lawsonrc

thanks, bvc... I opened a terminal, su'ed to root/password, typed update-menus, but nothing happened. Thanks for the run command for KDE Control Center (i.e. kcontrol), which will help if one had the run-command ( I do have the application launcher on the panel and can use that, but prefer to remove it as the panel is crowded). Yes, it's my laptop (Toshiba 5005-S507) that is now Windows (XP) free as of 2003. At last Saturday's Houston LUG presentation, I won a beautiful blue Penguin Sticker, which I now proudly have on the top of the lappy just under the title Toshiba. It's got a blue background which matches nicely with the blue color of this model. I sure wish you would drive the 20 miles into town to join us for at least one of these Monthly Saturday presentations (there's one on the first and fourth Saturdays of the month). It'd be great to see you again. ( Go to www.hlug.org for info). They're always a lot of fun with great sense of humor, especially when Aaron E. presents. RCL

Found it. It was under Configuration > "Configure your desktop". I only recognized it from the icon. MDK should call it what it is. OK bvc, I looked all over the KDE Control Center, including Look n Feel > Taskbar and there is nothing anywhere in KDE Control Center about the Run Command tool. Maybe I need to change to Gnome to find it? I'll try that now. This is really getting frustrating! I'm supposed to be using Mandrake to teach a basic linux class, but it's hard to do so when the most common KDE tools are missing or cryptically hidden. We are using MDK because of the free download edition, but I may have to switch to SuSE, which I don't want to do. RCL

Aggravating...I looked in the K Menu and cannot find the KDE Control Center. It's been in Mandrake before because in the past I've either had it on the panel or I easily put it on the panel. Now it's nowhere to be seen! I've never had more trouble with common KDE features than I've had this weekend! I'm using MDK9.2. Please help. Richard L.

Hi, I'm using MDK9.2 on my laptop with the KDE desktop. I just now discovered that when I right-click on the desktop (as I do in KDE in other distros), the option of Run Command.... is not there. The Run command is also not in the K Menu (i.e. Start Menu) either, as in other distros. In addition, I was surprised that Kpackage was not installed by default and that I had to install it now from CD1 and CD3-International. Any help with getting the Run Command in the Context Menu of the desktop is greatly appreciated. Also, why wasn't it here by default? NOTE: I did add Application Launcher to my panel and it acts like the run command, but it takes up unnecessry real estate space there. It is just easier to right-click the desktop whenever I need it. In advance, thanks for any and all help. Richard L.

Merci, Ghil... Je suis de Houston, mais j'aime beaucoup de visiter le Montréal et la ville de Québec la première semaine de juillet en été. Ce sont mes villes favorites en Amérique. Richard L. [Thanks, Ghil...I like visiting Montreal and Quebec city each summer during the first week of July (Jazz and art festivals, etc.). They are my favorite cities in America.]

When you say you erased it, does that mean you right-clicked on it and deleted it?

I downloaded and installed Mozilla-Firefox0.8, and now I want to uninstall it. It is a .tar.gz. Is there a command to do this like there is for rpm (rpm -e nameofpackage)? Do I have to do it as root (i.e. su to root)? Do I have to be in the directory where the extracted folder/directory is ? Is there a "gui" way to uninstall it? [NOTE:I really like Firefox, but chose it as a demonstration for a few people moving from Windows to Mandrake (in my montly Linux 101 class). I downloaded and installed Opera as a static RPM, then used the above command to uninstall it. What I tried to uninstall Firefox did not work (I got a command from another website that had a command lines link for tars). The class I'm teaching is designed to do almost everything the "GUI" way because most average Windows converts either dislike command lines (hated DOS) or have never used a command line and fear them. It is a "nontechie" approach to encourage the "Average Joe and Jill" to move away from Billy Gates and move to a "comfortable" Linux platform that won't scare them. I will reinstall Firefox tomorrow.] Cheers, Richard L.

Hi Alex, I appreciate your reply and addressing Gnome. I already knew that for Gnome and forgot to put it in for this message. I have tried in the past to double on an RPM to install it in KDE, but it didn't work for me at the time (maybe it was just a quirk the one time I tried it--not sure). Alex, if you come across any other GUI ideas, please let me know. You can PM me, or add them here to this thread. Thanks ! Richard L.

There have been several articles published online how Linux (in general) and MandrakeLinux are desktop-ready for Windows/Mac converts who have not tried them because when they hear about command line use, they are intimidated and back off. At the Houston Linux Users Group, I am presently teaching a Linux 101 class once a month to people who are interested in learning about Linux and ready to "move over", but have no command line experience, and may not quite be ready for them. Here is a Tip on how to install RPMs and TARs the "GUI" way in Mandrake: (I recommend to my students to create a directory in Home called Downloads for the RPMS and TARS they download from the internet) For an RPM: In your home directory, open the Downloads directory where you downloaded the RPM from the internet. Right click on it and click on "Software Installer". The RPM then will install. For a TAR: Right click on the Tar, then go to Actions >Extract Here... After you click on Extract Here... a new directory will appear with the name of the TAR. (Then of course we explore the new directory and I clarify all that is there.) I hope this will help many newbies to our mandrakeusers.org forum, who are at this level. Richard L.

Good morning, digitalboi, What is the make and model of your laptop? It may be that the 9.2 version may not be working properly due to some kind of incompatibility that wasn't in the 9.0 and 9.1 version. Now with 9.0 and 9.1, I used the info at the link I mentioned earlier in this thread [the "oldcrank" one]. Have you tried to use it? There are two solutions there. One of these solutions is the "easy" one without using the wlan stuf; and the other is the more complex one, using the wlan stuff. If you haven't already, try both solutions on that website. I hope I've helped you a little. Since I'm very "nontechnical", I'm not able to think of any other solutions. Good luck, and if you have success (or not), please reply again. Sincerely Richard L.

HI, I want to install MDK9.2 on my second hard drive(9.2) and during installation I want to choose "boot from floppy" and NO bootloader (no Lilo, no Grub). BETTER YET--CAN MDK9.2 BOOT FROM A CD??? The 1st harddrive has WinXP Pro, the 2nd hard drive has various linux distributions which all were installed with the option to boot from floppy. They are: Red Hat 8, Xandros 2.0, Libranet 2.8.1, and SuSe 9.0. (I have used Acronis Partition Expert and set up primary/logical partitions. It has the option to read all partitions the "Linux way", such as WinXP on hda1, etc. It also recognizes Reiserfs as a file system, which PM8 doesn't. It is also cheaper at $50 and is Not a "beta" anything. Excellent GUI). Since I don't have a linux bootloader and boot in the others only with a floppy, how can I set up MDK9.2 to boot from floppy -OR a bootable CDROM???-- Since I am a "bumbling non-techie", I have quit using Linux bootloaders on this desktop because I have ruined my WinXP a couple of times already with glitches/niggles and/or careless and dangerous "one click disasters". I hope somebody can help. I'm surprised that since the kernel is too large to fit on one floppy for Mandrake9.2 (but not for the other distros), that the option isn't there to make a "boot from CDRom". Will this be the case in the next version? P.S. MDK9.2 installed quite nicely on my Toshiba 5005-S507,with Lilo (though I wanted GRUB but MDK had glitches in trying to change to GRUB) with minor adjustments due to outstanding help from dedicated moderators and members of this board!! (It is "Windows free in 2003"--since the Toshiba recovery disks don't work for the laptop.) All help is gratefully appreciated!! Richard L.

Hi everyone following this thread, For those of you "en France"*, "in der deutschsprechigen Teil der Schweiz"* und "in Oesterreich und Deutschland"*, I am curious as a Texan and Houstonian whether the seven discs include all the commerical apps and other goodies that are in the 7 CD PowerPack. The only chance of getting CD's or DVD's with lots of stuff on them are from the Linux Format magazine from the UK which I can pick up here in Houston at MicroCenter. It's December issue was to include MDK9.2 Download Edition (but only the 3 CD's). It seems all the American computer magazines quit long ago including CD's with goodies. Happy New Year! [*NOTE for the English speaking: the above say in French and German the European locations mentioned in the prior messages of this thread] Cheers, Richard L.

You're right, Darkelve, that in other distros, you DO learn a lot from fixing things and from your own mistakes. I still like to have Xandros 2.x added along with other distros so that I can just sit back and enjoy computing as a break from fixing/configuring. So since this laptop has a 40GB harddrive and is now "Windows free in 2003". I am eventually going to have the following distros on it: Mandrake 9.2, Libranet 2.8.1, Xandros 2.x, and SUSE 9.2. I may add Fedora Core 2 when it comes out and fixes its bugs, or I may just put it on the second hard drive of my desktop. So maybe you'll kick back and try Xandros 2.x, I hope, without replacing your MDK. If you have room, make a separate partition to install Xandros and try it! Cheers, Richard L.

Okay, bvc, this is what I did (and didn't do): I was too afraid to do the "lilo -u" command because I feared that if I uninstalled lilo and then got some kind of error messages when trying to install grub, I would then not be able to boot at all into Mandrake9.2 again. Thus I'd have to do a re-install again and lose all the work I've done for acpi and other things. Here is what I did as root in a terminal (I added the double quotes in this message for easier reading): urpmi grub "Everything already installed" grub-install 'hdo' "The file /boot/grub/stage 1 not read correctly" grub-install /dev/hda "/dev/hda does not have any corresponging BIOS drive. Since you are familiar with my laptop, you know that it is a Legacy Free Bios laptop. I've been able to use grub before with MDK9.1 on this machine. What next? In advance, thanks! [i guess we should have started another thread for this in another forum, eh?] Richard L.

Thank you bvc and pmpatrick, By changing the default to "mdk9.2-linux", and in a terminal su'ed to root, typed lilo -v, then I rebooted and HALLELUJAH! Lilo has been edited to my satisfaction. I'm glad that pmpatrick suggested for me to post my entire lilo.conf and that bvc read it and came up with the solution. Thanks again to you both! Richard L.

Thanks pmpatrick. Here is my lilo.conf boot=/dev/hda map=/boot/map default="linux" #keytable=/boot/us.klt prompt nowarn timeout=100 #message=/boot/message menu-scheme=wb:bw:wb:bw image=/boot/vmlinuz label="mdk9.2-linux" root=/dev/hda5 initrd=/boot/initrd.img append="devfs=mount hdc=ide-scsi acpi=on resume=/dev/hda2 splash=silent" vga=788 read-only image=/boot/vmlinuz label="mdk92-lin-nonfb" root=/dev/hda5 initrd=/boot/initrd.img append="devfs=mount hdc=ide-scsi acpi=on resume=/dev/hda2" read-only image=/boot/vmlinuz label="mdk9.2-failsafe" root=/dev/hda5 initrd=/boot/initrd.img append="devfs=nomount hdc=ide-scsi acpi=on resume=/dev/hda2 failsafe" read-only image=/boot/vmlinuz-2.4.22-21mdk label=mdk9.2-2422-21 root=/dev/hda5 read-only optional vga=788 append=" devfs=mount hdc=ide-scsi acpi=on resume=/dev/hda2 splash=silent" initrd=/boot/initrd-2.4.22-21mdk.img

I did the following suggested by a friend after I edited my lilo.conf (I wanted to have mdk9.2- at the beginning of each label). "You have to type lilo at a root prompt to run lilo so it will read the /etc/lilo.conf file and update the MBR." I edited the lilo.conf file, rebooted, then I opened a terminal and su'ed to root. I typed lilo and here are my results: Added mdk9.2-linux Added mdk92-lin-nonfb Added mdk9.2-failsafe Added mdk9.2-2422-21 Fatal: Default image doesn't exist. I don't understand what the Fatal line means. When I shutdown and rebooted again, the changes aren't there. I appreciate any and all help. Richard L.

Thanks arTRee for your kind compliments about me. BTW, I chose GRUB during the installation, but when I rebooted, Lilo still came up. Then I used MCC and changed to GRUB there. When I rebooted, I got the dreaded black screen with L88 and the 88's repeated about 25 times. (I think it was 88, it was a number in the 80's.) Since I didn't know how to fix this, I took thirty minutes to re-install (no big deal) and just stayed with Lilo since MDK's Lilo doesn't play nice with the GRUB switch. Was I supposed to reboot in command mode and type my username and password? Would that have switched me to GRUB? :unsure: Thanks again arTRee. Richard L.

For the first time in any distro, Mandrake 9.2 and Mandrake Control Center's Wizard picked up my wireless card and had it working in less than 30 seconds (be sure to reboot after the configuration. Before I had to go to http://linux.oldcrank.com/tips/wpc11/index.php ) to get it to work. My wireless card is the Linksys WPC11, ver. 3. I've heard that the ver. 4 does not work with linux yet. You can call Linksys to see if they still have ver. 3 available to order, since I don't think it is carried in the stores any more. I hope this helps you! Sincerely, Richard L. :D

I just want to put in my two cents (US) worth since I've quietly been following this thread. I installed MDK9.2 and had some very difficult issues to get it to work with my laptop-unfriendly-to-linux legacy-free bios Toshiba 5005-S507. On this laptop, installing MDK 9.0 and 9.1 both required a recompiled kernel (which scared the living daylights out of me because I'm a total non-techie), but I had great help and encouragement from one of the moderators in this user forum that "held my hand" and got me through it. I've had totally different issues with MDK9.2 than with the others, but at least I didn't have to recompile a kernel. I just had to do an updated kernel and kernel-source and download the nvidia file .run to reinstall. And...I had great help again from two of the great moderators of this forum. I didn't whine or gripe once --as I had done in the past --because I had faith in the wonderful forum and all the super people that are active on it. I finally was patient for once, asked intelligent questions, and got the answers I needed. And now-- toshiba_acpi is working beautifully For the first time ever, I didn't have to do anything complicated or get help from anybody to get my Linksys WPC 11 wireless card to work. I used Mandrake Control Center and DrakConnect configured it automatically and within a couple of short minutes I was on the internet with my wireless card set on eth1 (since during the installation last week I had a cat5 cable connected from my Linskys router to the laptop and the built-in ethernet card is set on eth0). The only issue I have left, which worked fine in MDK9.0 and 9.1 is my USBmouse...I have both a Kensington Pocket Pro wired and wireless mice. Yet I'm being patient that this too will be solved. Soon I'll be installing Libranet 2.8.1, Xandros 2.0, and SUSE 9.0 (which got uninstalled when I installed MDK9.2...on purpose). I want SUSE 9.0 to be installed last because I simply LOVE its GUI GRUB to boot up in. (It's just that right now acpi=on freezes everything up in SUSE 9.0, and I need acpi on this laptop for sound). AND--I might even add Fedora Core 2.0 when it comes out...I'm too shy to try Core 1.0 yet. So....9.2 may not be for everybody. Some may have to go back to 9.1 or 9.0, or even go to a totally different distro. I'm still a totally non-geek, non-techie, but for me it's a nice hobby during my free time to tool around with a few good distros, learn their quirks and how to solve them...therefore, learning more about linux, command lines, vi editor (and others), DE's and WM's. Each distro has its own cool aspects, such as the updates that SUSE does during the installation for you: the free MS fonts that download and the Nvidia drivers with 3d acceleration. In Libranet 2.8.1 it's the XAdminmenu, which will take all of two minutes to get the MS fonts, Realplayer, Flash, etc. downloaded and working. Xandros is a brilliant distro that on most hardware, just automatically works. It is more sophisticated than Lycoris and a lot more friendly to its clientele than the money-grubbing Lindows. Its wallpapers that come with it are as beautiful as those from www.webshots.com (Xandros has a great wallpaper that is a photo of about six or seven penguins on an iceberg). Yes, I get impatient, frustrated, and sometimes throw a fit when a quirk in a distro drives me up a wall, but some of the linux distros' user forums have the nicest people in the world on them to help. It's rare to get tangled up with arrogant or crazy people on them. I find them for the most part very patient, friendly, and extremely helpful. So hang in there everybody. Each version as some improvements...like 4 steps forward...and some disappointments...2 steps back, but Linux distros have come a long way overall from two years ago. Cheers, Richard L.

It's a miracle! I have a Linksys WPC 11 version 3 wireless card. (I understand the ver. 4 card won't work). I simply plugged in the card into my Toshiba 5005-S507, went to the Mandrake Control Center>Network & Internet>Drakconnect and used the Wizard. I already had eth0 configured to work with a CAT5 cable connected anywhere. The wizard picked up immediately on my card and configured it automatically in a few seconds. I then rebooted, opened mozilla, went to several websites because I couldn't believe it.... and VOILA...I REALLY WAS on the internet!!!! Wireless card on eth1. Before I had to go to the website listed below to get the card working in MDK9.0 and 9.1, where I found a simpler solution than downloading the wlan-ng driver: http://linux.oldcrank.com/tips/wpc11/index.php This site will still be helpful to those who use this card and find the wlan driver too complicated (like me) and are still using 9.0 and 9.1. I just wanted to share my excitement!!! Cheers, Richard L.

Anon, Thank you for the links for all the updated rpm's for 9.2. I am also curious to have answers to the questions posed by Techonoid. Could you or another contributor please help to answer the questions, please? Sincerely, Richard L.

DragonMage, Thanks very much for the links and the suggestions for MDK 9.2. It may be a few more weeks until I install MDK9.2. However, I will certainly let you know either here or I will PM you with my results/experiences. (I guess if I share my experiences in this thread it may be more useful for others that have the newer Toshiba, Dells, etc. with "legacy free bios"). In the US we will be celebrating our Thanksgiving next Thursday. I never travel with laptops (too much of a pain with airport security and afraid it will be dropped to the floor and broken). I will leave Houston TX tomorrow and be in South Florida in and near Fort Lauderdale to celebrate the holiday with my brother's family. So maybe after I return home I may have the CD's for MDK9.2 and can install it between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Cheers, Richard L. P.S. I want you to know that bvc respects your contributions to the forum highly and wrote me some very nice things about you when I emailed him that you had the same laptop as I. He said that you are one that never steers anyone in the wrong direction, and that you are honest to stay when you "don't know" something, but that you contribute well with things that you do know about. Just thought I would pass this along to you to let you know how well respected you are in this community!

Many thanks, DragonMage and cybrjackle, DragonMage, I'll be going to the Houston LUG weekly workshop tonight and will get help to attempt adding your suggestions to grub. Soon I'll be adding MDK9.2 on a separate partition, so could you give me the link to the updated kernel? If you had to download a new version or patch for acpi, could you also give me that link, too? I appreciate the help and suggestions from both of you. Best regards, Richard L.

Thanks, cybrjackle, I have been to those two links, and others several times. Unfortunately, the information there about acpi appears to be outdated. SuSE is using a higher kernel number that should have fixed the acpi problem. In fact, it is the first distro where upon completion of the installation, acpi and sound are working automatically. However, I just may have to follow Nicolas Beaulieu's suggestion and apply it to a newer kernel source that hopefully will be compatible with Suse's kernel (which may be unique to SuSE, just as MDK's kernel is adapted to MDK's own distro). If anyone else has any ideas and experience with SuSE and acpi, please respond. I appreciate your quick response and suggestions, cybrjackle. Sincerely, Richard L.