate Linux Desktop DVD (cdrom2)" unable to retrieve pathname for removable medium "The Ultimate Linux Desktop DVD (cdrom1)" unable to retrieve pathname for removable medium "The Ultimate Linux Desktop DVD (cdrom4)" The Ultimate Linux Desktop DVD (cdrom1) The Ultimate Linux Desktop DVD (cdrom2) The Ultimate Linux Desktop DVD (cdrom3) The Ultimate Linux Desktop DVD (cdrom4) The Ultimate Linux Desktop DVD (cdrom5) The Ultimate Linux Desktop DVD (cdrom6) main plf-free plf-nonfree updates contrib

Nope, closed-captions and subtitles are different, although similar. Closed-captioning is mostly for deaf or hard of hearing people. American TVs have been required to have built-in CC decoders since the early-90s. Also, almost all movies on VHS and DVD are closed-captioned. Meaning, you can play the video, and press the CC button on your TV remote and see captions on the bottom of your screen. Sometimes my wife & I have the TV on, but with no sound, and we have the captions on so we can see if something is being talked about that we may want to listen to. PowerDVD and WinDVD both have options to watch closed-captions, as well as subtitle options. What I was asking about initially in this post was that I don't see any CC options on any linux DVD player that I have tried. The windoze DVD pl.ayers have had the ability for several years, just thought maybe a linux player had the option also. no big deal

I can't figure out how to see closed-captions when playing a DVD on my mandriva 2006 machine. I've tried totem, xine, mplayer. Can't find any caption option on any of them. I think closed-captions have been around for something like 25 years or so. Also, I've used captions occasionally on my windows box with either PowerDVD or WinDVD for several years. I can't find any info about this when googling, so apparantly nobody cares too much... No big deal, just wondering, thanks. btw - how do you get ogle into your gnome menu. I did an urpmi ogle, and it runs fine from command line, but the other dvd players are in my gnome menu. I also tried an urpmi okle, but got "no package found".

Well... success !! I am in gnome right now, for the first time in a few days... I rm'd all the log files as suggested. Then I did an urpme kat, then I rebooted, and.... gnome now loads ok ! My early experience with mandriva (installed with KDE) was that KDE loaded just fine for a few days, then quit loading... So I said, well, this sucks. So I reinstalled, but chose gnome instead. Same thing. Worked great for a few days, then gnome would not even load anymore. By now I am highly pissed about linux in general (even though my past experience with various FC releases was mostly good). Its good to find out that it was just "kat". I can't believe they even put something in a major distro that causes so much trouble. Anyway, thanks to all who helped.

At work, we have an old Gateway Solo laptop, with a 13.25" screen, touch pad, win98, PII-mmx, 160MB RAM, 4GB hard drive. We just bought a brand-new newfangled laptop, so my work wants to get rid of the old one. I was thinking of offering $80 for it. I know it is too old & slow to play newer games on. It looks like it has 2 usb ports - I assume they are 1.1 since it is an old computer. There is an external numeric keypad that can be plugged into a ps2 port. There's also a generic ps2 mouse that can be plugged into it, to avoid using the touchpad... It has a network PCMICI card also. I was thinking about buying it for my 8-yr old son. He loves a lot of the old win95 & 98 games (many that don't work right on our win2k machine at home). I was thinking he could use this old laptop to play roller coaster tycoon and some other old games.... And maybe I could put a lightweight linux distro on it and have it dual-boot. My son is always bugging me to use my linux box - he likes to play supertux.... What do you think, $80 for a PII laptop - don't bother, or good deal.... ?? BTW - can laptops be "upgraded" ? I mean, if I decided to use it myself, I would want a bigger HD - say 20GB and more RAM. Or is it not cost-efficient to upgrade old laptops?

thanks, guys. I'll get back into messing with it after work today. Interesting about the "dot" lesson above, I didn't know that. Also, last night when I was in a terminal, I wanted to copy & paste some output from the commands suggested (such as du), but the terminal was not letting me highlight & copy stuff... I wanted to paste the output here so you could see it.

when I do the rm *.gz, I'm supposed to answer "y" to all the messages about Delete regular file blahblah.gz? How do you uninstall Kat? with rpm -e kat ?????? I found alot of complaints while googling this. I found this statement from mandriva: does that mean to start an editor in your home directory and make an empty file called .mdv-no_kat ? can a file start with a "." ? also, shouldn't there be something in MCC to turn off kat ?

Ok, I installed 2006 powerpack DVD a couple weeks ago, with KDE. Well, KDE worked a week or two ok, but then it started refusing to load ("the KDE deamon kded caused a fault...."). I then used IceWM a couple of days, but continued to get the kded daemon error... So I re-installed (not an upgrade) and chose gnome instead of KDE. I was happy as could be for the past few days, gnome was working great, and I was really happy with everything. Well, today when I got home from work, and logged in to my linux box, gnome would not load, gave me messages like "your session only lasted a couple of seconds, you may have an installation problem, or your disk may be full..." I don't know why I am having so many probs on 2006, is it me...??? :huh: Is it my file structure or something, maybe some partition is not big enough...? Hard to believe since I have a 200 GB hard drive and am using the same size partitions I was using the past couple years under FC2, 3 & 4. I mean, yesterday my 2006 box worked great, today gnome won't even load. I have hardly been doing anything on my linux box anyway, just checking email, browsing the web a little. I don't know why it only works for a week or so then it goes bad. On this same machine, I used FC2,3 & 4 for a couple years without any kind of "system" probs... I mean, I could log in every single day without problem. If I had any questions or problems on FC, it was about yum or something like that. The main system worked fine every single day. I''d appreciate any ideas why mandriva works for less than a week, then either KDE or gnome won't even load any more.... I would like to keep using 2006. thanks for any comments

I tried ripperx and I like it. Its like grip, but a littler simpler interface. It doesn't show the ripping speed, but it took 1:45 to rip a 2:16 song, which I calculate to approx. 1.5x, just like grip was doing. wonder if it has something to do with ide/scsi and/or dma...? I thought all that emulation stuff was not needed anymore with the newer kernels....?