viking777

I agree with you there mindwave, I used Xandros OSE for a while when I was 'coming off' windows and I liked it a lot. With the notable exception that - as you said - it was never updated. Not only that but if you tried to add extra software (eg Amarok, K3b) they just linked you to a site where you could buy it!! I didn't know very much then but I did know that I wasn't going to pay for open source software. I did try installing things from source but never managed it, that might have been because they found some way to stop you doing that or more likely it might have been due to my incompetence with the command line (not that that has changed much!).

David I think I owe you thanks again. That post that you linked to in turn linked to another site, which, although complicated seems to have done the trick for me. I am now posting this on Suse with my ZTE modem after a reboot and I certainly could not do that before. I must see if I can get it going on Mandriva later.

The points you raise are almost exactly the same as the things that annoy me about it ffi, we must think very much alike. I also don't like the kickoff menu (although I think you can switch back to normal mode with that) and I couldn't find a way to create any program launchers for the desktop or the tray (except for these plasmoid gismos most of which are completely useless) and the useless blob in the top right hand corner is much more annoying than the Microsoft office paper clip that everyone hated!

ffi: I don't think the two of us are entirely alone in our dismay about the current state of KDE4 I have read many complaints about it around the net. I can only hope that it improves with time. David: Thanks for that link I have added a reply to it on the other forum.

Yesterday I found myself in the pretty unique position of being in a place where I had a 2Mb/s bandwidth on my gsm modem. Obviously the first thing I did was to update Mandriva 2008.1 and Cooker (but it still won't boot properly), but not satisfied with that I took the opportunity to download Suse 11. On my old laptop Suse was a real dog, it did nothing, almost as little as Fedora, but not quite. On my new machine however it installs pretty easily and more or less works straight away. Reading the posts above I was surprised to find that one of the criticisms of Suse 11 is that it is slow. I found it the complete opposite. It boots in 50 sec flat - Mandriva takes 90. Neither was there any question of it appearing to run any slower than Mandriva either. It also handles my vodafone gsm modem beautifully, even better than Mandriva does, in that it will store the settings that you initially input making subsequent connections a one-click affair, I wish Mandriva was that good (and yes I know about network profiles and I also know how useless they are - in fact every time I enable one it crashes my xserver and sound server and requires me to log in again, the subsequent login takes ages due to the amount of error messages and the final result is that the profile doesn't work anyway. It is a whole lot easier to enter all the configuration information every time, but not how it should be.). The other advantage it has is that package management is also much faster than Mandriva's, but then so is everybody elses package management. That is the good news, the bad news however is that my other gsm modem is simply not detected at all (other than as a storage device). Now on Mandriva it is not detected as a modem unless I cold boot, but on Suse it is never detected as a modem making it (and therefore the distro as a whole) unusable for me at least. There is one other downside, and it is a serious one, but it is not Novell's fault. That downside is KDE4. In the past alchemists used to seek to turn base metal into gold, they never succeeded, but the KDE developers have succeeded in reverse. They have taken the gold standard of desktop environments - KDE 3.5.9 - and turned it into base metal. KDE4 is the 'Vista' of the Linux world, ugly, unloved and unwanted. It really takes a lot to make me think of Gnome as an attractive alternative, but KDE4 has done it. In its present form it is just a joke. Mind you I said that about the EePc as well and I believe they have sold over a million units of that to date, so what do I know? I know what I like, that is what I know, and it certainly isn't KDE4. Luckily the extra large bandwidth of yesterday enabled me to download KDE3 later on and have a sensible desktop environment, and once I had done so I really liked Suse 11, but I would never use it whilst it can't detect my second gsm modem. In summary, if you never have cause to use an unusual gsm modem, then it is really worth a look. I was pretty impressed (once I got rid of KDE4) and I have never been impressed by Suse before and I have been trying it ever since version 9.something.

I got Cooker running on my new laptop!! That may not sound much to you guys, but I am dead chuffed about it. When you consider that the way I did it is to take an image from the old machine and drop it onto the new one and then configure it all, then for me that is quite some achievement. The old laptop had different hard disk partitions mounted in a different manner (uuid as opposed to by-label on the new machine) and even a different graphics card for which no drivers existed on the old install, and I could only connect to the internet via a terminal and using a gprs modem (at less than dial up speed!). I must admit that this would have been virtually impossible without the wondrous 'drakconnect' - this program alone makes Mandriva the best distro around, it really is worth its weight in gold to me, I would never have achieved it with anything else. XFdrake helped a lot too. The graphics on it are stunning - no idea why, but they are much better than 2008.1. It still doesn't boot properly mind, but I didn't really expect it to as it never did on the old machine either and I haven't been able to update it because my net connection is so slow tonight. If you compare the success I have had with this, to the abject failure that I have had trying to boot Vista (which should just work as I have only shrunk the partition) then the superiority and ease of use of Linux shines through. Anyway I am very pleased with myself

Now I am very confused. I thought I had this sorted, as I said above I pre-formatted, installed and then imaged the disk and everything was fine, it worked normally. Now just 2 days later I tried another backup and it had gone back to the previous error message with the long backup time and the large file size. In the intervening 2 days all I have done is to update it which obviously can't change the space per inode size. So perhaps I was wrong and space per inode is not what is causing it. The Acronis interface suggests I have file system errors - well if I have then they are not ones that e2fsck can locate. I have emailed Acronis support to see if they can suggest something, but since it now appears that the information I have given them is wrong it is not surprising that I have not had a reply yet. In the meantime (in desperation) I have tried Clonezilla again. It does image it normally in about the same time that Acronis is taking with the error message (on 2008 which doesn't generate the error message the image is complete in less than half the time and the image size is also smaller than Clonezilla's). The problem with Clonezilla is the appalling interface (ok it is not quite as bad as partimage, but nearly) and the fact that it doesn't do incrementals. So I don't really know what is happening now (not an unusual situation for me) but I would like to get to the bottom of it. Even more so, I would like someone in the Linux world to produce a sensible disk imaging program. I personally would even pay for one because disk images are one of the most important safeguards you can have in computing. When I think of the vast amount of resources that have been thrown at Beryl and Compiz and the like whilst absolute essentials like imaging have been left to dd and partimage it makes me want to

AhHa! that explains it. Earlier this year I put virtually every KDE4 library in into /etc/urpmi/skip.list and deleted as many as I dare from my hard disc. Basically because I didn't have the bandwidth to keep updating tons of stuff that I don't use (and don't even like). When I updated 2008.1 to cooker I did so by changing the sources and updating. Of course with all the libraries in 'skip.list' they would not have been added hence Krusader 2.0 doesn't work. Thanks scarecrow.

It adds to my knowledge base Dexter although it doesn't tell me how to increase the font size, but thank you anyway, all knowledge is valuable.

I can live without a lot of things not working on my Linux installations, but Krusader is not one of them. As I said in a previous post the present version of Krusader as supplied on cooker (v2.0) does not work (it doesn't load), but you may be interested to know that if you uninstall it and go and get v1.9 from the 2008.1 repos then that works perfectly. There, as I have solved one problem for you, perhaps you can solve one for me. How can I increase the size of the spindly, unreadable fonts in MCC? I have my KDE fonts set at Sans Serif 13 and qtconfig fonts set at Sans Serif 16 and I still cant read MCC. (you may have guessed by that statement that I have no idea if MCC is a QT or GTK application but I need to increase the QT font size to be able to read keepassx and I hoped that might make a difference to MCC, but it doesn't).

I'm a little confused by what you are saying here because on my system nothing shows up under /media unless it is mounted. You are saying that the devices appear in /media but aren't mounted which is very strange. Have you tried clicking the device icon in /media, selecting properties/mounting and then selecting the checkbox for 'mount automatically'? That might do it.

Well you could give Knoppix a go. Not that it is something you really want to install it is more of a recovery medium but it is very good at running on unusual hardware.

Why would this warrant a post I hear you ask. Well, with the notable exception of Knoppix I have never been able to run a live cd on my wife's laptop until now. The word 'run' is a bit optimistic actually, a closer approximation to what occurred would be - crawling uphill through newly laid concrete in a gale force headwind, but never mind, the point is that it actually produced a desktop and an internet connection and nothing else (except Knoppix) has ever got that far. The point of this post then is just to let the dev's know that they are definitely doing something right if they can make this happen on that machine. I really don't know why her machine is so 'resistant' to live cd's it is not that old, it has 256Mb of sdr Ram and a 1GHz pentium 3 processor but it just generally doesn't like them. (She runs windows xp on it and although slow it is nowhere near as slow as when running from a live cd). As an example we clicked the desktop icon for Firefox. Nothing happened so we forgot about it. About 10 mins later a tiny little window appeared at the top left hand corner of the screen - it was the start of a Firefox window!! It never did complete, but it shows you how slow the system is. I am not looking for answers to this btw, I intend to buy a new laptop shortly and she can then use mine, but I was so amazed that I have at last found a live cd that works with it (knoppix excepted). Well done Mandriva. [moved from Installing Mandriva by spinynorman]

Thanks for pointing that out Jim, although I must admit I find it extremely difficult to get my head around the difference between the two. Anyway the fact remains that if I preformat with Acronis then True Image works and if I don't preformat it still works but not properly. I have emailed the Acronis tech support people to ask what they know about it. I'll let you know what they come up with. I suspect they will invite me to buy the Linux server version! No chance!

Well, I have finally got around to investigating this and it seems that the bytes per inode problem is indeed what is causing Acronis to fail to image normally. In order to check this I had to do a fresh install on a pre formatted partition and of course not allow the installer to format again. Once I had done this I then used True Image to see if it could image that partition normally, and indeed it can. I used Acronis Disk Director to format the partition and it chose a default size of 8192 bytes per inode. I later booted from Disk Director again and had a look at the interface for changing the space per inode (Acronis can do just about anything). The minimum space per inode that it can recognise is 4096 bytes which seems an awful long way removed from the 256 bytes that Greg and jkerr mentioned earlier. Anyway whatever the supposed benefits of setting it at that size I am sure that in my case they are massively outweighed by the inconvenience of not being able to use Acronis properly, so it looks like on every install from now on I am going to have to pre-format. I guess that will start when the first 2009 iso comes out as I intend to install that from scratch. In the meantime though I will try and contact Acronis and see if they have any solution to it.

Thanks liquidzoo that worked. I now have KDE3 on 2009 as a normal user. Strangely though in KDE the sound does not work at all (error message: unable to initialize sound server)whereas in IceWM it did work, albeit quietly. Never mind that is something I can work on later. Thanks for you time in sorting that out for me. Edit. A side effect of running KDE is that Amarok will now load and will attempt to play music (although not very successfully without a sound server!) Edit2. Disabled Pulse Audio and sound server is back to normal.

Now I have finally got it going here is a list of what does and doesn't work for me. No criticism is intended I know it is only beta (or is it alpha?) but I just thought it might be of interest. Bear in mind that I have not made any effort to 'make' things work here just tried them out to see if they work 'out of the box' so to speak. Also the list is not exhaustive but just some of the programs I use regularly. Working: Firefox, Thunderbird, Kshowmail, KMyMoney, Unison, Kaffeine (dvd movies), Gparted. Not working (generally meaning that they just wont load): Krusader, Amarok, GoogleEarth, Virtualbox Login (have to use console trickery - see above). KDE (only works if I login as root) Partially working: Totem (loads but wont play dvd movies) Probably codecs (although Kaffeine has them) MPlayer (loads and starts to play but generally unwatchable constant error messages and picture breakup during playback) Sound (works but is very quiet and I haven't found a way to turn it up yet - alsamixer shows it to be at 100% already)

Thanks Adam and liquidzoo, between you those instructions worked. It only seems to be running IceWM at the moment but at least that is enough to get me going (thinks - I wonder if I could have booted IceWM from the login screen all along? must try that later). I can update from here and gradually get things put right. I'm thouroughly ashamed that I couldn't remember Ctl/Alt/F2 to get a console - now I know I am going senile :woops: That is what comes of being a gui junkie I suppose! Anyway this is posted from 2009 so the internet is working obviously. Sound doesn't seem to be but that is something I can work on. Thanks again for your help. Edit. I can't start IceWM from the login screen, I have to go through a console as Adam suggested. Here is another strange fact though - if I login as normal user from the console I get IceWM whatever I type, but if I 'startx' as root from the console I get KDE3!! Is that strange or what?

How would I do that liquidzoo? I have tried starting a console from the login screen but all I get is another login screen, no console.

Well it comes as no matter of surprise to me that after 2 1/4 hrs of updates I got a system that produces only a login screen. It is a very familiar login screen, it even has my name on it, but whatever choices you make from it all you get is another login screen. Not much use really, but just about what I expected (no, come to think of it I didn't even think I would get as far as a login screen!). Wardevil Thank you for your concern, but I always have multiple installations on my hard drive so that if I trash one I can always boot another - as well as full partition images. I haven't had time to look around to see if anyone else has been affected like this so maybe there is a fix somewhere I don't know, I will have a look tomorrow. Expecting that amount of updates to work together is really far too opimistic for anyone, never mind a died in the wool pessimist like me!

I have finally got the bandwidth available to update one of my 2008.1 installations to Cooker, so at the present moment in time I am downloading 1242 packages to carry out the conversion. I am going to be very interested to see if this works as I have not upgraded to a Cooker variant before, the last time I installed Cooker it was from one of the ISO's. It is obviously going to take a while but I will let you know what I end up with later on tonight. Fingers crossed :unsure:

I can only say that you are lucky. I just exchanged version 0.98 for 1.0 and it made absolutely no difference to the only program that I want to run. It installed OK, I even have it in the start up menu, but when I try to run it I get a splash screen which closes after about 2 seconds followed by this gibberish: wine /home/graham/.wine/drive_c/Program\ Files/Canal\ Planner/CPW6/canal6.exe err:toolbar:ToolbarWindowProc unknown msg 2210 wp=00000001 lp=00010034 fixme:ole:OleLoadPictureEx (0x1080fac,774,0,{7bf80980-bf32-101a-8bbb-00aa00300cab},x=0,y=0,f=0,0x32f9cc), partially implemented. fixme:win:WIN_CreateWindowEx Parent is HWND_MESSAGE fixme:ole:OLEPictureImpl_SaveAsFile (0x14c908)->(0x169b18, 0, (nil)), hacked stub. err:ole:ITypeInfo_fnInvoke did not find member id -514, flags 0x2! fixme:win:WIN_CreateWindowEx Parent is HWND_MESSAGE fixme:ole:OleLoadPictureEx (0x1080fac,774,0,{7bf80980-bf32-101a-8bbb-00aa00300cab},x=0,y=0,f=0,0x32f9ec), partially implemented. fixme:win:WIN_CreateWindowEx Parent is HWND_MESSAGE fixme:ole:OLEPictureImpl_SaveAsFile (0x14cac8)->(0x169e08, 0, (nil)), hacked stub. fixme:ole:OleLoadPictureEx (0x10849dc,774,0,{7bf80980-bf32-101a-8bbb-00aa00300cab},x=0,y=0,f=0,0x32f9cc), partially implemented. fixme:ole:OleLoadPictureEx (0x10849dc,774,1,{7bf80980-bf32-101a-8bbb-00aa00300cab},x=0,y=0,f=0,0x32f99c), partially implemented. fixme:ole:OleLoadPictureEx (0x10849dc,774,1,{7bf80980-bf32-101a-8bbb-00aa00300cab},x=0,y=0,f=0,0x32f99c), partially implemented. fixme:ole:OleLoadPictureEx (0x10849dc,774,1,{7bf80980-bf32-101a-8bbb-00aa00300cab},x=0,y=0,f=0,0x32f99c), partially implemented. fixme:ole:OleLoadPictureEx (0x10849dc,774,1,{7bf80980-bf32-101a-8bbb-00aa00300cab},x=0,y=0,f=0,0x32f99c), partially implemented. fixme:ole:OLEPictureImpl_SaveAsFile (0x1727a0)->(0x176308, 0, (nil)), hacked stub. wine: Unhandled page fault on read access to 0x00000000 at address (nil) (thread 0009), starting debugger... Unhandled exception: page fault on read access to 0x00000000 in 32-bit code (0x00000000). Register dump: CS:0073 SS:007b DS:007b ES:007b FS:0033 GS:003b EIP:00000000 ESP:0032f9c4 EBP:0032f9e4 EFLAGS:00210202( - 00 - -RI1) EAX:001a8aa8 EBX:00000000 ECX:017d2a3c EDX:0011004c ESI:7ea603c0 EDI:00000000 Stack dump: 0x0032f9c4: 230e7583 00198958 230ea665 017d27e0 0x0032f9d4: 017d27e0 0032f9f0 230ea6e6 00000004 0x0032f9e4: 0032f9fc 230c40bb 017d27e0 0032fcdc 0x0032f9f4: 230c4134 ffffffff 0032fa80 230e307b 0x0032fa04: 00000001 230ea70f 017d27e0 230c3c86 0x0032fa14: 00000005 0108a984 230e3062 66069581 Backtrace: =>1 0x00000000 (0x0032f9e4) 2 0x230c40bb in dbgrid32 (+0x40bb) (0x0032f9fc) 3 0x230e307b in dbgrid32 (+0x2307b) (0x0032fa80) err:dbghelp:pe_load_dbg_file -Unable to peruse .DBG file "DLL\\MSVBVM60.dbg" ("") 4 0x6606d36a in msvbvm60 (+0x6d36a) (0x0032fab0) 5 0x6602b2fb in msvbvm60 (+0x2b2fb) (0x0032fae0) 6 0x6601725f in msvbvm60 (+0x1725f) (0x0032fb24) 7 0x6602b00a in msvbvm60 (+0x2b00a) (0x0032fb38) 8 0x6601d1f7 in msvbvm60 (+0x1d1f7) (0x0032fb54) 9 0x6602aeea in msvbvm60 (+0x2aeea) (0x0032fba4) 10 0x6602ae3f in msvbvm60 (+0x2ae3f) (0x0032fcec) 11 0x660143f3 in msvbvm60 (+0x143f3) (0x0032fe2c) 12 0x66011cc0 in msvbvm60 (+0x11cc0) (0x0032fe50) 13 0x6600e218 in msvbvm60 (+0xe218) (0x0032fe70) 14 0x6600df77 in msvbvm60 (+0xdf77) (0x0032fe90) 15 0x6600de7d in msvbvm60 (+0xde7d) (0x0032ff10) 16 0x0040a95a in canal6 (+0xa95a) (0x00000000) 0x00000000: addb %al,0x0(%eax) Modules: Module Address Debug info Name (103 modules) PE 400000- a36000 Export canal6 PE 4000000- 4134000 Deferred msjet35 PE 4470000- 44fe000 Deferred dao350 PE f680000- f698000 Deferred vb5db PE f9c0000- fa22000 Deferred expsrv PE 10000000-1004a000 Deferred swflash PE 10200000-10255000 Deferred msvcrt40 PE 202b0000-20345000 Deferred comctl32 PE 217a0000-217c3000 Deferred comdlg32 PE 230c0000-23146000 Export dbgrid32 PE 66000000-66153000 Export msvbvm60 ELF 7bf00000-7bf03000 Deferred <wine-loader> ELF 7d332000-7d347000 Deferred midimap<elf> \-PE 7d340000-7d347000 \ midimap ELF 7d347000-7d36f000 Deferred msacm32<elf> \-PE 7d350000-7d36f000 \ msacm32 ELF 7d36f000-7d387000 Deferred msacm32<elf> \-PE 7d370000-7d387000 \ msacm32 ELF 7db88000-7dbdd000 Deferred libpulse.so.0 ELF 7dbf0000-7dccd000 Deferred libasound.so.2 ELF 7dcda000-7dce0000 Deferred libasound_module_pcm_pulse.so ELF 7dce0000-7dd17000 Deferred winealsa<elf> \-PE 7dcf0000-7dd17000 \ winealsa ELF 7dd17000-7dd38000 Deferred mpr<elf> \-PE 7dd20000-7dd38000 \ mpr ELF 7dd38000-7dd89000 Deferred wininet<elf> \-PE 7dd40000-7dd89000 \ wininet ELF 7dd89000-7ddcc000 Deferred urlmon<elf> \-PE 7dd90000-7ddcc000 \ urlmon ELF 7ddcc000-7de63000 Deferred winmm<elf> \-PE 7dde0000-7de63000 \ winmm ELF 7de63000-7de95000 Deferred libcrypt.so.1 ELF 7de95000-7df03000 Deferred libgcrypt.so.11 ELF 7df03000-7df91000 Deferred libgnutls.so.26 ELF 7df91000-7dfca000 Deferred libcups.so.2 ELF 7dfcf000-7dfd8000 Deferred librt.so.1 ELF 7e001000-7e036000 Deferred uxtheme<elf> \-PE 7e010000-7e036000 \ uxtheme ELF 7e036000-7e06e000 Deferred winspool<elf> \-PE 7e040000-7e06e000 \ winspool ELF 7e06e000-7e0cd000 Deferred shlwapi<elf> \-PE 7e080000-7e0cd000 \ shlwapi ELF 7e0cd000-7e1ec000 Deferred shell32<elf> \-PE 7e0e0000-7e1ec000 \ shell32 ELF 7e1ec000-7e299000 Deferred comdlg32<elf> \-PE 7e1f0000-7e299000 \ comdlg32 ELF 7e299000-7e363000 Deferred comctl32<elf> \-PE 7e2a0000-7e363000 \ comctl32 ELF 7e363000-7e377000 Deferred lz32<elf> \-PE 7e370000-7e377000 \ lz32 ELF 7e377000-7e391000 Deferred version<elf> \-PE 7e380000-7e391000 \ version ELF 7e3b9000-7e3c3000 Deferred libxcursor.so.1 ELF 7e3c3000-7e3c8000 Deferred libxfixes.so.3 ELF 7e3c8000-7e3cb000 Deferred libxcomposite.so.1 ELF 7e3cb000-7e3d2000 Deferred libxrandr.so.2 ELF 7e3d2000-7e3db000 Deferred libxrender.so.1 ELF 7e3db000-7e3de000 Deferred libxinerama.so.1 ELF 7e3de000-7e3ff000 Deferred imm32<elf> \-PE 7e3e0000-7e3ff000 \ imm32 ELF 7e3ff000-7e405000 Deferred libxdmcp.so.6 ELF 7e405000-7e422000 Deferred libxcb.so.1 ELF 7e422000-7e424000 Deferred libxcb-xlib.so.0 ELF 7e424000-7e522000 Deferred libx11.so.6 ELF 7e522000-7e532000 Deferred libxext.so.6 ELF 7e532000-7e54b000 Deferred libice.so.6 ELF 7e54b000-7e554000 Deferred libsm.so.6 ELF 7e554000-7e5f2000 Deferred winex11<elf> \-PE 7e560000-7e5f2000 \ winex11 ELF 7e66c000-7e7a2000 Deferred libxml2.so.2 ELF 7e7a2000-7e7d0000 Deferred libfontconfig.so.1 ELF 7e7d0000-7e7e3000 Deferred libz.so.1 ELF 7e7e3000-7e85e000 Deferred libfreetype.so.6 ELF 7e85e000-7e90e000 Deferred oleaut32<elf> \-PE 7e870000-7e90e000 \ oleaut32 ELF 7e90e000-7e921000 Deferred libresolv.so.2 ELF 7e922000-7e925000 Deferred libcap.so.1 ELF 7e92e000-7e932000 Deferred libgpg-error.so.0 ELF 7e934000-7e953000 Deferred iphlpapi<elf> \-PE 7e940000-7e953000 \ iphlpapi ELF 7e953000-7e9b9000 Deferred rpcrt4<elf> \-PE 7e960000-7e9b9000 \ rpcrt4 ELF 7e9b9000-7ea6b000 Deferred ole32<elf> \-PE 7e9d0000-7ea6b000 \ ole32 ELF 7ea6b000-7eac1000 Deferred advapi32<elf> \-PE 7ea80000-7eac1000 \ advapi32 ELF 7eac1000-7eb68000 Deferred gdi32<elf> \-PE 7ead0000-7eb68000 \ gdi32 ELF 7eb68000-7ecc3000 Deferred user32<elf> \-PE 7eb80000-7ecc3000 \ user32 ELF 7ede6000-7ef22000 Deferred kernel32<elf> \-PE 7ee00000-7ef22000 \ kernel32 ELF 7ef22000-7ef2d000 Deferred libnss_files.so.2 ELF 7ef2d000-7ef52000 Deferred libm.so.6 ELF 7ef52000-7f000000 Deferred ntdll<elf> \-PE 7ef60000-7f000000 \ ntdll ELF b7ce0000-b7ce3000 Deferred libxau.so.6 ELF b7ce3000-b7ce8000 Deferred libxxf86vm.so.1 ELF b7cea000-b7cee000 Deferred libdl.so.2 ELF b7cee000-b7e32000 Deferred libc.so.6 ELF b7e32000-b7e49000 Deferred libpthread.so.0 ELF b7e5c000-b7f93000 Deferred libwine.so.1 ELF b7f94000-b7fb0000 Deferred ld-linux.so.2 Threads: process tid prio (all id:s are in hex) 00000008 (D) C:\Program Files\Canal Planner\CPW6\canal6.exe 00000021 1 00000020 1 0000001f 1 00000009 0 <== 0000000c 00000014 0 00000013 0 00000012 0 0000000e 0 0000000d 0 0000000f 00000016 0 00000015 0 00000011 0 00000010 0 00000017 00000018 0 00000019 0000001e 0 0000001d 0 0000001c 0 0000001b 0 0000001a 0 Backtrace: =>1 0x00000000 (0x0032f9e4) 2 0x230c40bb in dbgrid32 (+0x40bb) (0x0032f9fc) 3 0x230e307b in dbgrid32 (+0x2307b) (0x0032fa80) 4 0x6606d36a in msvbvm60 (+0x6d36a) (0x0032fab0) 5 0x6602b2fb in msvbvm60 (+0x2b2fb) (0x0032fae0) 6 0x6601725f in msvbvm60 (+0x1725f) (0x0032fb24) 7 0x6602b00a in msvbvm60 (+0x2b00a) (0x0032fb38) 8 0x6601d1f7 in msvbvm60 (+0x1d1f7) (0x0032fb54) 9 0x6602aeea in msvbvm60 (+0x2aeea) (0x0032fba4) 10 0x6602ae3f in msvbvm60 (+0x2ae3f) (0x0032fcec) 11 0x660143f3 in msvbvm60 (+0x143f3) (0x0032fe2c) 12 0x66011cc0 in msvbvm60 (+0x11cc0) (0x0032fe50) 13 0x6600e218 in msvbvm60 (+0xe218) (0x0032fe70) 14 0x6600df77 in msvbvm60 (+0xdf77) (0x0032fe90) 15 0x6600de7d in msvbvm60 (+0xde7d) (0x0032ff10) 16 0x0040a95a in canal6 (+0xa95a) (0x00000000) err:heap:HEAP_ValidateInUseArena Heap 0x17d0000: prev arena 0x17d2c28 is not prev for in-use 0x17d36d8 fixme:ntdll:RtlNtStatusToDosErrorNoTeb no mapping for 8000000a If anyone can translate that into English I would be amazed, let alone tell me how to fix it!! Funny thing is that about a year ago I had it working (obviously on a much older version of Wine) but then I switched to running it in Virtualbox (where it runs faultlessly) but I would now like to revert to running it under Wine so I don't have to boot Windows at all - not even virtually.

I had a look at the link you provided, but I haven't managed to get it working yet. Don't worry, it is not a big issue for me I just stuck a volume control in the system tray and work it with the mouse. Thanks for trying anyway.

Very probably not. I haven't used Gnome for a long time but I remember when I did that it was so awkward to create keyboard shortcuts that it was one of the reasons I resolved not to use it in the future. I think you had to manually edit some config file to make it happen. As you already know in KDE it is simple and I am using XFCE at the moment and it is easy with that as well.

I agree it is not exactly KDE or Gnome like but it can be made to look like either of them and it resembles Gnome more closely by default because it has a top and bottom bar like Gnome (version 4.4 I am talking about here). The top bar was one of the first things I got rid of. The second thing I did was to add a launcher to my system tray and put an entry in it to launch Krusader so I can honestly say that I really haven't used Thunar at all. I can't comment on MC because afaik it is a command line utility and every time I use the command line I come out in a rash . Anyway, overall I can only agree with you it is a damn good desktop manager. If you are a regular user perhaps you can help me with a small problem I had with it. I found out last night when I watched a dvd that the Fn key on my laptop does not work with it (I couldn't alter the volume with f3/f4). It does work with KDE, do you happen to know any fixes for that?