Cannonfodder

You can also compile a new kernel and have it co-exist next to your current kernel. When you install Mandrake, all those other options on the LILO boot page are alternate kernels! Check here..

http://www.mandrakeuser.org/docs/install/index.html#ku

That's a nice website to keep in your bookmarks! I added it to Weblinks under Worthwhile Links B)

It's possible, you can go to www.bootdisk.com and get a boot floppy with fdisk on it. Do a fdisk /mbr. If that works, then only windows will boot. You will need to boot from CD1 Mandrake to reinstall lilo.

If it doesn't work, then take a peek with fdisk at your partition and make sure the first partition is still windows. Does C: (after booting from the floppy) show you the windows files? (might not if its ntfs). In any case, the fdisk mbr is a simple mbr that states, "boot the OS in hda1". No more no less. If its not working after that, then either your boot.ini is NOW wrong or your partition table may be screwed up.

Here is also a plain english description of how to recompile your kernel..

http://www.mandrakeuser.org/docs/install/index.html#ku

If you have any ISP issues, or don't like yours, try

www.isp.com.. good value for the service and no authentication weird stuff going on. Don't get the highspeed dial up for linux unless you can run a windows program in linux (possible possible...)

You can also do searches on the following keywords

fstab dev vfat ntfs

Basically, the file /etc/fstab contains entries for each partition linux will mount. Each entry describes the partition file type, where to mount, and who can access it.

You can also run diskdrake and look at your partition setup. Just be careful not to save any changes. Diskdrake will list a partition as hda1 for example. If you look in /etc/fstab, you should find an entry for /dev/hda1. If not, then that is your problem.

You can also check out the mount command.. do some reading on mount and fstab, its worth your time..

I don't know the answer to your serial quesiton, but wouldn't it be easier to network your windows and nix systems using samba and ethernet?

Plus if you can't post a simple text message through your browser using php, I gotta wonder what the hell your system is doing :)

Well, if I did this, could I use a utility from my bios (phoenix) to restore it if it doesn't work out?

What happens if you pull the battery out of the motherboard, does the bios reset to default code? Not very knowlegable here..

Usually if windows won't boot, then there is a reason.. the password is the password you type in during windows installation. There is a file on your c:\ called boot.ini. It indicates the location of the boot partition (like lilo). Lilo passes the boot process off to the windows boot manager so if that file is incorrect, you have problems. Its a good reason to continue to put windows in the first active partition ;)

I disagree, I usually install windows first and then linux. In this fashion, linux will pick up the windows installation and make a lilo.conf entry for you. As far as windows goes, once lilo passes the buck to windows, windows just runs its own boot program..

THe problem with mailwasher (I used to use it) is that when you bounce email, you just make the problem worse. More email traffic that costs money. Plus many spammers have learned to simply ignore these bounces or have software that can time the bounces to see if they were realtime or an user action.

I've used popfile as well. This works for any window or linux box. It acts like a proxy server and modifies the mail header via a set of rules that you define. Then your client can catch those mail headers and send them to destinations or kill them.

This works particiularly well with opera as opera allows the creation of folder views that can scan email headers/bodys/specific fields for a keyword.

So, in popfile I would define some catagories such as popspam, friends, work, business, so on. Then I would train popfile by telling it which emails I receive belong in which catagories. Eventually, it will pick this up on its own. It always does require some constant monitoring to make sure the small percentage of new mail is catagorized correctly.

Then I read my email with opera and have a view that for example, only views email with popspam in the header. I turn off opera's spam filter (mainly useless anyways). Then, once a week, I can quickly check my popspam folder for mistakes and then delete the rest..

Has anyone tried this package that replaces your bios with a linux bios and (I think) kernel?

http://www.linuxbios.org/

Good luck..

NOte.. opera mail works on both linux and windows..

If disk space is the issue, get another disk! While I recognize this as an anti-M$ rant, I would not recommend anyone just turning off windows because it uses disk space. In your case, you probably are using a large swap which is why its so big. When you reduce the size of the partition, windows has to use a smaller swap. Also, windows does collect alot of undo files and other temp stuff. Plus in cases, it will unzip extract files during system updates and other software installs and then leave them behind.. Right-clicking on C: and going to tools, you can ask it to find all this and remove it.

More seriously, as a computer scientist, my opinion of windows is that it is a tool. Just like linux, and other OS's. If it was a piece of junk, I wouldn't have it installed. What I really object too is the philosophy of the company that owns it. In this aspect you could call me a moderate in that I'm still willing to use Windows for my own reasons as well as Linux.

Ok, enough of being an old fuddy duddy

Split the nano/ncurses request to its own thread..

http://www.mandrakeusers.org/index.php?showtopic=13058

Has anyone been successful at getting their wireless G board going with Mandrake 10 CE? If so, any pointers or how-tos I can read? I'm googling and it seems like everyone is doing something different..

Did you su to obtain root privileges?

yeah!

Some other issues I thought of while reading this are..

When I initially got into linux, I had one hard drive with Win98 on it. In quick procession, I managed to destroy my entire partition layout over and over again. This required me to reinstall win98 and then linux and then it would be destroyed again.. Finally I hit on what the issue was.. Both windows and linux have extended partitions. However, they are not defined in the same manner in the partition table. After installing linux and including an extended partitions (with logical linux partitions), I would then go back to windows 98 and use fdisk or some other partition manager to make changes. *CRASH*. Windows fdisk.exe doesn't understand linux extended format. The result was that it would try to fix it and would hash it up badly.

My solution was to tell linux to created windows type extended partitions or to predefine the partitions by using fdisk before installing linux. In both cases, you should select CUSTOM PARTITIONING when installing Mandrake Linux. THis gives you the ability to select which partitions are to be used for what.

Eventually, the best solution is to buy a second hard drive. They are cheap enough nowadays that its a good purchase. You can install windows on your first drive and install linux on your second drive. In this manner, you can use the disk manager or fdisk designed for the OS.

If you select Custom Paritioning, you can click the More options button to get an option called Preference. In Preference you can indicate whether the new partition you are creating should be a primary, extended, or extended-85 (I think). This last option corresponds to the windows definition of an extended partition.

Anyone know how I can start a gnome-terminal session with a high priority? (e.g. -17). I can open a terminal now and then run gnome-system-monitor and alter the process's priority to make it complete faster (e.g. compiling kernel). But I would like to make a desktop menu bar icon that launches the terminal with a high priority by default? How can I do this?

Does this happen for all attempts to use check install or just this one? If just this one, what happens when you attempt to install the software without checkinstall? Process of elimination ;)

If this occurs for all checkinstall activities, first try uninstalling it and then reinstalling it to see if it corrects the problem..

can you ping your smtp host? If so, you issues probably have to do with your authentication or some other email setting..

Really if you are concerned about your hard drive being faulty, then you can go to the manufactorer's website and download utilities for checking it out.

Sounds to me like you have an ext3 problem. Worst case scenerio, swtich to reiserfs and give it a shot.. best case, figure out the ext3 problem..