arctic

Here is my not-so-spectacular desktop for this month. :)

harddrake is only necessary/useful if you add new hardware to your computer, say e.g. a new soundcard or a new graphics card. In this case, harddrake will automatically detect the new hardware and configure it as needed/load the modules. If you do not plan to alter your hardware on a regular basis, you can safely disable it.

Linspire, the distribution originally launched as Lindows, is no more, says Xandros CEO Andreas Typaldos. Xandros purchased Linspire, the company, earlier this summer. This week, the company announced that it was going to revamp community distribution Freespire, basing its next version on Debian instead of Ubuntu, and using it as a precursor for Xandros Desktop Professional, in much the same way Red Hat uses Fedora and SUSE uses openSUSE. But the company didn't need multiple for-pay desktop distributions, so Linspire is getting the boot. Full story at linux.com

Hello. Perhaps you should keep in mind that if you want to use Mandriva on your companies computers, then you should test it on exactly the hardware that you will be using, not any "old test rig". It is well possible that everything will work out of the box on computer rig A while some hardware-piece will cause problems on computer rig B. Just keep that in mind next time your company considers a switch. Also, make a list of the things that you will need to function. While most things work excellent in Linux, some applications are IMHO still not ready for prime-time. Mandriva is surely one of the best, maybe even the best distro out there right now in terms of ease of migration and hardware-support. And next time your consider a switch I recommend that you contact our Forum member Adam Williamson (adamw) or visit the #mandriva channel on IRC for instant replies to problems.

Errrm... is harddrake disabled? If not, it will probably overwrite your config. PS: You could hard-lock your xorg.conf file

The CD/DVD problem can be caused by dirt, so cleaning the CD/DVD drive would be an option to consider, if the drive is already more than one year old. Trying a live-CD would be a good idea, another thing you should perhaps test, is (only in case you have updated your kernel recently!) to boot the system with an older kernel and see if the problem reappears.

IIRC, inkscape was at version 0.45 when Mandriva 2008.1 was released, thus 0.46 was never an official part of 2008.1. That's why 0.46 is in backports, where it belongs.

For backing up your personal files, there are many options available. For KDE, the most commonly used tool is K3B, for Gnome it's brasero and/or Nautilus-burner. In order to backup your Windows files, you will need to make your NTFS partition acessible from within Mandriva if you haven't done so already (it's not complicated) and mount it in Linux of course. THen, you can simply drag files into e.g. K3B and start burning. For scheduled backups, I guess you will need to do a cron job. For backing up Windows files from within Windows, well, there are tons of apps available like Nero. Just choose one.

Please also check the /var/log/messages file if there is any hint as to why the system freezes. Also, if you have another desktop/windowmanager installed (like Gnome, XFCE, IceWM), check if the system freezes if you use one of these alternatives. I run 2008.1 with Gnome and never experienced any freezes, even when the system has been running non-stop for 14 + hours.

Have you tried the Mandriva- backup-tools of the MCC already? And can you please specify if you want to backup only the personal files (/home, ...) or the complete operating system?

Welcome aboard. :) Have you installed the codecs from the PLF-repositories? (check the "easyurpmi" link at the top right side of this site. you can add those using easyurpmi). Can you see the videos in another player, like e.g. xine? (For whatever reason, some videos refuse to run properly with some video-players ... my very own experience). Also: Which video file-format is the film you are having trouble with? avi? wmv? ...

Welcome aboard. :) Yes, although 1GB Swap is more than enough. VFAT and NTFS (for the latter one,read/write support must be installed alter in Linux) About installing multiple Linux installations, please use the FAQ section and use the search-tool on this board, there are tons of threads about that one. Bittorrent: Transmision For the other things. Please - again - use the search-tool first. All of these questions were answered multiple times. :) If you still have problems to find the answers, then please ask again.

everytime you wanted the corporate jet. :P

now everybody please relax. Tyme has been way too agressive but at least he apologized. So let's forget about it. Back on topic now: I felt similar, willie, when I read that mail. Pay for it? When others offer it for free?... Yeah, that sounds weird at first, but then: The money spent is, if you calculate it thoroughly, not for making Mandriva rich. The way I see it, the costs they charge are almost exaclty the costs that evolve by producing the merchandise. They seem to sell the stuff without any bigger commercial interest behind it. And: If you do such stuff yourself (stickers and CD-labels), it is way more expensive. Mandrivas offer CAN be a bargain.... if there were no Ubuntu. :P Only because Ubuntu gives CDs away for free doesn't mean that everyone should or could do it. Were there not Ubuntu, everyone would say "Cool, that's cheap!", I bet. And yes: It is still damn cheap. Were it my company, I wouldn't give the stuff away for nothing, either. Whatever you do, first of all you have to make sure that you do not go bancrupt. Point.

I definitely agree with you on that one. :)

I read the link you posted. Yes. I now that GIMP was initially aimed at the hobbyist (or may even be so). I have the feeling that you fail to see the point I am trying to make: Linux won't be mass-accepted on many many production machines as long as the software available for it is not up to the tasks that todays businesses require. And as long as it won't be used in masses by standard companies, it won't really become a common OS for the average computer user. I can imagine that it is hard and expensive to create a proper CMYK support. But - the same thing is true for virtualisation support, professional video-editing, creating a video-conferencing-application and many many more things. Yet they got done. I do not say that the GIMP devs themselves have/had to include CMYK support. It would have been/be more than sufficient if some company would help/have helped them developing this "little thing" for GIMP - even if they would market it later as as separate "Gimp Pro" version for a few bucks. It would have a nice impact for making Linux more mainstream. CMYK support could be a part of GIMP since several years - if someone/some company would have cared. Where would OpenOffice be without the devs from Sun? How good would virtualization work without the RedHat devs? Sometimes it needs some company to push an application IMHO.

I think he meant Mandriva 2008.1, not 8.1.

A bit old this thread, but it might be useful: https://mandrivausers.org/index.php?showtopic=16970

For a dual-boot system, I suggest that you read this: FAQ: Grub-Bootloader It explains the Grub bootloader in detail and will tell you what to add to your bootloader-config file using an editor or the Mandriva-Control-Center (MCC aka Configure your computer).

Well, I do not have an ATI card (Nvidia *cross fingers*), so I can only guess. First of all: Do you have the latest ATI driver installed for your system? And are you really sure that it only hangs because of e.g. a bug in the software or is perhaps another process causing your system to hang? Examining the ~/.xsession-errors file or /var/log/messages file could be useful.

Actually I don't care if computers work mainly with RGB. I and many other people need - in order to print images in the newspaper - full CMYK support as newspaper-print-machines work only in CMYK mode. Sure, for the home-stuff RGB is more than enough but if you want your company to switch to Linux/OSS, the Linux software simply has to offer a real solution/alternative to a companys needs. I do not really blame the developers for not having CMYK support included yet, as I guess that it is really difficult to offer a proper CMYK-mode. I simply state that many customers will refuse to implement OSS because of the lack of some essential tools that are common in e.g. Windows or Apple software. More options/tools = more acceptance = more users switching to Linux.

Again, many really good things are included. Absolutely interesting and promising. But when will they finally add full CMYK support? It is so important for anyone who works as a graphic-designer and/or in the printing-department. I wonder why it ain't included yet.

Another way is to simply launch the MCC. At the top of the window, it will say which version you are running (e.g. Mandriva 2008.1 (Official) on i586).

Sounds pretty cool.

Welcome aboard. Could you please provide us with the hardware you use? It seems as if your graphical-setup is not correct.