ChrisM

Welcome aboard the board sophgoat

I did my first linux install about 10 months ago - and at times its been pretty hairy. I too muddle along, sometimes trying somthing a little more adventurous - sometimes things work out, othertimes not :P

But its these boards, and MUB in particular that has got me along - and have given me the confidence to stick with it - now, there is no sign of M$winbloze at home, and at work I only have to rarely use it - linux through and through.

Yup I ask a number of questions and thanks to these guys and gals I get on mostly just fine. I'm no guru - far far far from it - but I try to help back when and where I can - I post up my solutions and suggestions, and highlight other posts/sites/ etc that I've come across, that might be useful to hopefully help others out with their own issues. But I guess this is how it starts, then wham!, one day I'll be a bit more of a tecchy head and help out more - well, thats the theory

Great board is MUB - lots of people helping out lots of people - and its friendly here too.

MUB rox

STOP>PULL THE PLUG

Yes, probably driver related. This is what SANE has to say about my Mustek scanner (which I've yet to get working)

IF YOU HEAR LOUD CLICKING NOISES, IMMEDIATELY UNPLUG THE SCANNER

! (This holds for any type of scanner).

here

You'll need to dig out your's from the site for specifics relevant to your scanner model.

Good luck with it.

Check this thread from the FAQ section, it's all about URPMI. As suggested, URPMI will make your life soooo much easier. Check it out here.

Hang in there, search around this Board, post questions, and maybe check out aRTee's site, Mandraketips4free

At times it may feel a little (or a lot) but sites such as here at MUB really will help you out.

Yeah i have to admit I haven't actually tried this....I meant to but then I just play the disk version...  if I tested it it really would be an academic exersize. 

I have heard that the HW DVD players are fussy especially over DVD-R or +R etc.  but multiformat writers age getting really cheap. 

To me the cost of lots of blank DVD's isn't worth it when you can get a 200GB disk for around $100

I agree that it makes sense to go for the HDD option. But in Shadowchaser's example s/he want's something separate for the kids. I just looked again at amazon (.co.uk) cheapest new divx now at £65.00 - but the best thing about this is, even if you don't buy from Amazon - you can check out the customer reviews and tech spec' so you get a better idea what you get for your lolly before you shop around and part with the hard earned stuff.

If I view a .pdf docuement using KGhostview the text is all garbled UNLESS I configure it to use anti aliasing of fonts and images. If I attempt to print the document, even with anti aliasing, not only does the Print Preview become garbled, but so does the printed document itself. At first i thought this was related to my laser printer - as using an inkjet presented no printing problems.

Last night I installed Acrobat Reader from the MCC - which is able to print the same document perfectly - using the laser jet.

:juggle:

Problem resolved, but I'd like to know more about why I can't print properly from KGhostscript - any suggestions, or related articles I can checkout?

EDIT: I've also tried the following withjout success:

From the document opened in KGhostscript: Print>System Options>Commands

and have selected all of the following:

Enscript Text Filter

Generic Image to PS Filter

PDF Writer (needs Ghostscript)

Postscript to PDF Converter

All previews still look messed up.

Also, URPMI Ghostscript tell me everything is installed

I have a great little DVD that isn't really utilised to its full potential.

Its a Medion MD40814 and I bought it really for its 5.1 surround sound decoder - but it also supports DIVX/Mpegs etc etc etc best thing, it was only £50.00

Got it from Amazon - its no longer stocked, but it got some great customer reviews - IMHO Medion is worth considering if your in the market for a new player.

Just my two pennys worth.

Hey Aura, welcome aboard the Board.

Try using CUPS for your printer set up (you can access this through the Mandrake Control Centre - MCC or by http://localhost:631/) and for sharing files across win/linux use SAMBA. Take a look at this very recent thread here which might have some helpful suggestions.

Also, take a look through the 'Networking' threads here at MUB there's lots of info. I don't use Win so I can't be any more specific.

There is also some online documentation at MandrakeLinux, which has contents that will explain about file sharing via SAMBA which can be found here , this should be useful (Ok its for for mdk10 but it should still be relevant)- look at the link titled 'Starter'.

Good luck.

...much improvements such as - they will make word count feature easily findable instead of hiding it as it currently is. It will also be able to count the number of words within a highlighted body of text.

The spreadsheet will now support 65000 cells and so any size Excel spreadsheet can be opened.

And there is to be a front end to an improved database.

Some nice improvements are on the way...

Just a few questions for ya.

 

1. Is there anything in your home directory that should be there?

 

2. Have you checked your hard drive partitions?

 

3. Did you have a seperate /home partition?

 

I'm just kinda wondering if your /etc/fstab might have gotten messed up some how and didn't mount your home partition.

 

CLiF1274

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

The thing about all of this is, its almost as if I'd popped in a CD and done a clean install/upgrade - when all I did do, was go to MCC and did update medias.

In answer to your questions though:

1) Well, all I have now in my home directory is a tmp folder (lost all previous contents though) and a link to the desktop - everything else - has all gone.

As have links etc on desktop/toolbar other than the breadcrumb as mentioned in an earlier post. Also, all my shortcuts and folder on Konqueror browser, email settings, address book, notes etc etc in Kontact - have all just gone.

Basically, any of the folders or contents that I created have all vanished.

A number of apps/settings have vanished - though the taskbar shows that staroffice did at least reside there.

Also, shell line in console has been amended.

2) & 3) Not sure what you mean by checking my HDD partitions. The partitions on my HDD are as Mandrake installed originally upon installation. From the MCC this is how the hard drive is set :

hda:

Mount Point: /

Device: hda1

Type: Journalised FS: ext3

Size: 5.5BGB

Formatted

Mounted

Mount Point: swap

Device: hda5

Type: Linux swap

Size: 494MB

Formatted

Mounted

Mount Point: /home

Device: hda6

Type: Journalised FS: ext3

Size: 3.4GB

Formatted

Mounted

I checked out my fstab and noticed I now have 2 fstabs (fstab and fstab~) - I may have before, never noticed though.

Right click/properties suggests the fstab~ is a backup but lines 4 and 5 are different

read outs are below.

fstab

/dev/hda1 / ext3 defaults 1 1

none /dev/pts devpts mode=0620 0 0

/dev/hda6 /home ext3 defaults 1 2

none /mnt/cdrom supermount dev=/dev/hdc,fs=auto,ro,exec,--,umask=0,user,iocharset=iso8859-15,codepage=850,users 0 0

none /mnt/floppy supermount dev=/dev/fd0,fs=ext2:vfat,--,umask=0,iocharset=iso8859-15,sync,codepage=850 0 0

none /proc proc defaults 0 0

/dev/hda5 swap swap defaults 0 0

fstab~

/dev/hda1 / ext3 defaults 1 1

none /dev/pts devpts mode=0620 0 0

/dev/hda6 /home ext3 defaults 1 2

/dev/hdc /mnt/cdrom auto umask=0,user,iocharset=iso8859-15,codepage=850,noauto,ro,exec,users 0 0

/dev/fd0 /mnt/floppy auto noauto,user

none /proc proc defaults 0 0

/dev/hda5 swap swap defaults 0 0

Is there anything sinister here?

I have a terrible gut feeling my system is borked.

Just reading through an article on CUPS in the Nov2002 no.48 Linux Magazine (I looked at the web site, but its not available online yet)

Have you the full set of CUPS packages installed? urpmi/MCC should take care of this.

The mag says that you should have a collection of drivers - look for foomatic in the driver names.

and

If you have a Hewlett-Packard Deskjet or OfficeJet you should additionally install the hpijs package.

I can scan the article - but it will be done at work and may not be until wednesday when I'm most likely to be in the office - if you want it, PM your email address.

Dunno why it wont take your password though - I've tried a few times and it works OK.

It doesn't accept my root password!? what the h*ll?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

those are definately the username/pswd you need to use - I just double checked.

Have you seen any of the cups/samba documentation: from cups Documentation>FAQs>Network Questions>How Do I Use SAMBA With CUPS

I use CUPS but its across a linux network, so no experience of samba. Here are a couple of samba related posts which *might* contain something useful

here

and

here

EDIT: you probably know this, but I'm sure it'll be useful for someone's first intorduction to CUPS. If configuring at http://localhost:631 you will at some point be prompted for a username and password.

username, type root

password is your root password

instead of using kprinter/yast - why not use CUPS instead?

61 has Fedora Core 3 and Ubuntu.

 

I've tried them both... still like SuSe best though.

 

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The latest LXF (63) DVD version comes with Sun Java Desktop Live cd - which is installed with StarOffice7. It also comes with Knoppix 3.7 and something called Flash Linux - designed to boot from USB flash keys. It arrived in the post this w/e.

I've filed a report with Bugzilla - so I guess it's just sit and wait time for this to be hopefully sorted out. Right now though, I'm not even bothered about the loss of apps, or even the shell line in a console not being right - all these can be sorted out later, even if it means reinstalling.

However, would it be possible in some way to tell if my work documents have been hidden/moved into cyberlimbo somewhere? Its as if everything has gone without trace.

so far I've tried an urpmi auto update, changed msec levels, looked at hidden folders and tried to find my folders with knoppix (but don't really know how to use it for recovery mode). Man this is so frustrating.

Ah, Linuxmagazine! I thought you were talking about Linuxformat!

 

LinuxMagazine seems too technical for me though...

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

It is quite teccy, but it has some interesting stuff - some good reviews and has some nice distro's attached.

I've found it quite helpful previosuly esp the recent article on CUPS.

But an intersting article this month about commands for finding files etc (though not much use if your updates wipes everything off the face of the planet!) and an interesting review of the forthcoming Open Office. Bit extravagent paying that much dosh for a couple of articles and a DVD.

Still prefer LinuxFormat though (but I wish they would do something with their web site).

61 has Fedora Core 3 and Ubuntu.

 

I've tried them both... still like SuSe best though.

 

Edit: ChrisM, which issue is this?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Hey Darkelve

You need to be lookin @ Issue 51 February 2005

here's the web page

Does anyone know of any magazines that came out with full versions of redhat or mandrake, someone told me that i could get mandrake from a magazine(No way to download it)

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

This months Linux Magazine also come with 10.1Official DVD

You can use the Bugzilla link in my signature.  :)

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Cheers spinynorman -

dunno... depends on how fast anyone can fix these problems and maybe on how loud you cry.

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Uummm... what's the best way to raise this? I do recall with MDK 9.2 when doing an update I lost all my desktop icons - this as it turns out was a recognised bug within 9.2 - at the time I wasn't aware and I notified a few times, mandrakeexpert (I was also withinn my support period as I'd bought 9.2 powerpack) Nobody ever got back - one of the reasons why I'm hesitant to buy into club etc.

So, if my 10.1 isn't a bought version, where's the best place to raise it? - its a bit drastic when doing an update I not only lose some work I'd saved on my HDD - yes I should have backed it up - but I also lost some apps > an entire StarOffice 7/Firefox/Thunderbird.

just the same on my box after running some updates. but i don't care about it as long as everything runs okay. i think the next update will fix it again.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

...and a question out of desperation here :sad:

how long [typically] between updates - anyone?

EDIT: argh - possibly days...

Heya Arctic,

in some ways this is a little reassuring - makes me feel that I didn't accidentally screw anything up. My problem is though - I also lost a load of work. :unsure:

I've also just noted something else - on the task bar where I added a few shorcut icons (firefox/Thunderbird/konqueror/Star Office etc) I lost most - not all - I now have the big blue wheel - if I click on it, I get an error box which says

Error KDE Panel

The desktop entry file /home/chris/.kde/share/apps/kicker/staroffice7-4.desktop has no Type=... entry.

Now my entire Star Office has disappeared from the shortcut and menu...so to have this little breadcrumb is intriguing.

Is it worth trying a bugfix update...at the moment I dare not too many things as I would really like to recover the lost material at some stage if its possible.

edit: Looked at MCC - no bugfixes available anyway.

I've changed the title of this thread cos now I'm really confused and concerend.

I've also noted that in konsole instead of getting:

[chris@localhost]$

I now have

bash-2.05b$

something somewhere went very wrong.

Just to update to let you guys know I haven't given up on the advise - seems there is a problem with the phone exchange - gonna be at least another couple of days b4 its fixed    so no internet, other than for a few brief seconds     I'm using a winblows box at the uni library at the mo, so nothing I can do at all for now  .

 

Cheers.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

OK. well, seems that we now have the telephone exchange repaired and that there is a constant connection. That's the good news.

Now, for the bad. Very Bad.

I went into MCC to go through the update process once agin, in order that I could either resolve the query or feedback into this thread.

I updated Media (contrib, main, plf, updates etc) and attempted a security update. Again, there were jsut three packages with the bad signatures. It asked if I wanted to install - I said no. I tried to take a screenie in order that I have the exact text in the warning box. For some reason this did not work and nothing would shut down. I did a Logout/restart - thinking that other than MCC then the progrrames I had opened would simply re start, and I'd have to return to MCC in the new session.

Well, it restarted a new session - it bizzarly popped up with the Mandrake welcome screen, worse and to my horror, my shortcuts in the task bar had ALL gone, as had shortcuts on my desktop, as has all my work in /home

and worse still - no recent (long time) backups either Any idea WTF happened here, and is there any chance of any kind of recovery?

I'm always telling my girlfriend to backup - I got lazy, and now I'm paying. Supposed to be backing her sys up tonite too

Mandrake 10.1

Also got Knoppix 3.3 - but don't know how to use it as a disaster recovery disk.

Any help very much appreciated. I feel a real idiot.

In anticipation...

and remember this time to turn the power off - lucky it was only the floppy that got fried - sparks, electric, fingers and stuff - ouch