tux99

that she wants easy point and click tools not CLI, she is no techie like me. Thanks, I know autofs (although I didn't think about it with regards to this), it could be a possible solution, but I was wondering if what I described in my first post is possible, something that makes use of the storage media applet in the KDE task bar, that would work the same way as for physical removable media (SD cards, DVDs, USB-hdd)? After all in the Media Applet Preferences panel it lists also 'Mounted NFS share' and 'Unmounted NFS share'.

I have a NFS server on my home LAN which is not always switched on, I would like to be able to manually mount/unmount some shares off it from a Mandriva 2009/KDE3 box from the GUI. As this laptop is used by my wife I need an easy GUI (few clicks) way of doing it, is there anything in Konqueror or anywhere else in Mandriva 2009/KDE3 to do this? I'm asking this as I'm not very familiar with the GUI tools and I wasn't able to find anything suitable, personally (being a cli person) I would use a simple mount command from a console but that's not an option for my wife. I know I could write a short script and link it to an icon on the desktop, but I hope there is a 'proper' KDE3 way of doing it (something like the 'map new network drives' functionality in Windoze)? Ideally I would like it in such a way that for every preconfigured nfs mount an icon appears in the task bar along with the other removable storage media (SD-cards, DVDs) where my wife can just click on it, the menu opens up and then she can select 'mount' or 'unmount' or 'open in new window'.

I would tend to think you have a hardware issue even if it has been working flawlessly before. I would recommend a 24 hour test of your PC with a memtest86 bootable CD: http://www.memtest.org/#downiso If that finds no errors then try a hard disc scan with 'badblocks -svn /dev/sda' (or whatever your boot disk device is), to do this boot from the Mandriva CD in rescue mode (don't do this while booted from the hard disk). If both these tests don't show up errors, then maybe the cpu is overheating for some reason (maybe a fan inside your PC died?) or the power supply might be dieing (providing unstable voltage under load). You could check this for example by installing and configuring 'ksensors' and keeping it open on your desktop.

It's quite nice, very rich in features, but for some reason on my Mandriva 2008.1 installation it shows up without antialiasing on the fonts, so the fonts look all pixely. I tried to change fonts but it didn't make a difference. My favourite filemanager is still the good old Midnight Commander ('mc') in a console window, rather than any graphical filemanager. But I'm the kind of person who prefers 'vi' to any graphical text editor too... :)

Ok, here is a link to my Mandriva 2008.1 HandBrake rpm (compiled from the original source without modifications): http://omertron.com/pch/node/73 (md5sum of handbrake_0_9_3_1_i586_rpm_zip_17059.zip: b5c01a844106f1bb0ca4c371b326193e) Feel free to copy it and publish it on any other Mandriva software repository, too. P.S: tyme is right we don't give a damn here about arch or noobuntu packages, this is a Mandriva forum! B)

it doesn't matter how much percentage of your total swap is used, it's the ratio of RAM to used swap which is too high, i.e. you have almost as much swap in use as RAM! For desktop use this will generally mean a lot of paging which slows down the system. If I were you I would have a look around on ebay, you would be surprised how cheap second hand RAM can be. I have upgraded a lot of old PCs (even Pentium 3's) for friends with parts off ebay for very little money and all these PCs are still in use and perfectly adequate with the extra RAM. You just need to make sure you know what exact type of RAM you need, otherwise you might spend repeatedly money on RAM that won't work on your motherboard. The 79.5% cpu usage means little, as it's a snapshot of a moment, you need to observe it over time, but I agree with you a 1.4G P4 is good enough for most uses. Also remember with lots of swap in use the cpu will spend time doing the swapping so by increasing the RAM or reducing the swap usage, cpu usage will decrease too. Replacing the GPU with a Nvidia FX5200 or similar second hand cheap off ebay can make a difference too, but you are right, try first to change to LXDE and change the swappiness parameter and if that still doesn't help then I would go looking for the RAM on ebay (extra RAM will make a bigger difference than a faster GPU).

Ok I get it, well if your starting point is an avi then maybe use Handbrake, it's not available as a rpm for Mandriva yet but it's easy to compile, I have it already compiled for mdv 2008.1 and someone else here in the forum compiled it for 2009. In case you need the 2008.1 version send me a PM with your email address and I can mail you my binary tar.gz package that installs under /usr/local/. See also http://www.handbrake.fr Edit: sorry I just noticed Handbrake doesn't output to vob, therefore you are better off with DeVeDe as suggested by Ian or else get a 'Popcorn Hour' and you won't need to convert anything anymore to watch it... ;)

I'm glad it works for you! Did you notice any of those horizontal black lines (5-30 pixels long) randomly occassionally over the screen too, or is it flawless for you? I'm not concerned about those problems for me as the previous version of the driver was working fine so I simply downgraded again to the 2.903.

The process you are using seems overly complicated too me, you are reencoding the dvd too many times needlessly (why do you encode to avi and then back to mpeg?), therefore losing quality in the process, try using k9copy which does everything in one go very easily!

Your PC doesn't have enough RAM to cope with all the programs you are trying to use at the same time (as you can see more than 300MB of swap is in use), upgrading the RAM to 1GB would certainly help, if that's not an option try using LXDE as suggested previously, as that uses less memory than KDE and Gnome, or use only Opera for browsing as that uses less memory and cpu than Firefox (why are you running both Opera and Firefox at the same time anyway?) Changing the kernel swappiness parameter could help a bit too but it can't remediate the fact that you are trying to run to many programs in too little memory. Try: echo 20 > /proc/sys/vm/swappiness to make this change permanent add the following line to /etc/sysctl.conf vm.swappiness=20 You can try even lower vaules like maybe 10, default is 60.

It would be easier for us to give you the right answer (whether it's cpu, swap or whatelse) if we have some more information, can you run the command line command 'top' in a konsole terminal window and copy&paste here the output from it when this happens again?

Ok, I have installed the x11-openchrome svn rpm package provided by you on my Mini-note now, first thing I noticed is a big square 'blob' instead of the cursor, this went away after I enabled Option SWcursor. Even then though I got occasional random horizontal black lines of various length (5-30 pixels maybe) all over the screen, so after various further testing ultimately I reverted back to the 0.2.903 driver version that ships with Mandriva 2009.0. As a side note I found the following: http://forum.netbookuser.com/viewtopic.php?pid=6402#p6402 After experimenting a bit with the options in the Device section of xorg.conf as suggested in the above post I found the following option useful as it almost doubles 3D performance even with the 0.2.903 driver: Option "XaaNoImageWriteRect" After a X server restart glxgears now does 228fps (with the default config it was 126fps)!

Actually Suse (at least the version preinstalled on my Mini-Note) uses the binary only driver from VIA. Thanks a lot Adam for providing us with the latest svn version, I might upgrade my Mini-Note to that too (even though it's working fine with the version provided with mdv 2009), I'll need to look at the changelogs to see if it's worth it for me. I assume it's just a drop-in replacement, no need to upgrade anything else?

I just discovered Handbrake 0.93, a nice DVD transcoder software with GTK GUI: http://www.handbrake.fr As I couldn't find it in the 2008.1 repositories I compiled it myself from source, it compiled without issues. How come it's not available from Mandriva or at least in the plf archives? It seems like a very useful and stable/mature software. I might be able to make a Mandriva 2008.1 rpm out of it (I'm not sure it would be conformant to all Mandriva guidelines, which I don't have knowledge of), but I guess that would be pointless as Mandriva wouldn't take a rpm for it's repositories from some 'random user' anyway? Edited to add link to my rpm package for Mandriva. You can download a rpm package of a recent svn (development) version (newer than the 0.9.3 release) from my website at: http://www.linuxtech.net/downloads/handbra...ndriva_rpm.html

it seems it's the 1024x600 screen of your Mini-Note that's the problem, see this thread: http://forums.mininoteuser.com/viewtopic.php?p=4467 maybe adamw might have some suggestion as he said he mantains the openchrome package for Mandriva? one last thing that maybe could work, try using the following option: Option "NoDDC" And then specify a ModeLine for your 1024x600 resolution screen and change Modes to "1024x600".

Hmm, I have never used Cisco vpn (or any vpn) on Linux so unfortunately I don't know the answer to your question. As your problem is not really Mini-Note specific, maybe try repost it in the Networking section of this forum, so it gets more attention from others who don't use the Mini-Note but might have experience with VPNs on Mandriva.

Do you have the Mini-Note with the WXGA (1280x768) or the WSVGA (1024x600) screen? Ok, it looks like you are using the correct driver, here is my xorg.conf (WXGA screen), try replacing yours with it and let us know if that helps. (you might want to change the keyboard section to match your layout and I also have an additional USB mouse configured) # File generated by XFdrake (rev 247269) # ********************************************************************** # Refer to the xorg.conf man page for details about the format of # this file. # ********************************************************************** Section "ServerFlags" #DontZap # disable <Ctrl><Alt><BS> (server abort) AllowMouseOpenFail # allows the server to start up even if the mouse does not work #DontZoom # disable <Ctrl><Alt><KP_+>/<KP_-> (resolution switching) EndSection Section "Module" Disable "dri" Load "dbe" # Double-Buffering Extension Load "v4l" # Video for Linux Load "extmod" Load "type1" Load "freetype" Load "glx" # 3D layer EndSection Section "InputDevice" Identifier "Keyboard1" Driver "kbd" Option "XkbModel" "pc105" Option "XkbLayout" "ch(de)" Option "XkbOptions" "compose:rwin" EndSection Section "InputDevice" Identifier "Mouse1" Driver "mouse" Option "Protocol" "ExplorerPS/2" Option "Device" "/dev/mouse" EndSection Section "InputDevice" Identifier "SynapticsMouse1" Driver "synaptics" Option "SHMConfig" "on" EndSection Section "Monitor" Identifier "monitor1" VendorName "Generic" ModelName "Flat Panel 1280x768" HorizSync 31.5-90 VertRefresh 60 Option "PreferredMode" "1280x768" # TV fullscreen mode or DVD fullscreen output. # 768x576 @ 79 Hz, 50 kHz hsync ModeLine "768x576" 50.00 768 832 846 1000 576 590 595 630 # 768x576 @ 100 Hz, 61.6 kHz hsync ModeLine "768x576" 63.07 768 800 960 1024 576 578 590 616 # modeline generated by gtf(1) [handled by XFdrake] ModeLine "1280x768_120" 173.82 1280 1376 1520 1760 768 769 772 823 -HSync +Vsync # modeline generated by gtf(1) [handled by XFdrake] ModeLine "1280x768_100" 141.96 1280 1376 1512 1744 768 769 772 814 -HSync +Vsync # modeline generated by gtf(1) [handled by XFdrake] ModeLine "1280x768_85" 118.53 1280 1368 1504 1728 768 769 772 807 -HSync +Vsync # modeline generated by gtf(1) [handled by XFdrake] ModeLine "1280x768_75" 102.98 1280 1360 1496 1712 768 769 772 802 -HSync +Vsync # modeline generated by gtf(1) [handled by XFdrake] ModeLine "1280x768_60" 80.14 1280 1344 1480 1680 768 769 772 795 -HSync +Vsync # modeline generated by gtf(1) [handled by XFdrake] ModeLine "1280x768_50" 65.18 1280 1336 1464 1648 768 769 772 791 -HSync +Vsync # modeline generated by gtf(1) [handled by XFdrake] ModeLine "800x480_120" 66.25 800 848 936 1072 480 481 484 515 -HSync +Vsync # modeline generated by gtf(1) [handled by XFdrake] ModeLine "800x480_100" 53.75 800 840 928 1056 480 481 484 509 -HSync +Vsync # modeline generated by gtf(1) [handled by XFdrake] ModeLine "800x480_85" 44.64 800 840 920 1040 480 481 484 505 -HSync +Vsync # modeline generated by gtf(1) [handled by XFdrake] ModeLine "800x480_75" 38.55 800 832 912 1024 480 481 484 502 -HSync +Vsync # modeline generated by gtf(1) [handled by XFdrake] ModeLine "800x480_60" 29.58 800 816 896 992 480 481 484 497 -HSync +Vsync # modeline generated by gtf(1) [handled by XFdrake] ModeLine "800x480_50" 24.16 800 808 888 976 480 481 484 495 -HSync +Vsync EndSection Section "Device" Identifier "device1" VendorName "VIA Technologies, Inc." BoardName "VIA Chrome9-based cards" Driver "openchrome" Option "DPMS" #Option "SWcursor" EndSection Section "Screen" Identifier "screen1" Device "device1" Monitor "monitor1" DefaultColorDepth 24 Subsection "Display" Depth 8 Modes "1280x768" "800x480" EndSubsection Subsection "Display" Depth 15 Modes "1280x768" "800x480" EndSubsection Subsection "Display" Depth 16 Modes "1280x768" "800x480" EndSubsection Subsection "Display" Depth 24 Modes "1280x768" "800x480" EndSubsection EndSection Section "ServerLayout" Identifier "layout1" InputDevice "Keyboard1" "CoreKeyboard" InputDevice "Mouse1" "CorePointer" InputDevice "SynapticsMouse1" "SendCoreEvents" Screen "screen1" EndSection

You don't need a 386 kernel, a (genuine) 586 kernel will work too, just not a 686.

I don't know much about Mandriva One (is it the 2009 version or an older one?), although if you have installed it onto the hard disk (not running from live-CD) then it should be basically the same as the PowerPack version that I use. I would check first of all that you are using the correct X driver, do the following command on a console: grep OPENCHROME /var/log/Xorg.0.log In the MCC you should have selected "VIA Chrome9-based cards" as Graphic Card, do you have this?

I would think so, yes, I believe the reason this hasn't been done yet, is because there aren't many users with first generation C3 systems around (anymore). It wasn't exactly a popular cpu to begin with, but I still like my C3 based mini-PC as it's perfect as a small home ADSL gateway/router/homeserver (it's similar to this one but with the old C3 cpu: http://linitx.com/viewproduct.php?prodid=11484 ).

I believe the problem is because the first generation C3 (Samuel 2) identifies itself as cpu 'family: 6' while it's not really, as it doesn't support the CMOV instruction, while other 586 class processors like the Geode identify themselves correctly as 'cpu family: 5'. There is probably in the installer something that checks for the cpu family and therefore installs 686 packages on the C3, which then don't work if they contain CMOV instructions, while this wouldn't happen with the Geode or an Intel 586. I also have a C3 Samuel 2 Mini-PC which is still running Redhat 7.3 (heavily modified by updating many packages from source tarballs), as I gave up on any newer Redhat or Centos because of this (never tried Mandriva on it as I was looking for a long term support distro).

Thanks all for your suggestions, as per this thread installing the openoffice.org-style-galaxy helped solve the issue.

I noticed in Mandriva 2009 the toolbars of Openoffice have no icons, it's all text, is this a bug or is this intentional, or is it a kde3 <> kde4 path problem? I'm running OO under kde3 in mdv 2009.

This is the kind of OEM deals Mandriva could need, both for income and for to raise it's profile: http://www.linuxplanet.com/linuxplanet/reports/6612/1/

Yes, OEM deals for Netbooks (and Mandriva is not late yet, no one says Asus, Acer, HP, etc won't switch distro if they believe it's worthwile), and those small desktop PCs like the Asus eee desktop. Netbooks have just started to become popular, they still have quite a future in front of them (especially also in developing countries). IBM in the early 80s didn't believe there was any money to be made with personal computers either...