bigjohn

thinkpad is the name allocated to the laptop. the command "smbclient -L thinkpad" just says "connection to thinkpad failed" - I also tried a few other options but to no avail. As for the printer, I deleted the printer entry, but can't recreate it as the laptop can't see the linux box (to which the printer is connected). I've double checked the network settings and as far as I can see/tell, they are OK - I could easily be wrong. Hence, stumped! Damn. regards John

I think I've got something wrong earlier than the printer. I can't access any shares (presuming that the printer is seen as a share from the linux box). The workgroup is being seen from the laptop i.e. it's showing in the "network neighbourhood" since I had another go at configuring via the MCC and sharing. I just can't access the linux box from the laptop and I'm still getting the same can't find anything when I try to look at smb:// i.e. it shows nothing for my workgroup. I don't understand why, my smb.conf looks like this: Obviously, theres something wrong with that. For the life of me, I can't see what it might be. regards John

Sorry, this is making me seem really stupid! I'm not sure where I'm going wrong with this. The MCC>sharing>"Set up a file and print server for workstations running linux and non-linux systems is what I've been following. I select the "standalone server" and make it the same workgroup, I don't really know what the rest is so I just hit enter till the wizard finishes. So I have to presume that thats correct - I don't know. If I then look in the desktop "Network browsing" icon/facility, konqueror opens at smb:// and appears to be looking for something, but it always hits me with the same error i.e. could not connect for host smb://myworkgroup. Hence the lame questions - I'm just confused to hell with this one! regards John

Sorry for the delay in replying - work (4 x 13 hour shifts + sleeps + eats = zero linux meddling time ). Anyhow, as far as I can see, my printer is set up ok i.e. it works. How would I go about checking that it's setup for sharing ?? in the mcc - checked out what I suspect are the correct "things" but can't see any place to allocate "sharing" ??? When I had "it" working during the first install of mandriva (pre-screwing it up) I managed to get it printing with just the generic W98 hpdeskjet facility (on the laptop that is). Post screwup, nada! you dont need this domain controllers for that, its more complicated, you just need samba to act as a stand-alone server... you need to add a user in your linux box that you should use on your windows 98, then add it again in your smbpasswd file.. say.. in you linux, you add an account named "linuxuser" & "98user" linuxuser is the one you're logging on your linux ( you can do so with "98user") 98user is for your windows 98.. for it to access samba.. you should as root; #smbpasswd -a 98user -- enter password: enter password again: -- the password that you will be using on this dose not necesarilly be the same as the password you assign in your linux but no roblem if they are the same. after that, the usename "98user" ( or what ever username you created) should be the username that you will be using when logging on your win98 laptop, that would allow the laptop to access samba ( assuming that the samba has been configure and the problem was with users accounts) Standalone server? OK I seem to recall seeing that somewhere - I'll check. The bit about adding samba users? Ok I think I can see that, but do I need just root and my user ? or as the laptop is Clares, do I need to have a username/password for her as well? I can't work out whether this is partly the reason I'm confusing matters or not - i.e. I set the laptop so that it has user logins for me and Clare, but with different accounts/profiles, whatever you'd call them with W98 (sure I understand that it's different for XP) and if it would be necessary for me to be logged into to my "account/profile" or either and whether that has anything to do with it not seeing the linux system and/or the printer etc. sorry to keep asking for clarification about this, but it's really got me confused as hell! regards John

My opening thread title just about says it all. ianw1974's link to that howto, was not as helpful as I'd hoped. Apart from it not showing the current version/view/screenies, I tried to follow it (which was in a "hit or miss" kind of way). I'm now even more confused. My aim is to be able to get Clares (my partner) laptop - W98 thinkpad - talking to the mandriva box/installed desktop, so that it can use the connected printer. It might be useful to be able to share files etc, but the printer is the main thing. I don't follow whether I need to have a samba server and/or samba client installed (I think I've got both). I have swat and webmin installed as well, but am getting mighty confused what I need to select to make a usable smb.conf file. The laptop is ready to do it's thing i.e. it's previously managed to connect - like when I first installed 2006 a couple of days ago, but I screwed the system up and all thats dis-appeared, but the workgroups are still listed on the laptop - Ideally I'd like to delete the workgroup listings, but can't see how that would be done. theres stuff about "domain controllers" which I haven't really got a clue about - masters, slaves, etc etc do I need any of that stuff? Do I need to add users or would that automatically happen during install ??? Do I need samba users for both myself and partner on the linux box ??? I really don't know - because I seem to be just messing things up whenever I try to sort this. So if anyone knows of anything that I can read up, which would explain how to set this up in a non-techical manner, could you point me in the right direction please ? regards John

Well, once again I "bit the bullet". Firefox was a complete PITA! In the end, it kept telling me that the profile I wanted to use was in use - even when I'd dumped all the others. I had to mess around with renaming, changing the default number etc etc etc. In the end, all I could do, was to open the two profiles I had left one was the one that I wanted to use and the other one seemed to be some sort of default - I just opened both in different konqueror windows and then deleted the bookmarks and the bookmarks.bak file(s) from the "default" one, and copied the "good" bookmarks and bookmarks.bak files across. I'll have to get the extensions that I want again, as well as the themes. More of a PITA but it's the best that I'm gonna get for now so it'll have to do. Thankyou to all who have assisted in sorting this problem. I can't say for certain which of the suggestions has actually worked. I'm just relieved that I can now open links from emails. regards John

Ok, so as it turns out, it wasn't a stupid question. It's partially sorted - but now bloody firefox is opening with a different profile. If I look in the /mozilla/firefox directory, theres about 4 profile directories. I don't give a hoot about most of them, but I want to use the one that has all my bookmarks etc (currently posting this from opera). So is it safe to dump the additional profiles except the one that I want to use with the bookmarks ??? regards John

Ha! the reboot didn't "hurt", but it didn't make any difference either. Scraping the bottom of the barrel for ideas, but maybe the entry(ies) in the user.js and prefs.js should be pointing at /usr/bin/mozilla-firefox ??? because theres no executable showing there, only a shell script that seems to be called mozilla-firefox. Or is that another stupid question ??? regards John

Damn damn damn! Well I now have a link to the gnome-settings-daemon in my /.kde/Autostart - the component chooser says that the email client is set to /usr/bin/mozilla-thunderbird, but nada! Additionally, I've also now got a user.js file in the thunderbird directory that says which, as far as I can tell, is correct. It is also now appearing in the prefs.js file like this but having closed the apps and even closed the session and restarted both, it (thunderbird) still doesn't want to open a link in firefox. Maybe theres something else I should be doing as well ??? regards John p.s. I know it shouldn't make the blindest bit of difference, but I'll try the "windows cure" and reboot as well - It can't hurt can it ??

Hum? I'll have too read through that link very carefully and try to get it right - though it's gonna be a bit hit and miss, as the current "incarnation" of the samba wizard is very different (and hence rather confusing for someone like me who just doesn't seem to have the "technical mindset"). Thankyou for that link though ianw1974 - I shal study it very carefully then probably post back with a dumb question ! regards John

Yes I have, I think that thats why the "embedded" version of mplayer kicks in for mpegs - though why it doesn't want to play wmv's is still a bit of a mystery. regards John

No this is definitely with 1.0xxx version(s). Strangely enough, after my system screw up yesterday, I re-installed everything (the same as before as far as I can tell), and now mpegs open the embedded mplayer, and wmv seems to want to open with totem (which the system says is the default media viewer). Hence with a wmv it asks if I want to open it with totem - which will do for the moment, but I'd rather get them running under mplayer as thats _MY_ prefered media player. Weird! regards John

Which, if I'm thinking "in the right direction" and not suffering from a "raging brainfart", go someway to explaining why, when I have a meddle with the prefs.js and add the lines to "apparently" tell it which browser to open, and then have a play with something else, when it reopens, it's dropped the lines that I've added. So with that in mind, when I look, there seems to be no users.js file, do I just make one and then add the lines to tell thunderbird to use firefox or is there more too it (at the moment, it's even stopped giving me the error - it just does nothing at all)?? Oh dear. Thats confusing me even more. I don't run gnome at all (it's installed, but I never touch it - I find it thoroughly unusable i.e. it just "doesn't make sense too me"). Hence I'm stumped as to why I'd want gnome settings loaded/running in the first place - background or otherwise?

Obviously missing something here. When I'd first installed, it seemed to work fine. Since I screwed the system yesterday, nada, zilch, etc etc. If I look in either network browsing or devices it tells me that it can't find any workgroup. I have to presume that it's refering to the workgroup on the linux box??? The W98 laptop is showing johnsgroup and mdkgroup in the "network neighbourhood". I've tried what I think are the obvious choices, but the deluge of info otherwise, is leaving me lost. Could someone point me in the right direction please ??? regards John

Now I am confused ianw1974. I've got to the "Component Chooser" part and told it that thunderbird and firefox are what I want. fine. But thunderbird still doesn't seem to know what app too start - as I mentioned I tried modding the prefs.js (as user). Which just didn't want too save, surely it should as it's a user preference in a user file ??? then I also don't follow what the "gnome-settings-daemon" has to do with this ??? i.e. why would there have to be a link to the gnome-settings-daemon in the ".kde/Autostart" ????

are there any links about that, that you know of ianw1974? I'd like to find out if urpmi is as "clever" as gentoo's portage, because with that I could do "emerge -s fir" and it would throw up a list of all packages that had "fir" in their names and I wondered if urpmi would do stuff like that. Because using my example, I might not actually know the kernel name so I might not have been able to get the kernel sources and nvidia driver to install (well OK I would have been able to get the nvidia driver from the DVD in this instance, but otherwise would have had to envoke lynx etc. So if there is a list I could note the link in my "black book" but also print of a copy of the "instructions" so to have them ready in the event of another disaster. regards John

I'm getting an error when trying to open a link in emails in thunderbird. It should be opening firefox, but it's telling me that it won't do that. I've checked around and tried to add the couple of lines at the bottom of the prefs.js file so that it knows that I want to open firefox, but it doesn't seem to want to let me save the additional lines. anyone got any idea why or how else I can set firefox as the default browser - either for thunderbird or system wide ??? Oh and thats with the current verion of both thunderbird and firefox (1.0 series). Under kde. regards John

Thanks again daniewicz. I thought it would be something like that, but try as I might, I couldn't find where "it" was - how stupid of me regards John

I've screwed up. Damn! I was just trying to unpack a new "bearoff database" for gnubg, but ark crashed. I couldn't make the system restart as the screen was screwed up and unreadable. The meant a reboot (couldn't think of what else to do). Anyhow, when the system did restart, it would only go into a level 3 login. It appears that I'd got over excited when installing stuff and updating and the like. The system was expecting the 7176 (I think thats the number anyway), but it found the dkms 8 something package from the plf. So, for speed, i'm gonna take the newbie option and just re-install - it'd be quicker in the short term. But what I'd like to know, is, is there a link to a list of URPMI commands that would have allowed me to check and remove an offending package, then check the mirror(s) of whats available to get the system working again, without the need to re-install. I'm pretty sure it could be done that way (of course I'd have to remember not to remove the DVD sources from the list of URPMI repositories - which I've usually done as once the install is complete i've found it easier to use online sources/repositories). I believe I'm right in thinking that URPMI can be run entirely from CLI, I just need to know where I'd find the commands regards John

Still ironing out a few odd bits with this new install of 2006. If I click on an mpeg file in firefox, it downloads the file in what appears to be, embedded version of mplayer (which I have installed). If I try the same and the file is wmv, it just tells me that it's a .BIN file and only offers me the "save to disc" option - after which, mplayer will play it. How would I go about getting firefox to play wmv's directly? regards John

Thanks for that daniewicz. I've also downloaded a new bearoff database, I just need to work out how to extract/install it and where too! any ideas please? regards John

Thanks for that mtriley98, that seems to have done the trick - ish. I played a couple of "test" games, and when I'm winning, it seems to crash/close for no reason, but I have other problems, with my new install of 2006, so I'll worry about that later! regards John

Mandriva 2006 says that I need libgtkextra-x11-1.1.so.0 as a dependency of gnubg. Where do I get it, or does anyone know whether it's part of a different package that I can install??? regards John

Which I've got installed already. So.... I've been to the shop, and ended up replacing the Rio Carbon with a Creative Zen "Touch" 20 GB model. I'm planning to learn how to use the device, it's currently connected to Clares laptop and I'm ripping Marc Bolan and T.rex "Essential Collection" (arguably, showing my age _40_ next month :D ) and then I'm gonna start working on how to rip stuff under linux to see if it will drag/drop to the mp3 player. I don't suppose it matters that I'm ripping/encoding at the highest bit rate to the device with windows, because the size of the HDD on the device means that I don't have to skimp on file sizes etc and logic "should" dictate that I would be able to rip/encode at the higher bit rates with linux apps as well, to get all of what Clare will want on the device (she gives me a list of which track from which album/CD). As a side thing, I've been trying to set up SAMBA, so I suppose that if need be, when I've got that worked out and can "see" the laptop from the linux install, I'd have the option of ripping/encoding and then sharing the file(s) with the laptop if I experience any problems trying to get the tracks from linux directly to the mp3 player??? Ha!, my only problems are lack of knowledge about how to do "such things", being stupid and very, very impatient! regards John

Yup! Sorry, I didn't make myself clear. I've got mirrors set for both "PLF Free and PLF Non Free" (one is a dutch mirror and one french, - I think, but can't remember which way round they are). Hence I wondered if the libmp3lame is only available on specific mirrors (I can always change that using the easyurpmi facility - that's how I set the mirror sources anyway!)??? Oh, and thanks to iphitus for the suggestion about looking at the "Creative" mp3 player devices - The MuVo Micro N200 @ 1GB looks like it should do the job (heh! afterall, it's for my partner Clare, so the only thing thats relevant too me is that I can do the rips/encodes under linux as I now don't have any windows in my PC). regards John