aRTee

You call that slow??? <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Yeah, when I plucked RC2 off an FTP server it was coming in at 250KB/s... Anyway, overnight it came in, and I have started on downloading some other versions, the live cd for instance. ddmcse, make sure you try also with the multimedia kernel - that one gets many more patches, only with that one does my laptop do suspend to ram AND suspend to disk properly. Not sure if this will be the same with 2006 of course, but it is one more thing to try...

I'm downloading slowly but surely... around 100KB/s, not too bad. There's also a new Live CD called Discovery Live. Time to replace Move I guess.. ;) Looks like some nice times ahead, I hope Mdv 2006 rocks the way it should!

I'm not arguing with the competition that Opera is facing from FF. The point is that FF, being Free Software and popular as it is, it's practically immortal, just as Linux, KDE, GNU tools, etcetc. Well, I would actually like to never ever have to wait for my computer. Opera is so fast, it hardly makes a difference if I read a file from my local drive or if I get it from a website with a fast server. Honestly, the difference with FF is not so much that it matters a whole lot, but if a system is under load and/or not so fast it will make a difference. Wasn't one of the points of Linux that one could make due with lesser hardware? And if opera runs faster on the same machine, doesn't that come down to the same thing? I don't see why it would be a plus for Linux but not for Opera. The advantage of having mail in the browser is not the big deal, the point is that apparently many people like to have less different interfaces and programs to deal with. That, combined with the fact that it's crossplatform, means that there's one more choice for people on MSWin that smoothens the path to Linux. As for thanking FF for getting us real choice, I respectfully disagree. We have always had real choice, Opera and Mozilla were fine, the difference is not so big compared to before FF came around. The hype around FF and the whole campaign got people to switch - and it is thanks to the people who switch that choice has become more real. (But then again, shouldn't we also thank Apple for using khtml as a basis for safari?) I've been without IE and on Linux for just about 4 years now (if memory serves). So I guess I've had a choice for a bit longer, which seemed real enough for me to take it at the time. Haven't heard any complaints from my wife who's been using Mozilla on Mdk 10.1 up until 2 weeks ago (emergency install, dead harddrive), and she's never had any complaints about her web browser, so before FF life was livable too. Nonetheless, I agree completely with you that not just free software but Free Software is the way to go, which is why I have the FF icon on my site and no icon for Opera...

John, Opera is not trying to kill off FF, they are just changing their strategy. It's actually one of the few closed source/proprietary products I like, it just works great. I use Konq, FF and Opera in that order at home, and FF, IE in that order at work (100% FF if I can help it..). One reason to like Opera is that it is fast, has a mailclient and is crossplatform - you can easily get people to use Opera on win, then move all to Linux and have them continue. I know this was true for Mozilla, but now you need 2 apps for mail and www, and it's not so fast.

I agree with all others who take the point of view that the counter on distrowatch is not very meaningful. Let's suppose the Ubuntu numbers are not rigged/cheated, which they may or may not be,... and thus people have more interest for Ubuntu, so what? I'd worry if Mandriva fell out of the top 5, but that's not happening anytime soon, especially if you take into account the upcoming release. You know what? There's been lots of talk about Ubuntu, in the press, magazines, etc. So it may well be because of that that there's more interest about it. Honestly, the score at distrowatch is indicative at best, useless at worst. I mean, which user of Mandriva actually goes there? Or, for that matter, which linux user goes there? To find out which distro you want to mess with next? In general, I don't think so. As for Ubuntu, it's great, but somewhat overhyped - I've had more success with Mandriva/drake on various hardware (mind you, over 6 months ago). That said, I'm happy Ubuntu is around, since it seems a completely free (Free) modern debian based distro was lacking.

Go to: http://www.dell.fr/mipe/ and let your browser follow the auto-links, (in my case it goes to: http://www1.euro.dell.com/content/topics/t...hs1&l=fr&s=dhs) it will take you to a page in French aimed at students in France; the 4th laptop (the one on the right) is preloaded with Mandriva 2005 LE: Price: 759 ?

Howabout using VNC? You can have the clients connect in 'listen' mode, so they can only see what you're showing. Nice added bonus: any java enabled webbrowser works, so it doesn't matter what platform the students are using, they can just enter the url and all should be ok.

You can use: dd if=/dev/cdrom1 | head -c `stat --format=%s mdk101oe-dvd/Mandrakelinux-10.1-Official-DVD.i586.iso` | md5sum where you can replace the part between `-quotes with the actual size in bytes of the original iso image. If you do: cmp /dev/cdrom1 mdk101oe-dvd/Mandrakelinux-10.1-Official-DVD.i586.iso (again, an example from the Mdk10.1 era) it should tell you it runs into the iso image's end-of-file / EOF, nothing else.

Konqueror is actually the fastest for me; well, maybe equal to Opera... Guess the old adage is valid: Your Mileage May Vary....

urpmf [progam or file name] will tell you which packages contain that string.

There's a story I'd like to share with you guys and girls, about a windows power user who's not a Linux convert, not an ideal Linux user, but close to it. Guy comes to me (colleague at work, I've done a presentation at work on Linux so people know I'm into it), says: can you get me Linux? I pass him the download dvd of Mdv05le. Told him I have a site with info that may help to get started, he goes: well, maybe later, first I want to try myself. A little background: this guy is a power user, knows Unix from work, has done Windows programming (3d game stuff and then some), has never seen or used Linux. He's an electronics engineer (MSEE) like me. Comes back some time (about a week I'd guess) later: my internet doesn't work. Me: well, does your NIC get detected? Have you entered the correct IP things (dhcp or whatnot, DNS, etc)? There's this nice graphical setup, you know... Him: Ehm, I have a wireless USB stick of brand soandso, and the Linux development site says that kernel 2.6.10 should have the fix of USB numbering integrated... Doesn't Mdv include this? (I was feeling silly, this guy had gone quite a bit farther in his first Linux week than anyone else I know - without ever asking anyone anything...) So we talk about versions, and how to see what's what, and he goes off. 2 weeks later, he comes back: him: darn, can't seem to compile these fixes in, and it's nasty since I only have wireless, I have to reboot to windows to see what my errors mean, and to download any patches... I offered to have a look at his hardware, but adviced him to check if the multimedia kernel would work. And I left for a week, so he was by himself. BTW by then I had explained urpmi would work beautifully to install software, but of course it does need an internet connection.... I come back from my holidays, guy tells me he fixed it. Tried the mm kernel, no go, then recompiled the mm source after patching with info from that development site - nasty, since the mm kernel is already heavily patched, he also told me he had to modify the patch....! Anyway, so he managed to compile, then figured out there is something wrong in the order the modules and wifi firmware get loaded, so he made a script for that and has the system call that from rc.local at boot. And, he tells me he bought some books off Amazon - Linux kernel device drivers and 2 other books that are way beyond me... saying: "Yeah, now I really want to figure out exactly how this wifi thingy communicates over usb, so I want to write my own code and have the thing respond to me." Impressive, zero messages for help on any board, very few questions to me, and the guy is hacking his kernel drivers. Understandably, he thinks Linux is not fit for the average user, since 'who would have managed to get this device going? Well, maybe all current linux users could, but very very few current windows users could...' Frankly, I don't think we have people here that had to go through that the first time they got Linux _and_ got through it, with so little help. Probably most people would have chucked Linux the moment they found out they would have to patch and recompile the usbcore drivers. This guy did that 3x by now. Oh yeah, so I requested that he tell Mdv about this patch and his experience, so they can include the patch in future kernels, and he says: "yeah, maybe next week I'll have some time to do a clean install, and repeat the whole process properly"... Well, I told him not to go through it again, just to tell them about it. Anyway, I'm impressed, I think I would have given up on Linux or (more likely) on that piece of hardware, and I have the feeling I'm not alone in that...

On a side note, if you have 2 rpm's (both downloaded and thus locally) that depend on eachother, just use one single urpmi command on both: urpmi [package1].rpm [package2].rpm and the loop is fixed. Anyway, happy things work ok now, enjoy Linux!

urpmf [program or filename] will search for that name in all packages - practical if some program that is not available as Mdv rpm complains at compile or run time about missing programs or libs... it will mention the missing file, but that may be part of a package with a completely different name, and that's where urpmf comes in. Yves, have you just started messing with Debian? Tell us how you like it!

You can try, after logging on and on an xterm/konsole xhost + and then try again.

If you can rip audio cds, playing them digitally should be no problem.

I'm really curious as to what is behind this. Please answer/respond if you're having this slow behaviour. I know from experience that webbrowsing times can be slow, but in the cases I have seen it was remedied by not pointing to the gateway device as dns but put the ip addresses of the providers dns servers directly. If browsing is slow, there would be a message like: resolving [www name] and the browser would just sit there. In that case, ping is also slow. What kind of times do you get if you ping www.google.com (also try www.google.nl .it .co.uk etc, just for kicks)? Normally I get around 35ms or so - this is through cable (2mbit/s connection). And my browsing is lightning fast - to the point that I know I'm faster in finding something on my _own_ website by using google via the net than to go to my webdir locally... If you have downloaded a webpage, and you hit reply or request another page from the same server, is it still slow? If it is, it's not dns - that already got resolved... Do you have bind installed and running? Suppose you get fast ping times but slow pages from those domains, could it be browser related? I'd say if you get slow ping times at first, but then fast responses, I'd say there's something wrong with the dns setup - I'm not talking about user config per se. If you get fast response on some domains/servers, but slow on others, could there be issues between certain servers and the webbrowser you're using? Let's not forget, several people may have symptoms of slowness, but there may be different things at hand, in one case a nasty router, in another some browser plugins, etc. Just because things look/behave the same, they aren't necessarily due to the same cause.

For dvd playback and urpmi (software installation) info/setup, refer to my configuration page. For aac playback, just search in the software installation after adding plf repositories, it should be something like libaac or so.

Arne, where did you get those rpm packages? Couldn't you have installed abiword by doing urpmi abiword or via the Mandrake control center - software installation? I think it may not show up in the menu since Mandriva switched to the freedesktop.org menu standard.

I get that scarecrow, but I don't think Ross here is a big fan of nero express, he's smart enough to give Linux a try,.. :D Ross, do you at least get the first screen? To where do you get? Please describe.

No, I mentioned the advantages, and eliminating jitter is not one of them - if you have the drive read the data, pass them to the system over the (s)ata bus, having the system deal with CIRSC (cross interleaved Read Solomon code) decoding and error correction and then some. So, if you want to listen to music from a cd in your cd/dvdrom drive while burning a cd on the burner, especially when it's on the same channel, go for the analog cable. If you stress your system (cpu or bus intensive: kernel compile, rip dvd on other drive, heavy use of filters in photo editing, whatever) you may get hiccups when going the digital path, whereas the analog cable will just have the cd/dvdrom drive play back _without needing any resources from the system_ (apart from electrical power), it will just keep on playing. Any DAC (digital/analog converter) will have to have a quartz based precision in time that makes jitter irrelevant for all practical purposes - no matter if it's the DAC on the drive or on the audio card you speak of. And if the DAC on your audio card has better specs, it might theoretically yield better results, however, for 16 bit cd audio, 100dB signal to noise ratio, dynamic range and channel separation better than 85dB is fine, and any cd/dvdrom drive should be able to do that. As to disadvantages: if your system has such good audio quality or your cdrom has such bad ones that you can tell, don't use the analog cable. BTW come to think of it, I have a digital cable between the dvdrom and the soundcard. So in my case it really makes zero sense to use anything but that cable...

Actually it was dell who used non-standard pinning on their psu's and mobo's - not compaq afaict, and I've seen and had some compaqs from Pi to PIII's... Dell used to do it from some PII to PIII models if memory serves; the Inquirer had an article about it at some point.

Creative soundcards are actually the better supported ones. Hope you don't have a Dell SBlive 5.1 since those are nonstandard (but by now maybe those work fine too). Open the mixer and play with all settings (one by one), sometimes the setting for digital/analog is wrongly set. FWIW, I have an SBLive 5.1 and an Audigy2, both work great, surround, etc all ok.

I have seen this with the 10.0 enterprise kernel, and I have seen it a few times before that, ... what would help is to unplug the pc after powering down (using the power button after the system stopped all processes). Somehow some BIOSes are funny. No clue why, but this has helped for me, and for some others who faced the same issue.

The new user (any new user) of Linux who has MSWin experience is going to be tainted, and thus have some issues with Linux. It's not easy for the new user to distinguish between which issues are due to 'learnt behaviour' from another OS - no matter how stupid it may be, and issues due to Linux not being logical, and issues due to Linux doing what the new user unwantedly asked from it - maybe at a point where this new user agreed with something, checked some box during installation or whatnot. Why have an icon that leads to a filebrowser in ones computer and label it with 'my computer'? I would logically expect this icon to lead to a hardware overview. Label it with 'home' is not much better though... On the other hand, I agree that it's silly not to have the documentation installed. This thread goes to remind us - it takes time and effort to learn Linux and unlearn bad habits. And then there's some extra stuff. Taking things slow is how to do it. Might I propose my switching page? It's on my site, and though it's years old, I think most of it still makes perfect sense...

My guess is you need some boot options - no clue as to which though... Can't seem to think of any explanation that is related to having Mandriva on the same harddrive.