tux99

True but this problem exists with any OS and any computer or device connected to the Internet (do you trust your smartphone, which is full of private data, to not leak it?!) and with Windows the risk is much higher due to all the known security design flaws and the fact that it's targeted much more. With Windows even loads of commercial software calls back 'home' transferring all sorts of info from your computer to them, without telling you about it first. The inherent advantage of Linux is the availability of the source code, you can always check the source to see what the program is doing. The only way to be 100% safe is have 2 separate computers, one for your private stuff (running only official distro packages) and one for experimenting, or at least keep things in separate virtual machines.

You didn't post the output of lspci yet, but in any case buying a PCI NIC is probably the quickest and cheapest solution (I'd buy it from some local PC store, it's quicker and they are so cheap anyway that you won't save much by buying from newegg).

It could well be that the on-board ethernet chip is defective, it should at least show up in the output of 'lspci' even if it's unrecognized by the drivers. If it doesn't show up in 'lspci' then it's either defective or there is some kind of conflict. Do you have any additional PCI/PCIe cards in the motherboard? also try booting up with the network cable disconnected and see if the NIC gets detected then.

This always been possible and has happened in the past already. The good thing is that it gets easily discovered. I agree though installing packages from random sources is not a good idea without some precautions. For example I have been making occasional packages for Mandriva for quite a while, each package has a dedicated web page on my web site with the source rpm and a link to a forum thread to discuss it, so if I was putting any trojans in my packages it would be pretty easy for someone to find out and report this here on the related thread and, if it gets verified and confirmed, completely ruin my reputation and the one of my web site. So I normally trust packages from non-official sources if the maintainer has a history and a good reputation on related forums. Even with no history I might download the source rpm, look at the code and build the binary rpm from it myself. All it needs is common sense and reasonable precautions.

I don't have a box with x86_64 Mandriva installed, also XBMC has known problems with x86_64, no showstoppers but still it's not as mature as the 32bit version yet, see here: http://www.xbmc.org/forum/showthread.php?t=58131&highlight=64bit If you want you can always grab the spec-file from my web site and build a x86_64 rpm yourself, I'm pretty sure the spec-file needs some changes for x86_64 though.

I have updated the Mandriva 2010.0 XBMC package with the following changes: - bumped svn version to 25484 - added workaround to fix CD/DVD playback, using internal libcdio instead of default Mandriva libcdio0.81 - enabled goom visual effects in build (to use them you still have to activate them in config) - added config file to allow xbmc-standalone to be selected as default autologin desktop from MCC - moved xbmc-standalone session file for GDM to /etc/X11/dm/Sessions/ to avoid duplicate menu entry I highly recommend to upgrade to this new RPM as it fixes CD/DVD playback (with a workaround, waiting for XBMC developer to fix the issue properly) Get it here as usual: http://www.linuxtech.net/downloads/XBMC_media_center_mandriva_rpm.html

I have packaged up the latest 0.9.4 Handbrake release for Mandriva 2010.0 now. It's available on my website at: http://www.linuxtech.net/downloads/handbrake_mandriva_rpm.html

The package is built for 32bits only, sorry I don't have a 64bit build environment to do a 64bit package. But my spec-file is available on my website so you could make your own 64bit package with it. I will be updating the rpm occasionally, I have just released a new update, see my website.

Have a look at the XBMC Manual at: http://xbmc.org/wiki/?title=XBMC_Online_Manual

I have made an updated XBMC Mandriva 2010.0 rpm package available on my website at the usual address: http://www.linuxtech.net/downloads/XBMC_media_center_mandriva_rpm.html Highlights of this update include: - fresh svn version 25146, which is 9.11 beta1 + recent patches/updates since beta1 - new default Confluence XBMC skin - fixed lircd 0.8.6 path issue properly, no more need to create any symlinks If you are running an earlier version of my XBMC package then I strongly recommend an upgrade, the proper fix for the lircd path issue and the new Confluence skin are well worth it.

2008.1 with KDE 3.5.9 is still the best Linux desktop distro of the last few years IMHO, I'm still using it on my main desktop PC and have no intention of changing that anytime soon (before 2008.1 I had been using Mandrake 9.2 for 4 years). I have always believe in: if it ain't broke don't fix it! (that said I have also 2009.0, 2009.1 and 2010.0 running on other PCs, just not on my main desktop PC which is for doing work, not for playing around with distros) So if you were happy with it, I'd suggest reinstall 2008.1, there are still repositories available that have all the software and updates for it, but not all repos have still 2008.1 stuff. If you miss any specific software in 2008.1, just ask here, if it's not a too complicated backport I could package it up for you. You will find that I already backported some stuff to 2008.1, which is available in the downloads section of my web site.

While that might well be the case, the errors shown in this case are clearly not filesystem errors, they are either controller (or driver) errors, or physical disk errors.

I see you have 2 physical disk controller chips, do you know to which one sdb is connected? 00:1f.2 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801JI (ICH10 Family) 4 port SATA IDE Controller 00:1f.5 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801JI (ICH10 Family) 2 port SATA IDE Controller (these two should be both part of the same physical chip, the Intel ICH10 southbridge, first one is probably 4 sata ports while the second one is the IDE connector) 03:00.0 IDE interface: Marvell Technology Group Ltd. 88SE6121 SATA II Controller (rev b2) (this should be a separate chip that provides you with additional sata ports)

Can you post the output of 'lspci' (run as root in a terminal) so we can see the type of Sata controller you have? Also it could be worth running a disk surface check to see if it is a disk problem, it could well be that there are defective sectors on the Linux partition but not on the Windows partition (yet). To do that boot off a bootable Linux CD (for example Mandriva One) and run this command in a terminal: badblocks -sv /dev/sdX (replace X with the sd device letter, it should be 'b' but double-check first with 'fdisk -l' as it might be different when booting off CD)

256MB is ok if you don't plan on starting Firefox or Openoffice, use Opera and Gnome office tools (for example Abiword) instead. LXDE is likely better than Gnome with 256MB.

I just discovered that due to changes in lircd 0.8.6 (used by Mandriva 2010.0) XBMC doesn't find the lircd device by default, lircd 0.8.6 now puts the device in /var/run/lirc/ while XBMC is expecting it by default in /dev. I have therefore updated my Mandriva XBMC RPM with a postinstall script that creates a symlink from /dev/lircd to /var/run/lirc/lircd. Therefore I advise anyone using my Mandriva XBMC RPM to download the latest version (which is also based on the newer svn24802 version) or else run the following command as root to create the link manually: ln -s /var/run/lirc/lircd /dev/

I use both Opera and Seamonkey and I don't notice any speed difference (on older PCs, yes, Opera is faster but it's not noticeable on a modern dual core), maybe that's because Seamonkey has the invaluable 'adblock plus' plugin while Opera has to suffer all the flashy ads slowing it down... I wouldn't use any browser without 'adblock plus' as my primary browser. (and yes, that comes from someone who has a web site with a modest amount of ad banners on it, I don't care if my web site visitors use adblock, it's a free world and I didn't make my website to get rich, as long as it pays for the web hosting related costs that's fine for me! ;) )

As opposed to Firefox being the dumbed down version of Seamonkey aimed at the general IT illiterate public, without all the useful extra config options that Seamonkey provides (which apparently would confuse non techies)...

Just look at the source code... I cannot remember the last time my Seamonkey crashed... :P

I can't think why anyone would want to use a google spyware browser instead of Firefox, Opera or even better Seamonkey... What does Chromium offer that these other browsers don't have?

Thanks to the feedback from one user, I have now updated the package with some additional required dependencies.

After several hours of working on the spec file, I have now created a Mandriva 2010.0 XBMC 9.11svn package. XBMC is a slick Media center application very popular for HTPCs. Here is the link to download the package: http://www.linuxtech.net/downloads/XBMC_media_center_mandriva_rpm.html Once downloaded open a terminal as root, cd into the directory where you downloaded the package to and then install it with: urpmi xbmc-9.11-2.0plf2010.0.i586.rpm Once installed you can run XBMC either directly from the login screen in standalone mode (click on session selector icon, the 'pencil' icon in the lower right corner on the KDM login screen) or from the application launcher menu in KDE or Gnome under "Sound & Video"

Yes my first computer was a rubber-keyboard Sinclair ZX Spectrum 16K (later upgraded to 48K, what a difference 32K made! :D ) (I still have it and it still works!)

1 or 2 megabytes (or do you mean half a megabyte?!) will hardly make any difference... ;) Seems like you still live 15 (or rather 20) years ago too! :P :D

As far as i know, yes.