arthur

wow cwhobbes...i never thought anyone could make KDE look nice, but you did :P

slightly offtopic...Slackware IMO is the coolest named distro, gentoo is not as cool, but the graphics design of the "emergence" theme and its website rocks Mandriva? uh, no comment

to unmount a troublesome USB drive, use -l ('lazy' option according to the man page) #umount -l /dev/sdasomething

modifying ifplugd.action is not enough, you have to run ifplugd with the -r or --run=path option. like so $ifplugd --iface=eth0 --run=/etc/ifplugd/ifplugd.action about choosing to send packets to the fastest interface, that might be another matter, as you have to have a system of measuring the faster connection first (maybe pinging at regular intervals) but I'm not sure if ifplugd measures these. most command-line linux network programs can choose the network interface manually, like the nmap -e option: $ nmap -e eth1 hope this helps

there should be a script called /etc/ifplugd/ifplugd.action that is executed whenever the state of the interface changes. if you run ifplugd with the options -r or --run=(script) then it will execute that script when the link status changes, and the default script is /etc/ifplugd/ifplugd.action. i'm not sure how the script should go, but it should be something simple like: /etc/init.d/net.eth0 stop /etc/init.d/net.eth1 start exit 0 but i'm running gentoo, so I'm not so sure how it would go on mandrake. also, won't linux applications automatically use the first available non-loopback interface, so you won't have to manually configure gateways?

1) i'm not sure, but have you ever looked at the kernel options? if you have't compiled a kernel yet, look at the Tips n Tricks section, there are a lot of posts on that. 2) refer to 1) above. the kernel can be configured to run ELF binaries. actually, it's the default. I haven't heard of PE files...are these windows executables? 3) no idea, next question 4) creating a symbolic link is easy, but how would you create one ONLY if a file does not exist? well, you must have a list of files you want to check for first. FAT32 is only a file system, diff operates on the files themselves. anyway, are the files in only one or two directories, or spread out all over a tree? after getting all this info, writing a bash script to do this would be easy. if not, we can always call Aru ;)

I don't know about the config scripts, but I know that IDEs like KDevelop and Anjuta can handle the makefiles for you...and I think config files *could* be handled as well.

Win95-Me had a partial implementation of the unix (BSD) TCP/IP stack...but now XP has a much more complete implementation, which includes IP spoofing and arbitrary packet creation. So DDoS attacks from "zombie" XP machines are much more damaging than attacks from previous versions of Windows. many utilities from UNIX are present in winXP, like netstat, ping and ping6, traceroute, nslookup, and many more. But most XP users hardly know they're there, much less what they are :unsure:

patent applications should prove that there has been no prior art regarding the invention. these concerns are one reason people should license their code in the GPL and not the BSD license... GPL means that it will remain free. but of course, BSD license is still useful for lots of other stuff, M$ already uses code licensed under BSD, as well as Apple and other companies

yeah, but as an analogy which is safer: a kid at the wheels of a 200-horsepower sports car or an experienced race driver? your argument that who knows the system inside out are the most dangerous is a very very old argument - there are numerous examples that both prove and disprove that, but the question is at what scale? what percentage? And you say that home machines don't pose much of a problem...where do you think DDoS attacks causing millions in damage come from? food for thought. :)

do you know how to install programs by urpmi? you can urpmi magicdev if it's not already installed. That unmount issue is really annoying me too, but that's only caused by nautilus or mplayer (or konqueror in this case). i found that "killall mplayer" even after i've exited it enables me to umount cleanly... but don't worry...you can also use supermount as another option to solve this.

payasam, I use rdate, which is a command-line tool to set the time to a particular server, which in this case is my uni server (who keep permanently online and use ntp). If you connect to the internet using a script then it's easy to make rdate run each time you connect. I make mine run at each boot up :)

haha...good replies. I actually voted for 3 myself. :P Now just imagine if we did this poll in a different forum, or... surely there are places where they think freedom is not so important. Arctic, the fact that many have tried to stop people reading books is proof that those people do exist. It's a recurring problem everywhere and as said by Benjamin Franklin. Those who trade liberty for security will get neither. Although of course, teaching kids basic secure behaviour in computers in school won't hurt...like stop raising them on M$

well, this question is just a try to get a discussion started. Someone mentioned in "should roots' hands' be tied?" that people who can't maintain a computer shouldn't own one. I've been thinking about this... Are computers weapons? Computers could cause lots of destruction - you could argue that even civilian planes can do so too, but pilots' licenses and everything regulate them...drivers need licenses to drive, and farmers need licenses to use ammonium nitrate. (computers as in PCs, don't count microcontrollers) Computers in the hands of ignorant users are dangerous. Discuss. :)

well, apps that can't run as root suck, and some people would create a "uncorrupted" version - which means it can run as root - then redistribute that, then people would start flocking to it, leaving the crippled version in the dust. the wonders of the GPL. :)

why are you running httpd, proftpd and postfix? is this a web, ftp or mail server? if not then you can untick those. Also, since you're using acpi, apmd will be of little use. I have a pcmcia port, but until I buy a pcmcia card I don't use the service. you can remove the service "network" to prevent it from connecting to adsl or whatever, but once you log in you'll have to open a terminal, and as root type "service network start"

bvc, I'm pretty sure "Hardware" and "Installing Mandrake" have to be the busiest forums in this board. Pre-installed Linux would take care of that. Once ISPs and modem makers recognize linux, "Networking" will have a huge reduction in the "internet not working" posts which make up a big percentage. So we can concentrate on the "fun stuff" like more advanced terminal/shell programming, kernels, whatever. But solving hardware problems is still fun. :)

I'm working part time fixing windows computers...in promoting linux, I'm actually trying to eliminate my job, and I gladly will. Since even if I lose my job, I could work instead as a linux support person and things are much better documented - open source software is much more fixable than closed source. Many useless, redundant IT jobs will vanish, but many new ones will be created as well if Linux wins. Maybe some IT people only see the first part of what I said - that's why they're going to fight the spread of Linux, but in the end, they'll lose. The price/performance gap is just too big for Microsoft to hold back for long.

well, best of luck to you! Linux is an excellent OS

welcome to the board! :) how about a more detailed description of the problem and I'll do my best to help.

I definitely will, since it's Linux's best chance to capture the gamer market.

well, mandrake is known for ease of use, not speed. you can stop services running at boot, like pcmcia if you don't use it. GNOME also starts much faster than KDE in my experience, and I think it looks better too. www.kde-look.org and www.gnome-look.org are good places to get themes. Lastly, you can recompile your kernel to make it much smaller and faster - mandrake kernels are very, very bloated. Some experimental patches like the kernel nitro patches might make it even faster. i don't think you should do the xorg transparency for now, since it makes things so much slower. but if you really want it, you should have Xorg 6.8 (urpmi --test xorg-x11) and follow the HOWTO in the tips and tricks section in this board.

oh...I recommend checking out MCC if it has an option of setting the internet interface to ppp0. ping appears to work, would you like to test lynx or links? they're both command line web browsers. If you have them installed, try "links www.google.com" or something in the console. if they work then it's probably a browser problem...unfortunately I don't know much except for Firefox. reinstalll your browser? I'm out of ideas

shorewall blocks everything on interface ppp0. you have to disable it or configure it for that interface.

well, your interfaces are eth0, eth1 (for wireless i would guess) and ppp0. Most of the time apps in Linux use the interface eth0 or eth1, but the dial up interface is ppp0. you should have a setting or config file somewhere to configure which interface applications use. I'll look into it when I boot up mandrake later.