aRTee

Instead of Unofficial, I always prefer the term Independent.... Other than that, I agree, it could and should be made more clear....

Then you shouldn't be licensing it under GPL. If you think this way, you don't get the 'free as in speech' part of the GNU philosophy, nor the things that make Richard Stallman tick. There's no middle ground. Check the 4 freedoms. (I know that you, Gowator, knew that, but I'm just adding it for all those others... ;) ) Back to the CC issue... Yes it's needed, yes I find the MCC doing its job fine, no I don't have big issues with it, yes I use it to do those things that have always 'just worked' for me with it: printer sharing, networking, scanner sharing (wouldn't even know how to do that from the command line, what files are involved etc...) and then some. No, it's not been without trouble, but it is atm. I am certainly capable of figuring things out without the MCC or other CC in other distros, but for many tasks it works fine. Lastly, for breaking in into the desktop space, CCs are really required. Whether you want Linux to succeed there is up to you, .... for long term 'security' it is in any case a good thing if more people use Linux - less chances to be cut off / put aside. To me, the more people using Linux, the better. Then again, don't hasten people who aren't ready. It takes time and effort, no matter from what system one changes to what, even with the best CC. And I still find there are plenty of people ready and willing to take the plunge and make it work, so I don't push people to Linux at all. If they have a look at my 3d desktop and are really impressed, all the better... :) No, they distribute the source in whole of what they are shipping. Nowhere does it say (luckily!!!) that they have to distribute the whole original source that they base their code on. Imagine the protection: just adding a few terabytes of garbage (extended text) to your code to make sure anyone distributing it will be killed by bandwidth issues. As to what is a CC.... Just take a deep breath and think what a newbie would consider a control center, not what you are discussing semantically or otherwise. The original question is relatively easy, just take it in the first, main, sense. Let me try to express this in my own words: whenever a newbie can go into the menu / click an icon on the desktop / on the panel and have a window show up, from within which said newbie can configure 'stuff' on his machine, then this is a control center, as opposed to having various graphical applications to configure the various parts, or using the command line or gui text editors entirely. At least, that's how I took the meaning of it, and that's how I answered it.

neddie, you just took the words out of my eh, keyboard.... :)

I'm downloading all torrents, this is the list atm: mandriva-discovery-2007-DVD.i586.torrent mandriva-discovery-2007-CD.i586.torrent mandriva-powerpack-2007-CD1-4.i586.torrent mandriva-powerpack-2007-DVD.i586.torrent mandriva-powerpack-2007-CD5-6.i586.torrent Don't use the computer much, don't download or upload anything, so why not help out a bit... :) In any case, it looks like in about 2 weeks or so 2007 will be released. Best update your cooker now, so you already have it! ;) edit: hmm, updating pointing to cooker seems already risky, in my case it wants to deinstall harddrake and kdebase and then some due to missing stuff....

Just replying about the epson rx700 printer/scanner - the scanner works out of the box, the printer doesn't with mdv2006 - which is why I upgraded. With mdv2007 (beta2 is the first I tried) it works, but in GIMP I get way to much ink, so I had to reduce that. I find the quality is best for photos when copying the jpg to a card in the cardreader, then printing from the printer directly.... Reducing the output density (sliders in GIMP print output tab) does do wonders. Contrary to what is written on Linuxprinting.org, it looks like it is possible to use the cd / dvd printing option from within Linux as well. However, this machine can do all without a computer; and you can do all with mem cards as well.... scanning to memory card, copying, printing, etc. Very nice.

Bought a new printer/all in one (epson rx700 - great machine), so I had to update. No time for anything really, hence my absence here, but anyway... Tried to update just gutenprint, no way, then thought: a new install (not throwing away the old working one) will be faster than figuring out exactly what to upgrade... I was wrong - it took me some hours. I had no graphics, didn't follow development so I didn't know the nv driver is now a separate package. I have an agp nvidia gf4200ti on my main monitor, plus a pci ati 9250 for my beamer. Yeah, combo from hell. Anyway, this was all with the beta 2, didn't know the beta three was out. Seems some stuff was quite broken, couldn't select packages during install, etcetc. Good looks though. On 3GB I got 1.2GB new after pointing at cooker and doing urpmi --auto-select... After getting the nvidia driver working (never used the nv driver, first had it missing, then got nvidia working, then saw a message at some point flash by: installing xorg-nv-something...) and disabling my ati card: bliss in 3d desktopland. Apart from the fact that I really like kwin and my config of it, compiz lacks so many usability features and has just soo many eyecandy options that I'm having a hard time with it... all the looks but not so nice to use... If I actually had time I'd write a real review (of the final),... not sure if I will find the time...

two comments from my side: 1 - you can't move the boundary of the extended partition (the one holding your logical partitions) afaik, and you can't combine 2 partitions on either side of this boundary If you're not sure, post your partition table here. 2 -my advice: use your 10GB free partition as a new Linux partition, so you can try newer editions of Mandriva - it's up to 2006 now, or other distros, without losing your old one. BTW 10.1 is old. If it works, no worries, keep it, but lots of stuff has really been improved. Using this 10GB partition to find out if you'd like something newer is the smoothest way, without burning any bridges. If you have several GB free on your current root, after a year or so of use, it's unlikely you're going to fill that up with programs. (commercial/really big) games go onto /home/user anyway.

There are some other sound recorders, I've used one of them - forgot the name. Just check start - multimedia - sound, or mcc - software installation and search for sound recording in descriptions.

Exactly what John said. Added to that, I really got the hang of kooka (kde sane frontend), so I advice you to give that a try. It's scanning done right if you ask me. Or at least: more choice.

IIRC, unrar is in plf repositories, so if I'm right, you need to have those added in software installation/manager. See urpmi setup threads.

If the info gets encrypted, it wouldn't be a problem either way...

Honestly, I don't get what you guys are so upset about. Mandriva management sacks original developer/initiator. Mandriva management has no clear vision, strategy, direction, etc. Mandriva management has not changed from what it was before they sacked said co-founder. It's been quite the same for some time now. From all I can tell, Gael didn't have a big hand in most big decisions of the last few years. So what difference does this make? Why would you want to ditch Mandriva the distribution due to this? Didn't we all always know that Mandriva the company is as clueless as ever? Did this ever stop us Mandriva Linux users to use Mandriva Linux? To get back to the part where Mandriva (then Mandrake) got 'proper management' (as Gowator puts is: from 'grandes écoles'), that was because the investors and such asked for this. They were in charge, so they got to spell out their wishes. In the meantime, Mandrake/iva was developed into one of the top Linux distributions, which incidentally, it actually still is. There's actually nothing new here, as one can get from the various comments, for instance those of Gowator - nothing new, he's been telling his story for what, 2 years now? The company is just as crappy now as it is then. I believe (and this is from my experience as well) that Mandriva Linux is a top distribution, and for any case where it fails and some other distro succeeds, I can relate a story where other distro's failed to please and Mandriva delivered. So, management sacks Gael. Tough luck for him. I wish him all the best, and frankly, I think that an open source insider / grand developer with insight will likely be better off outside of a company with such management. So it may not be great at the moment, it's always tough to go through that, but in the end he'll be better off. The true loss isn't even on the Mandriva Co. side since I don't think they were making full use of Gael anyway. Shock, horror, world keeps on spinning. Tomorrow's another day. BTW my server uptime: 22:55:18 up 300 days, 28 min, 0 users, load average: 0.39, 0.63, 0.70 It's running Mandriva 05LE and will likely continue to do so until I want it to stop doing so. Since I have no time to mess with it, it will remain as it is for the time being. No problem at all.

Try ctrl-alt-+ or ctrl-alt-- (minus), repeatedly. This goes through the various refreshrates and resolutions, at least one of which is usually 60 Hz. Once your screen is working, adjust proper monitor settings. Alternatively, you could hit ctrl-alt-F1, login as root, edit /etc/X11/XF86Config-4 and put the proper info for your monitor. You'd need some command line experience for that, and vi experience (not for the uninitiated).

/mnt/removable works fine for me; open konqueror and go to media:/ (just put that in the url field), then see if it shows up. If it doesn't, weird, you may want to open a topic. Since this might be a kernel related issue, you could try with the multimedia kernel... [edit] sometimes it gets a different name than 'removable', CFcards out of my wife's Canon get a name like /mnt/CANON...

Congrats and welcome to the board! Could you give a quick summary of your hardware? It's always good to know what works (most regular stuff does nowadays, so I'm especially interested in more exotic things). Thanks in advance. Enjoy Linux!

I must say, I'd recommend against Philips drives - only windows firmware upgrade, and maybe now made by BenQ, but previously I got a comment via via from the Quality Assurance person of dvd burners who recommended colleagues to get some other brand......!!!

It's simple to spread an attachment / .doc embedded virus with Linux. Just forward the email. My wife sometimes gets these powerpoint slideshows with viruses. They are really funny and often she would like to send them on - so I have to tell her "no". Apart from that, yes, a virus can technically do damage to user data. However, for the really paranoid (who set their system up to be protected against realistically non-existing virus threads) it's easily possible to create an internet account (extra user) and use that within your regular account to do email stuff, read attachments and handle basically any non-trustable stuff. We have su, chown, chmod, etc. About viruses not being able to run, not having root access and all - this is old hat in Unixland that it _IS_ possible to escalate priviliges, one _CAN_ get more rights and such through vulnerabilities. (Check the online sites that list them - plenty of options to mess up things.) The point is not that Linux systems are 100% safe against all attacks. It isn't. The point is that the Linux landscape is so diverse that an automated attack like with email viruses just stands no chance. There are so many barriers that it's just not realistic to create a self propagating worm/virus that can really affect the larger part of the Linux installations. It's not technically impossible, just practically undoable.

Hi ambi, thanks for the feedback. As for your question, I'd say, first try with the card in the pcmcia slot before you start the installation. If all goes well (as it should, pcmcia is standard, and 3com NICs should all be supported), you can just setup your network connection during installation and be done with it.

De rien, you're welcome!

I burn cds at moderate speeds (52x media at 24x or at most 32x). As for backups, the rule that people tend to forget is that a true backup is separated from the orginal in location as well. It's nice to have an external drive, but as long as it's in the same home (that can burn down or get burgled, etc) it's not more than a copy... Redundency is key. I have my photos copied onto my server, my wife's pc, my laptop (copied only once a month or so, not always up to date) and every so often I write them to dvd in twofold - one copy I keep at work. It's true that a harddrive (or any other mechanical device) is not safe for backups, but it may not be worse then cdr or dvdr; if you read the wikipedia link from John, you'll see that some cdr die types are not so ideal - and how do you know you have one of those? In any case, a rewritable medium is less suited as backup since it may be accidentally be overwritten - and when will this happen (on Linux, on MSWin a virus may do it whenever)? Likely just when you want to put the backup in place, and you are stressed since you just lost data, and you don't want to make mistakes... I was actually thinking of making the perfect automatic backup system with a colleague of mine, who also has broadband: just copy the files over with ssh/scp. Then I'd have copies on 3 harddrives at least: my desktop, my server and his server. And on top of that, they would be separated in space. In case of a calamity that wipes out his place _and_ mine, I think my backups are the last of my worries...

Small comments: - Dell has used (no, bought and sold on) quite a few power supplies with bad capacitors, and some motherboards with such. They last between 6 months and maybe a few years - on a graphics card, also check the fan, and check the temperatures - you could, if available, boot to another system and see if it hangs there too, to see if it's the hardware (this might be a ligitimate reason to boot to WinXP - gosh, hard to believe I'm saying this..) - on the total power requirements versus the power supply capabilities: be aware that not all power ratings on the boxes are 'equal' meaning that not all manufacturers use the same way of measuring. Read some tests on the web. Contrary to general belief, most pc's nowadays do NOT use over 250W, but in line with common recommendations, they DO NEED a PSU that is rated, according to the box it comes in, at over 350W. This also has to do with on which lines (voltages) the PSU can deliver how many amps. As for the UPS, I can see the point to that, although where I live I have no use for one - my server uptime is close to 250 days, and the previous server had an uptime of 450 days. Sums up nicely to close to 2 years. I can honestly only recall once that the power had been out in the last 5 years. Let's say that in my neighbourhood the energy delivery is dependable and consistent. If it isn't in yours, get a UPS. Lastly, MAKE BACKUPS! Harddrives fail, electronics fail. Even in a virus free environment, things can go wrong...

Let's start with the obvious ones: MS Office components, incl Works and such. LN has been named - though IBM does make sure it will run with Wine, they stated they won't make a Linux client available... I understood there's also a possibility to connect to the Domino server with a browser - no idea how to do that or if that's an ok way to work. Anyway, for those programs, there's crossover office or wine - which also works fine for Photoshop I've been told. The big problem that you're going to run into is that there may be an equivalent, but the cost of switching the workforce to a different program may outweigh a switch to Linux... I don't have more programs on my 'not available for Linux' list, since I actually have a company Linux desktop, alongside a Win2k machine, which I use just for LN and Office (I actually do have OOo on it too).

What's the problem? I mean, I like it that MS is paying for people to read Linux news. If people fall for that Linux FUD by MS, no problem, they'd fall for it anywhere else too. Please also read the related stories on LT and elsewhere.

MickeyMouse, thanks for the info and feedback! k6h - if I use kmix (also on the tray, minimised), my laptop has a load of 20%. If I close/quit kmix, the load goes down to a more normal 5%. Aumix doesn't have this problem, and I posted a bugreport about it. Somewhere it was hinted that this is to do with software mixing. I know that kmix doesn't do the mixing, but it is kmix that has this issue. I don't see why I shouldn't write that.

Please open a topic in the hardware forum or laptop forum, and ask for help there. My first feeling would be to keep the mm kernel and try to fix the madwifi stuff there, instead of going back to the regular kernel and try to fix the suspend...