aRTee

Since I extensively play(ed) around with my XF86Config-4 file, I start X this way (as normal user on the bash console, not in any graphical environment): X -xf86config XF86Config-4.test1 :1 & (switch back with ctrl-alt-F[1-6]) export DISPLAY=:1 twm & Instead of twm you can put icewm etc. Note that the file XF86Config-4.test1 must be in /etc/X11/ (where the standard XF config is). I do this even when I have a graphical environment running, it helps me to test for other resolutions and refreshrates. (I tried a lot to get the signal to my projector right) (which ended up being a problem due to the hardware configuration in the software/firmware,..... ah well) I know some people who use this to have their wife use the computer on one X session, and have their stuff open on a second one, completely different... Nice if you have cable and use p2p programs, or are downloading some .iso's and your girlfriend wants to do some email stuff... no logging on or of, just start her session, switch between them with ctrl-alt-f7 and ctrl-alt-f8 (you can have up to 6 graphical sessions plus I don't know how many graphical vnc sessions).... BTW this is one of the things that that other OS cannot do, and it can be very handy, so now you have some more 'ammunition' in an OS discussion.

I had a similar problem, the icon text would be a different size etc. I sometimes booted into X (graphical login) without having the monitor on. Then XFree could not determine the screen size, and defaults to 75dpi. Check your /var/logs/XFree86.0.log (or something like this), and see what it says about your screen size (in my case, it says something like: 403x 295 mm, 103x102 dpi, or: screen size not found, 75 dpi). You can put an entry in the /etc/X11/XF86config-4 file to force a certain screen size and thus dpi setting. From: http://www.xfree86.org/~dawes/4.3.0/XF86Config.5.html DisplaySize width height This optional entry gives the width and height, in millimetres, of the picture area of the monitor. If given this is used to calculate the horizontal and vertical pitch (DPI) of the screen. This is an entry you should put in the monitor section.

I´m trying to use the plf d4d or d5d plugin in mdk9.1rc1, but can´t figure out how to tell xine that the plugins are there. I got them from plf, they installed without a hitch, I ran xine-check and it hinted that no plugins were found since it checked only the standard dir /usr/lib/xine/plugins/ which actually had a subdir /usr/lib/xine/plugins/1.0.0/ with all plugins, except the d5d and d4d plugins that were in /usr/lib/xine/plugins/ ..... For those who follow so far, I copied both plugins to where all others are, to no avail. So how can I tell xine that it should give me the d4d or d5d option, so I can watch my movies (with menurs) again...?

Thanks for searching more answers. I guess you´re right, so I´ll have to cancel my bugreport/bugfixrequest...

I find that using one and the same lilo works nicely if you have recompiled the kernel or so, and you're trying out the new one (or completely switching to it), but using lilo to boot 2 different distros hasn't done much for me. Maybe that's why loads of people prefer grub, it seems grub handles that better. On the other hand, whenever you change grub, it doesn't give you the feedback that lilo does (added ... ) so if you screw up the file you may be stuck with nothing... Anyway, I was dual booting to mdk9.0 and RH8.0 before (and definitely sticking with mdk, really don't like rh..) and when trying to use mdk lilo (pointing to the rh in the same way the rh lilo was), I would still get the mandrake graphical boot process (blue-grey/whiteish)... and it wouldn't boot. Same the other way around. Now I kicked off RH, put mdk9.1rc in its place and just installed lilo on a floppy (as is proposed during install). The lilo on the flop is really only that, it points to the right partition (so it doesn't load the kernel or so, it's quite fast) and things boot from there. So when I put the floppy in, it boots mdk9.1rc1, when I take it out, it goes to 9.0. Makes it easier actually, I don't have to select anything during boot. Unless I want to boot windows, but that's been some time now... ;)

ndeb, your solution is exactly what I did; except for the uncommenting again; I just leave the # in the /etc/fstab and issue mount /dev/hda9 -t ext3 /alt whenever I want to read from it. What puzzles me is why it's not complaining about /home which is also ext3.... but maybe it doesn't check that at boot..? Anyway, thank you for figuring out why this happens (and which programs make it so),... guess I can close my bugreport now...

I have a weird problem in that I have the mdk9.1rc1 root partition mounted at boot on /alt but since I installed mdk9.1rc1 it stops at the fsck and tells me I should update fsck and that the version I have is not compatible or so. I can't boot to 9.0 anymore, until I step in and comment the line in the /etc/fstab out where the /dev/hda9 is mounted on /alt After booting, I can issue the correct command and mount the partition (guess then it doesn't check the filesystem or so) without any problem. Does anyone else have this problem? (and yes, I checked but found no updated version of fsck)

So how do you send progs to other desktops?? Let's pretend I'm stupid and don't know left from right... (How do you get gnome2.2 on 9.0rc1 without having metacity??? )

Do you use metacity? Did you read what other settings I require (yes, it's my machine, I'm entitled to require certain things that I know are possible.. :) ), namely: "focus follows mouse; click: makes active and passes click -- doesn't raise window"? I just can't set this up in gnome with metacity, and all people do is tell me to use sawfish, which I have, but which then doesn't allow me to put window-frameless progs like gkrellm and xmms on all or other desktops since you have to rightclick the border/frame to get the menu to do so... and rightclicking on the taskbar entry doesn't give me that menu. So yes, I can send stuff to other desktops with the normal wm (metacity) which doesn't allow me to have the window behaviour I like. So bottomline, I have to fiddle and still don't get gnome to do what I want, and kde does it right away (5clicks).... and I really used to use gnome all the time... loved it, until they took away my preferred setting... So if anyone gets the behaviour out of gnome that I describe, without too much fuzz, post it here!

Well, I just upgraded a bit, with prices in freefall and my warranty on my first stick of 512MB expiring; wanted to make sure it would run with company :) $ free total used free shared buffers cached Mem: 904416 291264 613152 0 16028 133152 -/+ buffers/cache: 142084 762332 Swap: 1044184 0 1044184 I installed memtest (urpmi memtest-86 or so, it installs in lilo, you run it instead of booting linux) and the memory passed (took an hour of testing for all different patterns to finish) so that was nice. BTW yesterday installed mdk9.0 on a PIII 667MHz with 64MB of ram, and it took a good 2 hours!!! That same install takes only 50mins on my girlfriends duron700 (384MB sdr ram).... Oh yeah, I currently have evolution, opera, vnc, bluefish, gkrellm and a bunch of terminals open, running kde. Guess if I start editing with Gimp the mem usage will go up, but don't think I'll have to get new memory soon ;)

Found gnome less responsive than kde, both look good, gnome mdk galaxy theme is beautiful! I will probably continue to use kde though, since I cannot get gnome to behave the way I want (focus follows mouse, click: makes active and passes click -- doesn't raise window), couldn't with mdk9.0/gnome2.0 unless going to sawfish but didn't manage to get other things done, like sending gkrellm to all desktops... 9.1rc1 looks good, but there are bugs here and there. I urge everyone to get it and test it, and send in your bugreports: https://qa.mandrakesoft.com If the final has problems and you didn't send them in, it's your problem! Now is the moment they can still fix it.

'urpmi gkrellm' should also do the trick no?

Ral, I don't see the problem. Please read the talkbacks / comments here, and make up your mind: http://linuxtoday.com/news_story.php3?ltsn...003-26-OP-MD-RH The point is, with RH or MDK, if you want, you can have support; if need be, from an entirely different company. There is no customer lock in, as with MSWin. There is no dependence on one single company, as with MSWin. There is competition between support service providers, keeping costs down and quality up. Upgrades are free, and frankly, changing between Mdk 8.1 to 8.1 to 9.0 doesn't really change that much, especially as a server (of course the looks of KDE and Gnome have drastically improved). Also, you state: Is that so? I don't believe you. You see, that is only true if the upgrade process is expensive in terms of software (which is the case for MSWin, or other OS-es), if you break compatibility (which is the case for most MSWin versions) and if it's complicated. With upgrades over the network, without having to click 'I accept' for every stupid license etcetc things are much different with OSS, in this case RH and MDK. Support issues are completely different on OSS than on proprietary software, since in the latter case you depend on one sole company, without which you are nowhere. With OSS, you can buy support from any company. So put your money where your mouth is (I'm not talking to Ral, just to anyone who wants support on OSS products), and spend money on support. I agree that this looks like a much better deal, but don't forget, this is just the OS, in the case of Mdk and RH you're talking all the software, which is much more often what is patched (need I say IE, LookOut etc), and Mdk and RH pack so much more of that. So apples and pears. Also, since all Win versions are proprietary, MS is obliged to support older versions, they can hardly say: upgrade your OS all the time and charge for it... although they try. How much is your freedom worth to you? OSS is not good because it is cheap, that's just a side effect; it is good because it makes you free. Sorry, you assemble your own boxes, you make sure you buy stuff of which there are drivers. I don't get this point.

Andrew: man free would have revealed the following to you: SYNOPSIS free [-b | -k | -m] [-o] [-s delay ] [-t] [-V] DESCRIPTION free displays the total amount of free and used physical and swap mem- ory in the system, as well as the shared memory and buffers used by the kernel. So the shared mem and buffers are kernel related occupied memory. Ah the power of 'man' ;) BTW try xman to get to know some commands... :)

on the topic of changing motherboards: Just swap the motherboard, but after you do the following: backup your personal files, your current systemfiles, especially the ones you handedited (if any), and backup your /var/log/dmesg so that after swapping, you can compare. Then you can check if your chipset etc is properly recognised, and things are rosey or not. If your dma is working and dmesg looks very similar, you have sound, your burner works and your graphics are ok, why reinstall?? That's just such a closed source OS reaction if you catch my drift :)

Xvidtune will not let you really change the frequency much, it's more for correct placement (width and height/position); you can't change the pixel clock in it. But start xvidtune anyway (I was playing with it last evening myself), and copy the numbers to a file (for the horizontal stuff it's on the left side: 1280 1322 1328 1460 for instance; don't use these numbers, I'm just making them up, am not at my machine; for the vertical it's on the right side: 1024 1025 1028 1034; well, 4 numbers anyway) and don't forget to include the pixel clock. You don't really have to copy these numbers, but just putting any number is not so unproblematic; I have the same vidcard and also closed source drivers, and they insist they want certain factors/differences to be a multiple of 4 etcetc. Now for some magic: just make a modeline out of your numbers, and change the pixel clock by multiplying with 100/85. In all the above: at your own risk, make sure you're not pushing your system too far. (I'm not just talking to the topicstarter, he knows his monitor can do it, since it does in win). I have used the mentioned link for modelines, it works fine; if it doesn't, just check in the file: /var/log/XF86.0.log (or something), somewhere the report will tell you which modes are being used, and at what frequency the display is. So first get your screen to (about) 100 Hz, then play with xvidtune to get to the right size, then adjust the pixel clock (in the modeline) to get exactly 100Hz. BTW you do know how to start extra X-sessions, right? From the console (ctrl-alt-F1) X -xfconfig XF86Config-4.test :1 & will start X without any window/desktopmanager on display 1 (ctrl-alt-F8) ctrl-alt-F1 to go back to console, export DISPLAY=:1 twm & (you can start any desktopmanager you like, but if you have kde running on the first X, you may not want to run it on the second to avoid conflicts; or maybe it's not a problem; but anyway, running something nice and light is much nicer, since you're just testing anyway). Then with ctrl-alt-F8 you go to the test X, and right click, start a terminal and fire up xvidtune. Note that you can make a whole array of modelines for the same resolution: modeline "1280x1024@85" [pixelclock] [bunch of numbers for timing] modeline "1280x1024@100" [pixelclock] [bunch of numbers for timing] etc. Just make sure in the last monitor part, where you indicate the resolutions, to include them: "1280x1024" "1280x1024@85" "1280x1024@100" "1152x864" "1024x768" etc. Then in X switch through these with ctrl-alt-+ or - Kill the X server with ctrl-alt-backspace when you're done/happy, then copy the xfconfig file to the default location so it's used when X gets started, make sure your desired modeline is the first in line to be picked or the only one and restart your original x-session,.. done.

Thanks BlackSnow, will add that one. Any more? Post them here! :)

I thought this too, but actually, that command (file really) doesn't show the proper info anymore if you don't have hdparm installed....... Try and you will see, just deinstall hdparm and run it.

linux.set.me.free is not bad, but actually I want the site to point to any open source system/OS, including *bsd etc. But anyway, I'm working on the positive site now, the one about (mandrake) linux (which I intend to be neutral in tone toward MSWin), and not the negative one, about why you shouldn't use any MS software... ;) Don't forget to pass your link! To all others: Come on guys/girls, there must be more people here who have their website with some stuff about linux?!

To find out if the hardware is supported, have them boot a live cd, for instance Knoppix. Have them ask friends who use linux. Explain that they may have to search the web. Linux really isn't that hard. Windows isn't really that easy. It's just in the public opinion that it's easy. I decided that I didn't want to go that extra mile anymore with Win, and that I did with linux. Ergo, on my system, my webcam doesn't work with win, nor do I have sound from the tvcard under win. I recently got the webcam and didn't bother, could probably get it to work. The tv-card, I reinstalled the drivers, reinstalled the system etcetc. No go. Both work fine under Mandrake. People just want to believe that everything is easy under win and hard under linux. Even gamers should try linux, they may like it for all other stuff. As for hardware compatibility, my scanner doesn't work under linux, and all the rest does. But had my printer not worked, it wouldn't have made a big difference; you can print out to pdf from OOo and print that out with acroread under win. The crucial things are: graphics card and audio, next to that: modem. Then you can do email, browse the web without fear of viruses etc. So they may want to check those things on a forum (like here). I'm also making a website (just posted a message here), shall I include a link to your site? Btw just read your first page, don't really agree with your explanation of what an OS is etc,.... but that's nitpicking, because for Joe Avg. it won't matter.... :)

If you have a linux site, especially one that has beginners introductions/tutorials and explanations, please post your link to it here. I want to make links in 2 categories: 1- about linux (mandrake, or other), for the beginner (practical) 2- about why to use linux / open source as opposed to 'that popular OS' (advocacy) Please post the link to your site (or any site that you know/like and that hasn't been mentioned before) and indicate if it falls into category 1 or 2 (or both). Oh, and please indicate in which language it is! My site (English only for now) will be up soon (=sometime this month) at www.mandrake.tips.4.free.fr I will post in this thread when it goes live. The category 2 links I will probably put on another website, for which the url will be something like: with.ms.you.cant.be.free.fr :) Or howabout: without.ms.you.can.be.free.fr or with.ms.you.wont.be.free.fr (only restriction: must end in .free.fr ....) BTW DOlson, already got the link to your site, and of course already made links to this excellent and beginner friendly forum!

It is definitely a joke: :) I found it not too bad, but I have had quite a few discussions at home as to why to use linux/open source etcetc. My girlfriend understands this and agrees, but is so used to MSWord that she can't work comfortably with OOwriter. She keeps trying though, but the damn thing is sometimes different in an annoying way. Mind you, she got used to the bad sides of Word long ago, and knows how to 'wing it'. That winging may not be necessary in the same way on OOwriter, but there are different things/issues. I look into her every comment, and sometimes have to agree. At least I got her to use the mail and web stuff in linux. Recently she received a virus from a friend (twice), and the immunity of her system (under linux) was very welcome... I first (like the guy in the article) made her machine boot windows, but then she would only have a couple of seconds at boot to start linux, and she'd often miss that window. So now I set it up to boot to linux, and if she doesn't select windows on time, she can do a reboot to windows from the linux login menu. So enough things for me to recognise and laugh about in the article... :) What I don't get, btw, is the topic title... One thing I wonder about, would it be true that only 3 percent of linux users spouses also use linux? I find that hard to believe...

Yes, it seems your dma settings are fine, also, your motherboard has been around, so no problem there. Just for reference, here's my dmesg (relevant part; note that I have no slave device on the first channel): VP_IDE: VIA vt8233a (rev 00) IDE UDMA133 controller on pci00:11.1 ide0: BM-DMA at 0xb000-0xb007, BIOS settings: hda:DMA, hdb:pio ide1: BM-DMA at 0xb008-0xb00f, BIOS settings: hdc:DMA, hdd:DMA hda: MAXTOR 6L060J3, ATA DISK drive hdc: PCRW1208, ATAPI CD/DVD-ROM drive hdd: Pioneer DVD-ROM ATAPIModel DVD-105S 013, ATAPI CD/DVD-ROM drive ide0 at 0x1f0-0x1f7,0x3f6 on irq 14 ide1 at 0x170-0x177,0x376 on irq 15 hda: 117266688 sectors (60041 MB) w/1819KiB Cache, CHS=7299/255/63, UDMA(133) That last line tells that in my case, the fastest mode of dma of my mobo is being used. Just be aware that if you install hdparm, the dma on your removable storage may well be switched off; in /etc/rc.sysinit I have the following (as said, I commented it out, so normally it actually does the bad thing if you have hdparm installed) # Turn off DMA on CD-ROMs. It more often than not causes problems. #if [ -x /sbin/hdparm -a -e /proc/ide ]; then # for N in `grep -v ide-disk /proc/ide/*/*/driver 2>/dev/null | awk -F / '{ pri nt $5 }'`; do # hdparm -q -d0 /dev/$N >/dev/null 2>&1 # done #fi It will show up in dmesg if dma is turned off, somewhere toward the end. You'll have to check that.

Warning: installing hdparm will make the system turn off dma on cdburners etc. Found that in some of the bootscripts; I commented it out, so now it works fine, but was worried when my load during burning went from <4% to >45%... Think it was in /etc/rc.d/sysinit or so (doing this from memory, ask me again if you need to know exactly...). If no hdparm is installed, dma should work out of the box. Unless your motherboard chipset is not recognised. Check to see if dma is turned on: (as root: ) cat /var/log/dmesg | grep dma (or just read that file: less /var/log/dmesg ) What kind of board do you have (it's the one crucial piece of hardware, and you didn't mention it :) )? I had a similar problem a year ago, bought the newest kind of mobo (a7v333) but mdk8.2's kernel didn't have chipset support for the via kt333. Solution: compile the patched kernel. The tips and tricks section should have all the info you may need.

Of course with the same average bit rate, the file will be about the same size!!! Think! The same average number of bits per second, with the same duration (same song, or also entirely different song), of course the size is about the same. On the whole quality thing, I did a full blind test on mp3 vs. ogg vs. cd-audio/uncompressed wav (could have been .flac for all purposes). Meaning: my girlfriend selected a track she knows well (Barbra Steisand, like it or not, excellent voice/music to test clarity and quality of any audio system), I chopped it in 30sec parts and encoded those into: 96kb/s, 128, 192, 256 kb/s and vbr highest quality, both mp3 and ogg, using lame (and oggenc? standard mdk encoders; have been told the paid Frauenhofer encoder could give better results with mp3). The test person (my girlfriend) sat on the couch listening, I controlled the computer (from a different room, she didn't even see the screen or so) to play the whole track from 30 second parts encoded with different codecs and nonencoded parts. Then my girlfriend would say whether she found the section we listened to 'real' or 'good (better) sounding'. Oh, btw this was by playing back the audio from the computersoundcard SB32-awe through the denon hifi and my selfbuilt Vifa Vivace speakers. I don't care if ogg sounds better at 80kb/s than mp3 at 128. They are both not very good; at 256kb/s mp3s the test person still had about a 70% hitrate on naming the uncompressed/lossless audio file the better one. Note that often I had to check to see what the order was after listening. (meaning I couldn't really influence her on whether is was .wav or .mp3/.ogg) For ogg it was slightly better, only a 60% hitrate. Note that with a 50% hitrate, the perceived quality of the original and the lossy encoded file would be the same. With vbr highest quality, there was maybe this 50% hitrate, but at 400+ kb/s this doesn't matter, it's too large to become portable (I'd rather use flac - fully lossless audio coding, that gets 50% compression ratios at times, and be sure I didn't lose anything) and those kinds of files can't be downloaded anyway. I don't believe that the Frauenhofer mp3 codec would have given much different results, again, probably in the low bit rates it may have done much better, but not likely in the high bitrates. So I stopped downloading any kind of mp3/compressed audio from the net. The quality is not acceptable for home use, and that was what I would use it for. Back to borrowing and copying cd's (which is btw perfectly legal) (as is downloading music, it's the uploading which is not legal around here). If you love music, you don't do mp3 or ogg at low rates. I can understand that you want to carry music around, and then it doesn't matter so much. So then I would prefer: .ogg at 256kb/s, .mp3 at 256kb/s, .ogg at 192, mp3 at 192, ogg at 160, mp3 at 160, ogg at 128 (no mp3 at 128, too bad) in this order.