arctic

I agree with John. If you are using Linux, then Scribus is obviously the way to go - unless you want to spend thousands of dollars. In that case, there are e.g. Pagemaker, Quark-XPress, Dialog or InDesign available. (Primarily, I use Dialog at work. Nice tool but extremely expensive!) Give Scribus a try. If you need help, let us know. Some of us might be able to help you if you run into design-problems.

I'd say first of all you need to buy some books that explain the programming language that you want to master (e.g. C++). The bigger book stores usually have tons of useful programming-guides available. P.S.: Welcome aboard. :)

Wow... I am impressed.

Livna, ATrpms and Freshrpms should be available although you might not need any other repo than Livna now.

Of course there are high contrast themes available. My experience is however that most "average users" of computers don't know how to change the look of a desktop. (This applies to many people I met that use Linux, Windows and Mac) Thus a "suits everyone well" theme is more favourable as default theme. But that's just my opinion.

I still don't look it. Way too much saturation for my tastes (the only ubuntu-theme was acceptable for me was the old 4.10 human-theme design) and too hard to use for people who have problems with their sight (especially elder people who tend to have difficulties with "low contrast" themes).

This is usually caused by incorrect permission and user ID settings (debian based systems use 1000+ for user IDs in general, rpm based distros use 500+ as ID usually). When you boot, hit ctrl+alt+F1. This will drop you to a command line screen. There, log in as root (type "root", hit Enter and give the root-password). Once you are logged in as root, type chown -R username:username /home/username If this works without an error, log out by typing "exit", hit ctrl+alt+F7 and log into your system again as normal user.

Welcome aboard. :) You will have to tell us what hardware your computer uses (especially graphics-card). Without that information hardly anyone can help you.

System information and clocks on the desktop can be set up using e.g gdesklets. Install gdesklets from the repositories but do a bit of reading on that. http://www.howtoforge.com/gnome_gdesklets esplains how to set up one gdesklet. The only thing to keep in mind is that the guy used Ubuntu for setting them up, thus the package manager (software installer) he uses is different from Mandrivas (Ubuntu used synaptic/apt-get, while Mandriva uses drakrpm/urpmi (->configure your computer)). The login screen can be changed if you click on the top panel System->System Preferences->Login manager. It will ask you for the root password. There you can change and install themes.

Hmm.. then they finally fixed that. I know (from personal experience) that this did not work for a long time.

Nope. Please explain it to me.

There is a mistake in your review, aRTee. On the new features list, you mention that it ships now with GNOME 2.12.0. It must be Gnome 2.20.0. In all fairness: Only a few Linux distros do add other distros automatically, most don't do that. (Slack, Arch, Gentoo, Fedora, SUSE, Yoper, Puppy, Centos/RedHat/Startcom, ...)

You can safely disable the harddrake service after you have set up the computer. It is only needed/recommended when you add new hardware to your computer.

No problem. :)

The binary folder (/usr/bin) won't be of any use to you. The question is first and foremost, which soundsystem you use in your default desktop environment and which sound system you selected in pidgins preferences dialogue. If there is a mismatch (e.g. one uses ALSA, the other OSS), then you usually won't get sounds.

Which desktop do you use? KDE? Gnome? Other?

Open Firefox' preferences dialogue (edit -> settings), then, at the fonts section (contents) click the advanced button on the right side of the fonts selector. A new window should pop up. In there, there is a checkbox that allows websites to use their own fonts. disable that checkbox. Now, all webpages will only use the fonts that you define = that are installed on your system. The web-pages should look a lot nicer if you select e.g. "deja vu sans" as default font. ;)

Have you already disabled the onboard video in your BIOS and rebooted? It should set up the nvidia card then. If it bombs out, you can configure your graphics by logging in as root in safe/recovery mode and running XFdrake from the command line. This will launch the configuration tool. BTW: You have not said yet, which Mandriva release you are trying to install. 2008 free? 2008 ONE? 2007.1 free? ...

Welcome aboard. :) Some questions that you should answer first are: Were there any errors reported during the installation? (E.g. at the end of the install process there should be a summary screen pointing out misconfigured/unidentified stuff with red text) Which version of Mandriva are you installing? What hardware do you use? From what I read so far, it sounds like a badly configured video-driver. For fixing this (usually) minor problem, please give us your hardware specs first.

dude67, we already have an entry for this in the Wiki ( http://wiki.mandrivausers.org/index.php/In...are_using_Urpmi ) and on the FAQ/Howto-Page ( https://mandrivausers.org/index.php?showtopic=4455 ). ;)

Welcome aboard. First of all: If grub fails to boot, you can insert the Mandriva DVD or CD1 of the 3CD set. Go into rescue mode and reinstall the bootloader with the menu-functions. (I recommend the DVD whenever possible as ONE does not have the recovery options included afaik) Second: It is recommended to install grub on the second drive if you are new to linux (As said above, use the boot-selection options of your bios for this). Third: It is possible to adjust the Windows XP bootloader so it can boot Linux, but this is NOT RECOMMENDED and not easy to perform. If you want to perform it, I'll tell you the basics here: You will need to copy a boot-image of your Linux system onto the Windows partition where you will run the bootloader, for which you will need a partition/drive that is readable for both Linux and Windows (e.g. FAT32 filesystem). [The needed command can look like this, depending on your hardware-setup] dd if=/dev/hda3 of=/media/floppy/bootsek.lin bs=512 count=1 Then configure the linux-native bootloader to reside on the first sector of the root partition and not on the drives mbr. Now edit Windows boot.ini file so that it looks similar to this (2 HDD setup): [boot loader] timeout=10 default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS [operating systems] multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Pro (Production)" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Pro (Secure System)" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect c:\bootsek.lin="Mandriva 2008" C:\CMDCONS\BOOTSECT.DAT="Microsoft Windows XP-Recoveryconsole" /cmdcons Complicated? Yupp. Try the Grub bootloader from your second harddrive and use the bios-boot-menu options. It is the easiest method for newcomers. JMHO. hd1= Windows XP with Windows Bootloader hd2= Mandriva with grub bootloader

Thanks, jlc. :)

No idea. The board administration will elaborate the issue and how/if it can be fixed.

Heh, what you talk about has imho to do with Mandrivas "strange relation to marketing". A list of business partners on their website would make them more of a trustworthy company. Try to think of a list saying e.g. Mandriva products are used by: Government of Nigeria Government of France Government of Belgium European Comission European Space Agency (ESA) EADS Porsche Renault City of Paris City of Heidelberg City of Rome Oxford University Technical University Hamburg-Harburg Humboldt University Berlin Hapag Lloyd ... That would look terrific, wouldn't it (although the list is fictional)? And it would propagate Mandriva automatically. I still hope that they improve their business-approach. The potential is there for being a major player in the enterprise market. It only lacks coordination and the will to do certain moves imho.

How about creating a new user account that does not use 3D and copy the files you need from your old account over to the new account? (this can be done using re.g. konqueror with administrator privileges. If you need help on how to do that, tell us, as I have no idea how much you know about administrating and using Linux)) Later, you can change the permission to the files from a terminal, running as root chown -R username:username /home/username which will make all files of the old user accessible for your new user. (Replace username with your new account name)