tux99

Agreed Mandriva should build upon it's current strength (solid reliable user friendly desktop distro) instead of trying to replicate the Redhat/Novell business model. I don't believe there is no money in a desktop distro, I believe OEM deals, if pursued agressively and on the other hand a retail packages (both physical boxes and download) like the Powerpack can sell well, providing Mandriva greatly increases it's PR and marketing. With regards to the powerpack, I believe the download version should be cheaper maybe 25-30 Euros, this would lower the barrier for people to just buy it without thinking too much about the cost and therefore sell more units. Also bundling Mandriva CD/DVDs with as many books about Linux (especially for beginners) can be useful. As someone suggested earlier, Mandriva needs to get some of it's staff to write articles for Linux magazines, not just about Mandriva but about any Linux topic while using Mandriva as example. Also a stall at Linux events, sponsoring of Linux related projects, discounts for students anything that get's them in the news and attracks attention, while not costing much.

I agree with the Mandriva boxes in stores and Mandriva has done that in the past at least, in the UK, PC-World was selling them. Also OEM deals are very important both for revenue and to make Mandriva more known again, I think Mandriva should push themselves especially for Netbooks as it's better suited than any other distro, being most user friendly and already made compatible for lower resolution screens. I don't agree with the store strategy, stores cost a lot in fixed costs and don't reach that many people. Two or three online stores, one in the US one in the EU and maybe one in Brasil (to take advantage of the Conectiva past), selling preinstalled netbooks, laptops and maybe some mini-desktops (Asus eee desktop and similar) would be better, this would reach already a market of about a bilion people. I think the most important thing though is to greatly improve the marketing and PR, there are too many people these days that associate Linux only with Ubuntu (and RedHat and Suse for business use), Mandriva needs to increase the buzz around it's distro, push it as the best, most user friendly Linux distro available, up to the point of directly pointing out it's superiority versus Ubuntu. It should get to the point that every time some online or printed magazine talks about Linux, they should mention Mandriva as the best distro (as currently happens with Ubuntu), not just the occasional review twice yearly when a new version of Mandriva comes out.

I'm glad you got things sorted eventually! While there is absolutely no shame in using Linux without knowing anything about the command line tools and commands, it would be useful to learn the basics so that in a similar situation you feel less helpless. There is plenty of documentation around both on the Internet (see for example the link I posted earlier above) and also from Mandriva and even in form of Books from your local bookstore or library or Amazon. On the KDE menu there is a documentation section with a 'Mandriva Linux Started Guide'. You might want to read Chapter 19 in particular. With regards to those huge files that filled up your filesystem, those are system log files. They are normally rotated and zipped once a week (by the logrotate package), but this depends on how your system is configured and the use you make of it. Also the fact that these files were so big could indicate that some system tool or program is generating unusual amounts of logging, possibly because something is not working as it should, therefore it could be useful if you look at these log files (the current ones are the ones not ending in a number in /var/log: main ones are /varlog/messages and /var/log/syslog) and look for any warning or errors in there. These are normal text files so you can use any text editor to look at them.

I would imagine at the very least it needs one person with a PC (hard disk space shouldn't be an issue with the cost of drives these days) and an internet connection (to download the sources) and loads of spare time. Obviously the more people are involved the less time each has to dedicate to it, but more people adds time required to coordinate the individual efforts. Given the right group of people (skilled and 'can do' attitude without too many ego-clashes ;) ), it should be doable without using up too much time (as in: no live left, besides mantaining the distro...) for too many people. I would much rather prefer if Mandriva continues to do the distro, as they have done up to now and I continue to be willing to pay for that (by buying the Powerpack subscription) as I have done so far.

Certainly, see also my post above, anything ending with a number or number and .gz in /var/log really, those are all old archived system logs which are not needed for anything other than your own viewing pleasure.

Well of course you don't need to login in failsave mode as there is no login prompt, you are already logged in as root. paulrstu asked earlier as which user he has to login at the console login and there he has to login as root as otherwise he won't be able to delete much. I don't think anyone here has been making a bad job worse or more complicated, actually I would say we are almost done.

I have been using Mandriva for so many years now, that I certainly wouldn't give up on it easily. I think worst case (although I hope we don't have to get to that point), we could always continue the Mandriva distro (the name would probably have to change for trademark reasons) as a community distro, I know it's not an easy task but I think there is enough talent around to be able to do that, I would be willing to help as far as I can.

You can certainly delete syslog.1 syslog.1.gz and messages.1, (anything ending with a number or number and .gz in /var/log really ). Logged in as root you can just type: rm /var/log/syslog.1.gz rm /var/log/messages.1 and so on These two should free up enough space already to make kde start up again.

you should log in as root as otherwise you won't be able to delete most things (neither with 'mc ' nor with 'rm').

You need to run the 'find' command EXACTLY as I typed it including all spaces and with the same upper/lower case. By the way, if you fill up your Windows XP filesystem, you will have even bigger problems than this, but if you prefer it, then by all means go back to Windows, everyone to his own... I just helped a friend yesterday who had a Windows XP install so full of spyware and viruses (despite he had an anti-virus software installed) that we had no choice but for him to reinstall Windows, with all the hassle that entails (drivers, software, configuration, ...) He spent all afternoon up until late in the night dealing with it.

If that's the whole output of 'df' then that means you have filled up your only Linux filesystem. To find go to /var or /var/tmp use the 'cd' command: cd /var or cd /var/tmp with the command: ls -la you can list the contents of the directory you are currently in. I'd recommend you to read the following to understand the Linux filesystem structure and the basic commands better: http://www.faqs.org/docs/linux_intro/sect_03_01.html http://www.faqs.org/docs/linux_intro/sect_03_03.html

You can run: find / -mount -size +10M -ctime -3 This will list all files on '/' (hda6) which are bigger than 10 megabytes and that have been created or modified in the last 3 days. This should therefore likely reveal you the file(s) that filled up your filesystem. Please note this command can take several minutes to run, wait until it's done, don't interrupt it.

Ok, the mountd point of hda6 cannot be blank, I assume it just says '/'? This means the root filesystem, as in the default filesystem where everything is located in apart from what is explicitly under other mounted filesystems. Can you maybe post the whole output of 'df'? If there is no separate /var mountpoint it would be easiest to delete stuff there. Have you deleted stuff under /var/tmp/ yet, as I mentioned earlier? Also under /var/log, you can delete any older logs, they end with '1.gz' or '2.gz' or any other number followed by '.gz'

You keep mentioning /dev/hda6. You need to determine what the mountpoint of /dev/hda6 is. When you run 'df' it tells you in the last column where the hda6 partition is mounted on. Then you have to navigate with 'mc' to that directory and delete not needed stuff under there. BTW, there is another tmp directory used also by kde, /var/tmp. Have a look there too and delete the kdecache directories and anything else not needed there. Linux is very logical, but like everything technical you need to know it to understand it, that's the difference with Windows, you have no way of completely knowing Windows no matter how much you are willing to study it, as you don't have access to the source code and to lots of undocumented stuff.

I wouldn't do that as /tmp needs to be recreated with special permissions. just do: cd /tmp rm -f * rm -rf name-of-subdirectory where name-of-subdirectory is the name of each subdirectory that 'rm -f' will have told you it can't delete as it's a directory. After that do a 'ls -la' to list the remaining content of the directory. If there still files or directories left (likely files or directories that start with a dot) delete them too. Then you can use the command 'df' to check what the file system space is now. You can also use 'mc' (midnight commander) which is a filemanager similar to the old MS-DOS norton commander to browse the filesystem and delte files or directories.

of course there is: mp3sparks.com, same website run by the same people, just a different name!

That's what I have, and that's what's not working in 2009 for me! In 2008.1 it works fine, but in 2009 that option appears to be ignored, at least here in my installation.

Yes that works, thanks ('cd ~/.kde/Autostart; ln -s /usr/bin/ksensors' from a konsole actually, no GUI nonsense for me ;) ). I'm still curious to know why it didn't work without this workaround though... I think it must have something to do with the changes in 2009 to make kde3 and kde4 coexist as kde3 stuff is now located unde /opt/kde3 while the ksensors package in 2009 is still the 2008.1 package, so probably the config files are not in the right places for 2009. What's weird though is, that it works for you, unless that's because you are using kde4?

Fonts look good on my Mandriva 2009, I didn't do anything special, default fonts and default config, maybe all those extra fonts you installed caused this, or did you see it since before installing them? Have you tried creating a new user and starting Firefox as that user, to make sure it's not something in your Firefox config? It could also be a X windows dpi setting problem, do a: grep -i dpi /var/log/Xorg.0.log and post the output you get. Maybe also post a screenshot of firefox with the horrible fonts, to show us what you mean.

I have configured ksensors to autostart at KDE startup on my Mandriva 2009 installation, but it never starts up automatically, it works fine on Mandriva 2008.1 and in 2009 if I start it manually. Anyone knows why, how do I fix this? I'm using KDE 3.5.10 on 2009, fully updated. Thanks!

The Libretto 100ct is a 10 year old Pentium 166MMX with 32M RAM, it was great at the time but these days it's a bit limited, the U100 on the other hand is a Pentium M 1.2Ghz from 2006, which can still outperform most/all current Netbooks, see here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libretto_(notebook) Because of this, a second hand U100 on ebay still generally goes for as much or more than many current Netbooks cost new. If you would like to discuss the Libretto and Mandriva on the Libretto further it would be better to create a new dedicated thread for that.

Just an update: I have now replaced the Hitachi 120GB 2.5" hdd that the Mini-Note came with, with an 8GB Transcend Sata SLC SSD: TS8GSSD25S-S - http://www.transcendusa.com/Products/ModDetail.asp?ModNo=177 I had planned to do this from the beginning and specifically didn't buy any Netbook that already comes with a SSD, as those generally use MLC flash, while I wanted to use the much better/faster SLC flash. I have noticed some big increases in disk performance, most strikingly a full fsck (e2fsck -f /dev/sda1) of the same identical 7.5GB Mandriva system partition (dd'ed over from the hdd to the ssd) now takes only 14 seconds instead of 81 seconds!! Given this blindingly fast fsck I don't regret at all that I now have to use ext2 instead of ext3, to reduce SSD wear. Boot up time (from pressing the power on buttom to getting the kdm login screen) hasn't changed a lot, it now takes about 40 seconds instead of 50, I assume that at boot, disk performance is not the main factor. I think this 8GB SLC SSD is perfect for the Mini-Note, as with 2GB RAM the Mini-Note doesn't need a swap partition and the robustness of the SSD complements the overall robustness of the Mini-Note very well, making it a good everyday laptop that can be taken everywhere and doesn't mind being treated carelessly, while for data storage there is the SD slot and the Expresscard slot (can take CF cards with an adapter).

I didn't as I didn't have my Mandriva account details at hand when I got to that point of the installation. Why does it ask for the Mandriva account details anyway, I think if you would make submitting from the wizard anonymous, you would get a lot more submissions! Yes I read about that and I'm pleased about it, thing is, the Suse installation that the Mini-Note came with, uses the binary VIA driver and I noticed that Flash video playback (youtube) is smooth with it, while with the opencrome driver it's not completely smooth (embedded in the web page, full screen is completely unwatchable), it's ok, but every 5-10 seconds I notice a glitch, like if it skips a frame or so, I have tried disabling as many other processes as possible (including pulseaudio) but I couldn't get it completely smooth (mpeg and wmv playback with totem is fine, completely smooth, even full screen). I even upgraded the Flashplayer 9 Mandriva package to the Flashplayer 10 from adobe.com but it still didn't solve the problem. I think therefore as an interim solution, to give users a choice it would still be great if we could have the binary VIA driver packaged up for Mandriva 2009 (at the very least to be on par with Ubuntu, as there is a Ubuntu version!). Obviously the best solution would be if you collaborate with Adobe to get the Flash player improved, the Linux version is really badly written, it uses waaay too much cpu when playing back videos, compared to any other Linux video playback software...

1- I paid the equivalent of about 360 US dollars for the Mini-Note (taxes and shipping included). 2 - Yes, I have Mandriva 2008.0 running on the U100 since I bought it (second hand), the installation was really straight forward (as the U100 came with the DVD-RW dock, too), all hardware works fine with Mandriva (except the useless finger-print scanner and I have never tested bluetooth). The Libretto U100 is still superior to any Netbook including the Mini-Note, as the Pentium-M 1.2Ghz is still a lot faster than the VIA C7 or the Intel Atom, subjectively it feels as fast as my 2.5Ghz P4 desktop, although the screen of the Mini-Note is even better as it's the same resolution, but larger. I actually got the Mini-Note for my wife, so I can have my U100 back! ;)

I just bought a HP Mini-Note 2133 ( http://h40059.www4.hp.com/hp2133/ ) Netbook (model: FU342EA#UUZ Via C7-M 1.6Ghz, 2GB RAM, WXGA screen, 120GB HDD, 6 cell/4.5h battery) that came with Suse Linux enterprise which means I didn't pay the "Micro$oft tax" but IMHO is far inferior to Mandriva, so first thing I installed Mandriva Powerpack 2009 (download version bought from mandriva.com) on it. Installation went smooth (I had to manually specify the screen resolution 1280x768) and the system came up fine at first boot. Just to clarify, during installation I selected gnome desktop install and then afterwards using the software management tool I installed the KDE3 packages as that's what I really wanted, so the Mini-Note is running KDE 3.5.10 (I don't think KDE 4 is ready enough yet). Here is the hardware I have tested: -Graphics/Screen (VIA Chrome 9 HC): works ok with the Openchrome driver that comes with Mandriva 2009, it supports the native resolution of the display (1280x768). Obviously no 3D as the driver doesn't include it. Unfortunately the binary driver from the VIA website ( http://linux.via.com.tw/support/downloadFiles.action ) is not available for Mandriva :( -RAM (1x DDR2 SDRAM SODIMM slot): it recognized all 2GB installed without problems. -onboard 10/100/1000 LAN (Broadcom BCM5788): recognized and works fine, uses tg3 kernel module -SDHC card slot : recognized and works fine (seen as usb mass storage device) -Expresscard 54/34 slot: tested successfully with a PCIe CF adapter card (noname, model: EXP-CF PCIe, made in Taiwan) works fine after loading manually the pciehp kernel module with: # modprobe pciehp pciehp_force=1 to make permanent: echo "options pciehp pciehp_force=1" >> /etc/modprobe.conf echo pciehp >> /etc/modprobe.preload -USB 2.0 ports: work fine (tested with a usb hdd and a usb mouse) -Audio (VIA Azalia HDAC): recognized and works fine, both though the speakers and through the headphone plug, uses snd_hda_intel kernel module -inbuilt stereo Microphones: untested -onboard VGA webcam (640x480): recognized and works fine, shows up as CNF7070 on /dev/video0, uses uvcvideo kernel module -external VGA port: untested -Bluetooth: appears to be recognized, but as I don't have another bluetooth device it's still untested -inbuilt WLAN (BCM4312 802.11a/b/g): recognized and works fine with the native Linux driver, once I installed the firmware as per instructions on the following page: http://linuxwireless.org/en/users/Drivers/b43#fw-b43-new -VIA C7-M ULV 1.6GHz cpu (Bogomips: ‎3191.89): I got cpu frequency scaling working but it didn't work out of the box, I have to do the following: echo "e_powersaver" > /etc/modprobe.preload and the following cpu-freq rpms installed (don't know if they are all required): cpufreqd-2.3.3-1mdv2009.0 cpufreq-1.0-30mdv2009.0 cpufrequtils-005-2mdv2009.0 cpu_freq_throttle-0.4-6mdv2009.0 libcpufreq0-005-2mdv2009.0 libcpufreqd-2.3.3-1mdv2009.0 also I added acpi_osi="!Windows 2006" as a kernel parameter in /boot/grub/menu.lst as suggested on some ubuntu forums. -special keys (brightness, volume, mute, sleep, lock): brightness, volume and mute keys work fine, lock untested for now. The sleep key brings the Mini-Note into ACPI S3 suspend state, this works (also checked logs), resum appears to work too (according to logs) but the LCD screen stays switched off, anyone got this working or knows what the problem could be? -inbuilt Touchpad (SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad): recognized and works fine, including the simulated scroll wheel -inbuilt Sata HDD: works in Sata native mode (no need to switch to 'compatible' in BIOS), uses sata_via kernel module That's about it, generally I'm very happy with the Mini-Note, the aluminium casing is really solid, the screen looks gorgeous, the sound quality of the speakers is the best I have heard on a laptop and the keyboard is the best of any Netbook. The Mini-Note get's quite warm but no more than my Toshiba Libretto U100 does (I guess the aluminium casing is more heat conductive than the plastic casings of other Netbooks, but this means the heat get's expelled more efficiently, which is good) and the fan is very quiet IMHO. I was worried about reports of the screen being quite reflective, but haven't found that to be a problem. Anyway, I'd love to hear from other Mini-Note + Mandriva users here, feel free to ask if you have any problems and I will try and help you if I can. Edited to update some info. [moved from Hardware by spinynorman]