bigjohn

Ok, so I just tried to add opera to the menu as well and it's gone in, but in the wrong place. How do I put it under networks>www ? regards John :?:

Thanks bvc, But how do I do the script bit - that's part of the command line "dark magic", another mystery to a child of the gui like me? regards John 8)

Many thanks aru I'll try that in the morning - I can hear my bed calling! regards John :D

Ok, so I've checked the BIOS setting and it's enabled I have looked in the bootloader config gui in the mandrake control centre - but cannot find where any "enable" flag might be. The rest of the suggestions are "dark magic", how would I do this? regards John

As someone who was originally accounting trained as well as trained to type (properly), I prefer to input numbers using the number key pad instead of the main qwerty section of the keyboard. I have set it to start num lock when logged into KDE, but how do I set it up to start during boot, for input of passwords and manual boot/non gui input? regards John

Finlay, Just as a little extra, if you haven't already got yourself sorted the bit that was mentioned about pppoe (if my memory serves me correct is point to point protocol over ethernet - I think - mmay be wrong). To the best of my knowledge, unless you are talking "commercial", then the "cable companies" are going to be the fastest in Uk. Both telewest and NTL both offer a 1 meg service (I don't know about telewest, but the flyer that came through the door the other day said that NTL 1 meg was£34.99 a month). And you are correct in checking the adsl guide for stuff about providers. But, as far as I know, the service that the rest (not cable) are offering is via BT, i.e. they buy it as a wholesale product and retail it to you, the service is not pppoe, it's pppoa (also seems to be refered to as pppoatm - you would have to look around to see what the differences are!) My service is through pipex. I have had no trouble in running it with wind0w$, but you can forget it as far as linux help is concerned. My dual boot set up is wind0w$ XP/mandrake - the modem that I got from pipex was the alcatel speedtouch usb (turquoise cow pat looking thing) which was a breeze with wind0w$, was a real pain to set up for mandrake 8.2, but when I installed 9.0 it wasn't hard at all. The main reason that I changed to an ethernet modem/router, was because dual booting with the speedtouch was quite slow, in that the modem would drop the connection, and then go through the re-initialisation in the other OS. Also, when I was trying to sort out firewalling for my mandrake, for some unknown reason, I kept getting a problem with the software in mandrake (I would get a warning that /usr/share/speedtouch/speedtouch.sh line 150 command 0=0 command not found), and when the problem arose, I could not access/connect and would have to keep going into wind0w$ to look for help - I never did find out how to "cure" the snag and the only way that I found round it was to re-install the OS - a major pain! I used the adsl guide to work out which modem/router was for me, and now use a "Solwise SAR110". I did have to get a network card, but that went "straight in" without any hassle. The wind0w$ set up was straight forward, and because of the problems that I had had, I just rang "technical" at Solwise, they told me what to put into what boxes, and I was sorted. The only thing that took me a while to sort was the harware firewall and IP filters. Solwise have there own forum at www.solwiseforum.co.uk and I found the help that I needed there. I have found solwise to be an excellent company to deal with - very helpful. Hence I now dont have to worry about connections, firewalls, etc at all. I have done all the various security checks that I can think of, i.e. Shields Up, pcflank, etc and my system seems to be secure - I could be wrong, but I am V happy with it. The bit about IP address's, pipex supply me with a Static IP, so it's very straight forward to set things up as far as that's concerned and you wouldn't need to worry about DHCP and so on. Right, I can't think of anything else worthy of mention at the mo, so your serve! (and sorry if any of this post is "teaching granny to suck eggs") regards John

The xmms tip/trick doesn't seem to work, because I tried it. Though in truth just because my sound card is a 5.1 digital, I haven't the faintest idea whether it is providing analogue or digital output (just sound like music to me:lol: - but as I've only got a crappy pair of desktop speakers at the moment is don't suppose it really matters). And I have already tried the volume levels trick, they distort the speakers to hell and back! (that's the kmix volume i'm refering to - is there something else that could be muted?) regards John

I dont have any headphones available to try. As far as one of the devices being cabled, I can put a disc in the cdrw (CDROM2) and it will play an audio disc from the front panel - which suggests that it is connected to the soundcard/mobo (dont recall which) regards John

I can't play audio cd's I have a soundblaster 5.1 digital card I can get system sounds, If I try kscd, it can see that there is a disc in there but even though it looks like it's playing, there is no sound output. My PC has 2 devices capable of playing cd's, the dvd player, but mandrake insists on calling it CDROM and a cdrw, which mandrake insist on calling it CDROM2. When I was trying earlier, I can put the disc in "CDROM- the dvd player" and it show it playing with out audio output. If I put the disc into "CDROM2 - the cdrw", I can get sound by prossing the cdrw front panel buttons, but it just shows as being no disc in the drive. I appreciate that this may be to do with the sound card/mobo being plugged into the cdrw, presumably, I have to get the kscd looking at the cdrw - CDROM2. How do I make it do this? Or do you have anyother ideas how I can audio cd output please? Oh and the suggestion of enabling the cd player plugin for xmms and then just pointing the playlist at the cdrw (basically whats in the tips n tricks section) doesn't work. regards John p.s. the mandrake install can see the sound card but wants to call it SBLive!, and it loads up the emu10k driver.

If you are in range of the phone exchange for adsl, then the adslguide site is the best answer lots of good suggestions and advice - check out their forums As far as modems are concerned, I now understand and concur with the advice that I was given when I started out and avoid USB modems. I have migrated to an ethernet modem/router (even though I only use the 1 machine) and am very grateful/happy that I did, unfortunately the advice came too late as I'd already got a usb speedtouch from pipex. The service is good, and the modem excellent, if you only want to run wind0w$, but it can be a total pain in the arse under linux - search and you will find (and wince/laugh/tremble/etc). regards John

Those of you who have managed to get your speedtouch usb's working, I also have one, but now it is where it belongs (as far as i'm concerned) on top of a pile of books, waiting for sale or the rubbish bin. the reason:- Some of you will discover that sometimes, for no apparent reason, you suddenly can't connect, you try everything and are stumped. So you end up trying the "wind0w$ cure all" and re-boot, all of a sudden you notice that where you used to connect on boot, you get a nice little message about failing to connect at boot that mentions that in /usr/share/speedtouch/speedtouch.sh line 150 ?returned =0 command command not found. (this is as close as I can recall to what the message says). When I had this snag (more than once) I dropped back into "$atan'$ $oftware" and googled for a while, the only thing that I could find was a posting from one of the "cooker" message boards that said about changing the ? to $ or maybe the other way round. Either way, it didn't work. I always ended up having to re install the OS, which I'm sure you will agree is a pain! I even tried getting the script from a working version of the speedtouch.sh file but all to no avail. My solution was http://www.solwise.co.uk/modems.htm and buy a SAR110, finished off with a quick visit to pcworld for a netgear FA311 network card. Now I can swing between OS's with out the connection being dropped, I don't need to worry about firewall's so much (and no killing the speedtouch.sh by trying to sort out "shorewall") etc etc etc. Connected life is now such a breeze!!!!! Just my £82.19 worth!! regards John

This probably isn't going to be much help, but Guarddog is the only firewall that I have managed to configure - shorewall drove me up the wall and I was stumped about firestarter as I kept getting dependency snags with GTK even though I think that I have got everything installed!!! anyway, I just looked at the guarddog website and followed their instructions as to how I get it configured (bearing in mind that I only have it set up for surfing and e-mail). I did try "shields up" (even though it says that it's for wind0w$ based kit) and that said I was "secure" and when I tried "having my ports probed" (painfull), it said that everything was closed. Don't really know how much credence to place on the info provided. When I tried the same tests booted back into wind0w$ XP with zone alarm running, I was told that I am apparently running at maximum stealth mode. As I said, probably not much help but just following their website instructions seems to have secured things pretty well, even though I don't know the square root of f**k all about what it's actually doing!!! regards John

In response to your advice people, I first did "exit" and the "superuser mode konsole" disappeared, and I logged out/back in again as roo, and it re-appeared, but I think that I didn't have remember session box checked. So I tried the "kdesu ksysguard" command in the "run" and just selected the kill option for konsole and the logged back out/in again - after remembering to check the "remember session" box and it seems to have done the trick. So, many thanks to the two of you who gave me advice about this. regards John p.s. I don't suppose that you could have a stab at guessing what I might have done or why this happened in the first place ?????

Cheers I'll give them both a try and see what happens regards John

I was doing some stuff earlier, and had to open a konsole as root, anyways, I thought that I had done like usual and clicked on menu>terminals>konsole (terminal programme), It would appear that I actually clicked on menu>terminals>konsole_Super user mode (terminal programme) Now the bugger won't close. I have tried to quit and I have tried to "end session" Does anyone know how I close/quit this facility regards John (the nugget)

Ok, so I have found some nice skins at www.muhri.net for gkrellm so I can modify it so it matches the "soup can" wallpaper at www.kdelook.org but how in hells name to I install them? If I do a straight tar zxvf command, I end up with a directory called GKrellM-skins that contains about 105 files for skins, each being a .tar.gz so what do I need to do to get the whole lot "untarred" and located in the /usr/share/gkrellm/themes directory. regards John

What with the hassle that I have had trying to set up the firewall (Shorewall) and my lack of knowledge in doing anything else i.e. trying firestarter or guarddog or whatever, I have had a brainwave, and am going to spend some of my hard earned cash on a "dsl router", one that has USB ports so I can use my existing modem. I have decided that the "draytek vigor 2200usb" is the one to go for as it has the relevant support for my modem, and also seems "user friendly" when it comes to setting up the firewall etc. It gets good reports/write up's. And it should allow me to be able to try other distro's without having to worry/stress over whether the modem has the relevant support or whether configuring the modem is going to give me sleepless nights! A good idea????? What do you think? regards John

Yes, I found this http://corefonts.sourceforge.net/ link (more by luck than judgement!). It must be straight forward and easy to follow, otherwise I wouldn't have been able to use it. regards John

Oakey doakey, Cancel the last post, I have found a link to sourceforge's instructions to install the true type fonts. which I have managed to follow (not quite sure how, or what it did) and have converted everything to "tahoma". many thanks for the assist bvc regards john

It doesn't appear that I have a "font installer" in the kdecc>system section. I only seem to have the kdecc>fonts to be able to choose from the fonts that the system has installed. Any ideas as to what I should do ??? regards John

Sorry if this sounds like another unsearched/repeated post - it isn't!!! I am trying to install the MSXP fonts. I did previously manage to get some of them from one of the rpms and stuff, that are floating around. But, I have had other major snags with my adsl connection and have had to re-install a number of times, hence trying to get them back in again. I have searched around and don't understand a fair bit of the advice, and as a result have managed to copy ALL the xp fonts to my /usr/share/fonts/msttcorefonts directory, but when I select the kde look and feel section to try and change some of them to use the ms fonts, they do not appear in the box for selection. My XP install is formatted as ntfs, and I understand that that can be a problem, so what should I do next to get the fonts actually installed on the system, as opposed to just copied to the abovementioned file/directory please??? regards John

I am having the same problem. And it's really pissing me off to have to keep booting back into the hated window$ to get net access. Anyhow, the only way that I have found to cure this is to reinstall the whole OS. I have tried looking through "disc 1" and found an rpm called speedtouch and "installed" it in the hope that it will replace the damaged package. No such luck. I have previously damaged it ( i think) by trying to install shorewall, but with that installed, it won't let me access the f*****g net (sorry I am in really angry rant mode at the moment - i.e. bastard linux, bastard mandrake, bastard everything - hence please excuse the expletives I'm trying really hard to put this post in a common sense and logical manner!!!!!!!!!!!). I digress. I have tried the shorewall, nothing, I have then uninstalled shorewall, nothing, I have tried re-installing the iptables, nothing, hence the fall back of reinstalling the OS just to correct a small missing/damaged script, which is not only overkill, but a total pain in the arse having to re input my customisation i.e. I prefer opera, window$/M$ office fonts, URL's etc etc. But I would like to learn how to correct this snag, and have started an "incident" at mandrakeexpert, but as yet, assistance has been minimal - you may be able to follow it by searching mandrakeexpert for my connection problem thread. Any help is much appreciated because to be honest, I am getting close to bining the linux altogether, which may sound petty, but as my IT knowledge is very limited and I have no interest in most of the stuff that linux is capable of, I just want a non M$ system for surfing, word processing, etc - user stuff, and having to do this all the time is just too much aggravation for a basic user like me. Just for back ground, I connect at boot, because I can't work out how to sort a firewall under linux - shorewall is what I get when I click on the firewall option under MCC>security>firewall and I can't work out how to configure it so I can just surf normally and have it prevent outside access when I'm not in front of the PC. So I use the disconnect option in the control centre under connections. If I leave the computer for too long, I have to re boot it to connect, as it won't let me reconnect to the net. Hence a firewall would be good. Again, any assistance is very much appreciated regards John (calm, calm, deep breaths, calm, deep breath, cigarette, coffee, deep breaths, etc etc etc)

This is the problem, I am running 9.0 and it still isn't shown under scannerdrake. I think that I have the various bit's of sane/xsane that I need but I have absolutely no idea what to do from there. regards John

I have recently brought the above scanner and can't get it working. I have looked at Jonathan Buzzards site about USB scanners, but don't really understand how to make it work. I think that I have downloaded the correct files (maybe!!!) but I don't understand what I need to do with them from there. Could anyone tell me exactly what I need to do/get/download etc and how to set it up/configure as it isn't listed under "scannerdrake" - the models only seem to go upto 1240 (which, as far as I can work out, is a superceded model - 2 models ago as there also seems to have been a 1250) so I believe it may be a little "recent". Also, if anyone has any ideas/info could you put it in "monkey see, monkey do" type language as I'm finding getting to grips with linux terminology confusing - too much retained window$ nonsense!!! regards John

Is this http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/28408.html what you where on about starbane? As I couldn't find any reference to the 95% of 12 businesses that you mentioned in your last post. Whatever, it still makes a monkey of the majority of micro$oft's claims about cost's etc regards John p.s. also please note the heavy handed use of irony and sarcasm in the registers article - good isn't it LoL :lol: