arctic

have you tried this rpm? it is for mdk9.1 but should work with 9.2

http://speakeasy.rpmfind.net//linux/RPM/ma...-6mdk.i586.html

hey, calm down a bit. we all know that switching to a new os can be frustrating when nothing works the way we expect it (= plug&play/use). okay, first of all: welcome! ;)

i think that your problem can be solved by our network-heros. i have done a small search (using search tool, link is above on top-right side of page) and ended up with a postings that might help you. just take a look. if nothing works, post a detailed message about your system specifications, operating system used, hardware used.

good luck.

here come the link:

http://mandrakeusers.org/index.php?showtopic=14972&hl=

I don't know that you can re-focus the whole industry to satisfy ease of use issues for older people

:lol:

i am not trying to refocus the whole industry in that way. the issues of older people were just an example for showing the "bad sides" of current computers.

I also think much of this demand for speed is required for many business users and not just gamers

well, some ten years ago, we also had computers in business and the stuff they had was sufficcient. why ain't it sufficient today? because we think that way or do we really need every year new machines that work faster and are more powerful? (i can still write a letter by using pen and paper. i don't really need a 4 mhz comp to write something or draw some lines. or am i wrong? ;) )

first of all, a basic question: which system are you running? mkd10? 9.x? other? B)

Arch installs in a couple of minutes as well. Not with AS many packages though.

yupp, but remember, he thought of an alternative to arch ;)

Arctic, what you are asking for is an appliance, not a computer.

yes and no. sure, i am asking for a simple way to do things, but must i cripple down a computer system, in order to make it usable for older people? if there were not so much possibilities of bloating systems due to the hardware we have, all would imho be more reduced to the stuff we really need and we would think more of how we construct an operating system, given the limited resources.

right now, we tend to program everything the way we like, as long as it works, because with the current technology, it doesn't really matter if one app uses 10 or 30 mb ram. we have enough hardware resources, we can write a "not so clean" code for programs and nobody will cry "foul, you wasted 5 mb ram". i still think that programmers and user got lazy due to the constant "technological progress" we make.

yes, some might state that they constantly need all the power their comp has. but for what? most have to agree that they need that power for gaming. boooh! that is no reason for defending bloated and thus complicated systems imho. and rendering images? i have done that on less powerful computers. okay, it might take 2 hours longer, but what the heck? if it takes some more time, then let it and drink a coffee or read a book in the meantime. there are better things to do in life than working faster and faster and faster and faster and ...

;)

I work with some capable and enthusiastic people (and some real idiots as well, but mostly the first group) and they can and do devour documentation so they can really "know" how their PC works and what their software does. But they are the tiny minority, and I think the majority of people enjoy the eye candy and extra features we think of as bloat. The vast majority of end users will not go to the command line if they can get the same functionality, even through a slower, more laborious and click-filled procedure, if they don't have to.

Yes, many people enjoy the eyecandy and that is understandable. but: i also know many people, especially older people who are somewhat scared by all the eyecandy, all these cute icons, the fancy wallpapers, toylike window decorations. it is, simply said, too much for them, they have problems in "orientation", when confronted with something like kde, gnome, windows or whaddoiknow.

of course, you can set up a desktop e.g. in kde that only shows you an icon for web-browsing, one for e-mail and one for writing documents. but not all people have someone by their side that will set up these things for them. a computer is for many persons, age 50+ something strange, unfamiliar. so, the less optical disturbances, the better. if you drive in car on a highway from berlin to paris, you want to find paris at once, looking at a sign, telling you "paris: straight ahead" and not "drive to hannover, then look at the little citys along the way, they are worth a visit, then head on to cologne and ... ah... there brussels... beatuiful... and the normandie... where did you want to go to?".

i asked myself, if there could be something done e.g. about folders. if you open a graphics-program, the default folder should be e.g. /arctic/pictures, for documents /arctic/documents, for email-storage /arctic/mail. but this is not always that way. we have many folder trees that are disturbing and irritating many people. i remember my mom, when she first had to work with an e-mail client, she simply didn't know, how to find the documents for upload, because the mail client (in windows) started in some cryptic /programs/mozilla/... folder and there was no way to change this.

i dunno, maybe the folder-trees and the linking of programs to folders should be redone = be more simplistic. but will this be possible? i doubt it.

Hmm I tried arch and it just wasn't right for me. It way too complicated and I couldn't get anything to work unless I spend an hour reading a tutorial for every step and sub-step.

 

That kinda distro is just not for me. Fedora and Mandrake do seem to be doing nicely.

hm... just in case you want to install a speedy distro (fastest out-of-the-box distro) that also installs itself in five minutes, i recommend yoper, which is built from scratch and optimized for i686. :D

Lastly, more of a general question: Would another distribution be lighter?

did you check this distro already? it is especially constructed for old computers (486 to p166 systems).

http://delilinux.berlios.de/

a bit in a hurry, but maybe you find the perfect linux-distro here:

http://www.distrowatch.org/dwres.php?resource=search

i do remember that there was a special distro in this list, whose only purpose was mulimedia usage.

Since i am something of a computer veteran (started with an amstrad cpc464, then switched to amiga, xt/at, 386, 486, ppc, 586), i do think a bit about the direction, computer programs/computing go(es). So here is my last thought or question.

a long time ago, in a computer-envrionment far, far away, programs used to be minimalistic. we worked with bash commands, we wrote our thesis', articles, letters with programs like word for dos, we didn't really use much of a top-notch-graphical desktop. yeah, it was partially due to the fact that the hardware was not as "powerful" as it is today and thus, we had to work with less options, but we nonetheless completed our tasks. and did it take more time? not really, because the process of developing our work in mind before using the comp was imho a logical approach to work. now, we have programs that have more and more options, but until we know all these options, it takes a lot of time. and: we get lazy. yes, lazy. most people write a letter, a program, a whatdoiknow, but they do not think of a real project plan to follow. lots of work is done by doing it in any thinkable way, and then, if things fail, we start (or try) to fix it. the result is the same amount of time (or even more) spent on a project.

today, we use hardware that actually is "too powerful"for most everyday tasks. what do we need a 128mb graphics card, if we only write papers? what do we need a subwoofer-supporting sound card, if we already have a hifi next to our television? what do we need a 4 ghz processor, if we can equally do it with a 80mhz processor?

yes, we need some of this stuff, because our desktops are peppered with eyecandy. sure, we like to see something beautiful. but is a computer not in first place a working-machine? the question is: why do we have these bloated desktops? because of windows? because of apple? because we want them? it could be, but who knows?... what we have is software that uses lots of memory etc. and before we get a bug-free program, a new desktop gets published (look e.g. at microsoft) and all the bug-stuff is back again.

sure, eliminating bugs is some kind of fun, but only for those, who actually know how to eliminate them. for the average user, they are simply frustrating. in 20 years, i have never seen a program that is completely bugfree. the question is: do programmers want bugs to exist or are they living in a microcosmos that lets them forget the average users problems? :unsure:

so, what now? should future linux-desktops stop bloating like microsoft desktops and instead give the average user a completely bug-free desktop environment that is fast and flexible or do linux programmers have to battle the "innovations" of other operating systems? how about a new install option: minimalistic surrounding for those who want it (even more reduced than fluxbox etc, e.g. not using windowing at all) and the current install option with all its eye candy for those who want it?

i sometimes wonder if the progress we make with computing/programming is really a progress. and what do you think?

my first thought was: what is this bull$%&§ about? but then, i found several "articles" at OS-News that always tell the world, how bad linux and apple are, and that apple should switch to amusement stuff (like ipod) and linux should vanish altogether, because it is outdated etc...

it just looks as if this is again a mayor campaign by microsoft, "talking bad" 'bout other systems, thus trying to defend their diminishing market. and i expect more to come.

btw.: the author of that article earns his money by writing books for windows-users, so how should he write: buy/download linux, 'cause it can do everything that we want and ... please don't buy my books anymore, i don't need money to survive! :lol:

hmm.. have you ever thought of getting him "slowly" adjusting to linux? you can make his kde look like win 90/2000/xp without big problems. just browse kde-look.org. and then, step by step, he will learn to change things the way HE wants them to be. ;)

this is a nice story of a "windows die-hard user and technology-expert" who "tests" linux. well, the most interesting stuff is the discussion added to the "review". just read on and smile. i found it quite amusing. :)

http://www.onlamp.com/pub/wlg/5211

how about the most simple way? take a mandrake10 move cd and test the hardware in the shop before buying it. ;)

Congratulations! :D

I once used suse and i have to say, the main difference between suse-kde and other kde`s is that they choose a different wallpaper, automount all drives on your desktop and have their menu in a slightly different layout. And yeah, they have some little things added to the panel, other distros do not have necessarily. The main advantage was a little plug-in-symbol in systray, to connect and disconnet to i-net, which was useful for newbies. The main disadvantage is really that they put things in different folders like /opt/kde or /opt/gnome. This was annoying when updating the system (I killed my box 3 times trying to update kde from 3.1 to 3.2) and that is the reason why I uninstalled Suse.

i always got redirected, and it didn´t matter if i used firefox, mozilla or konqi. did microsoft buy mandrake recently?

a bit offtopic (related to MS IE-development), but maybe still interesting:

http://www.distrowatch.com/weekly.php?issue=20040719#4

try that one:

at lilo press Esc and type at prompt:

linux splash=quiet vga=normal

then press Enter. Does it work on your box?

this one is a good and detailed howto for sound in linux.

http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Sound-HOWTO/

I'm guessing you were on a win32 platform and it defaulted to the microsoft page

negative! :)

I kicked my last windows partition several months ago.

i have chosen= (advanced linux sound archtechture)- is that ALSA?

Yepp! :D

when I type [ user]$ kmix I get the answer :

 

 

 

ERROR: KMix : impossible de trouver le mixeur.

Veuillez vérifier que la carte son est installée et que le

pilote de la carte est chargé.

do you have KDE installed on your box? if not, then you can use alternative sound-apps (e.g. gnome-audiocontrols, which can be found via gnome-menu or the panel (just search for the loudspeaker icon and right click on it, selecting "preferences")). If you have KDE installed, but not kmix, you can install it from your cds via mcc or via konsole, typing "urpmi -a kmix".

I found the answer by reading artic's reply to this post I launched kcontrol

what's that, pussycat? it redirects me to microsoft. i don't think i am working for those guys.. :D

I personally at this point would reboot my machine with the first CD in it and do an upgrade of 10.

i think what he means is simply placing the mdk10 boot-cd into your cd-drive and then not selecting →"install" but →"advanced". there you can repair the system, if all is broken. your files should remain in place, but you should nevertheless back-up your sensitive data, just in case...

good luck!

p.s: next time you update the system, go to easyurpmi.net and follow the instructions. this is the easiest and safest way to keep your system in top-contidtion. ;)