adamw

not ideal, but a workaround - save to .wav from audacity, and call lame from the command line to encode.

good link. The author of that article is a v. active Mandrake Japanese user who's a good person to contact about any kind of Japanese issue on MDK. The other person I'd direct you to is Utumi Hirosi , email utuhiro78@yahoo.co.jp . He does a lot of work on CJK stuff for Mandrake and should be able to help you out (I'm sure he'll love me for filling his email box too :>)

IRQ conflict problem by the looks of it. noapic may help - edit lilo.conf and add noapic as a kernel parameter, run lilo, reboot. Play around with the acpi settings too, maybe.

gowator: no, you wouldn't need both those things to happen. All you need to do to screw up the nvidia drivers is issue 'modprobe rivafb', or have the rivafb kernel module loaded some other way (by modprobe.conf or modprobe.preload). Whether it's set as the X driver or not doesn't matter. From the other nvidia thread I'm not sure you understand that kernel modules and X drivers are *completely different* - for instance, with nvidia, the "nvidia" that is loaded by the xorg.conf file is an X module and is *not* the same thing as the nvidia *kernel* module, which is the file nvidia.ko somewhere in the /lib/modules tree. It's not the same thing being accessed separately by the kernel and X, it's two *different* things.

john - all that does is stop the harddrake service from running during boot. The harddrake boot service is what checks your system to see if anything new has been installed. Stopping the boot service from running wouldn't stop harddrake from scanning your system when run as part of MCC.

you don't need to say 75-75, just say 75 :). But his point was there's no MDK tool that lets you specify refresh rates explicity. If XFdrake doesn't let you do this (I don't remember...), he's correct.

yes, as the others said, you need *both* modules to load, so you need to make sure something loads the nvidia kernel module (the modprobe.preload change we just made) and you need to make sure X uses the nvidia driver, so keep the Device "nvidia" in xorg.conf.

384MB would be fine for swap. Mandrake doesn't have 'a size', it all depends on what you install. A reasonably sized install can be done in under a gigabyte, though you'll probably find yourself adding to that. Any problems you get dual-booting are at least reversible, you can't screw anything permanently.

oh, and btw, don't worry - the first time I used a text editor in Linux I tried emacs, which I couldn't even work out how to quit. I didn't know about virtual consoles then, so I just rebooted! Next I tried vi, which I could at least work out with instructions. Now I use nano. mmm...lovely nano.

that is odd, yes, 2.6 is default; maybe something in your hardware is blacklisted for kernel 2.6? Installing it is quite easy, anyway - once your urpmi sources are properly set up, just install the 'kernel-2.6' package and reboot, you'll have a 2.6 kernel option in the boot menu. Packages - well, most people end up using urpmi to install packages because it's fast. It's not the only option, though. There's the graphical installer rpmdrake, the one that's in the system menus, and that will give you a description of any package you select. Some of them leave a little to be desired, but it's better than nothing :)

this was the common problem that was mostly reported on fedora but actually affected all linux distros, wasn't it? If I remember correctly, the best fix was not to set everything manually in the BIOS but set it to LBA mode, should make Windows and Linux both work. This is just vaguely remembered stuff though.

gowator - to save you some heartache when you do, this is what I need to do to make it work on Cooker. (maybe it works better in 10.1, but just in case :>) before calling bluemote, do this as root: # mknod -m 666 /dev/rfcomm0 c 216 0 # rfcomm bind /dev/rfcomm0 bt.ad.dr.es.so.fp.ho.ne (you can find the bt address of the phone from hcitool scan) Now when you run bluemote it'll actually work, as opposed to not talking to the phone at all :). Just super-in-case, I found before I did *anything* with my phone via bluetooth I had to force the two to pair up, which I did by: # rfcomm connect /dev/rfcomm0 ad.dr.es.so.fp.ho.ne 5 that forces a connection between the two, the phone will detect a new device, ask if you want to pair with it, then ask for the pin (mandrake default 1234). Then you can just ctrl-c the connection. Now they're paired for ever, you only need to do this bit once. I couldn't find a more elegant way to make 'em pair up. You can use gnome-obex-send or kdebluetooth to send files to the phone, you should be able to receive from the phone too but at least in Cooker it's broken. I'm gonna try and get MDK to make all this a lot smoother for the next release. It's still better than it was a year ago, when you had to build half the tools from source :)

I don't know where the firefox installer puts it. Second guess after /usr/bin would be /usr/local/bin.

hmm, this sounds a bit crazy, but I wonder if at the point where it worked you were using the nvidia *kernel* module from 6629 but everything else from 5336, and that was the combination that did the trick? after the reboot, you'd probably be using the kernel module from 6629. Maybe you could try to contrive the mismatch again and see if it works.

edit /etc/modprobe.preload add an extra line which simply reads: nvidia should do the trick. Technical info - there's *two* things you can correctly refer to as 'nvidia modules'. There's the X video driver, which is loaded by making sure there's something in xorg.conf that says 'Device "nvidia"', and there's the nvidia *kernel* module, which is needed for the other bits to work. The problem we have here is the *kernel* module isn't being loaded. The change I suggested will make the nvidia kernel module load during bootup - any modules listed in modprobe.preload are loaded during boot.

Yeah, it's very unusual for it just to get broken like that. Maybe you ran MandrakeUpdate and it broke something (though it shouldn't do, of course!) BTW, the package names for all the login managers: xdm mdkkdm kdebase-kdm gdm xdm is the basic X one, it's ugly but functional. mdkkdm is Mandrake's customised manager, the default. kdebase-kdm is the stock KDE one. gdm is the GNOME one. Install 'em all and you can switch between them as artee posted (I think it's probably drakboot that lets you pick which to use). You'll probably find one of these is the one you were using before.

aha, it's harddrake probing the system. Maybe a bug report would help - on qa.mandrakesoft.com , submit a report of the problem (running harddrake hangs the system) with a precise listing of the hardware in the system (leave nothing out), the results of lspcidrake -v and lsusb . The devs will ask for any other info they need.

freeeagle: oh, you CAN nuke the kernel. I've had ndiswrapper and prism54 both take it down.

You're getting magicdev, devfs and udev confused :) devfs - an old system for maintaining a dynamic (i.e. devices get created and destroyed by the system as needed - the alternative is static, where devices are created and destroyed by the user as needed) /dev tree. Used in Mandrake up to v10.0. udev - a new system designed to do the same thing. Used by default in Mandrake in 10.1, though you can also use devfs. magicdev - basically, an automounter. Can run on top of udev or devfs (or even a static /dev, I think.) The problem here appears to be that udev is not creating a /dev/hdc device on system start. The change suggested to fstab may well fix this. You should never have both udev and devfs trying to run, but on a Mandrake system you probably want *either* devfs and magicdev *or* udev and magicdev both running. Hope that cleared things up!

well, the way the software installer works is this: you give it 'media' (often referred to as 'repositories' or 'sources') which contain software packages. It keeps a list of what packages are available on what media, and when you ask to install a package, it attempts to retrieve from a media and install. Media can be many things. As you've found out, this can include the installation CDs - this is the default set up you get after installing Mandrake. Trying to install additional software will ask for the install CDs. If you just provide the CDs it *should* pull the software off them and install. If this doesn't work, there's almost certainly a problem with your CDs. Media can ALSO, however, be just a directory on your hard disk full of packages, or an Internet server, usually FTP (but HTTP and another protocol called rsync are also supported). From your first message I thought you'd already learned how to use this type of media instead of CDs, but if you haven't, it's quite easy. If you visit http://easyurpmi.zarb.org/ you will find a three-stage script. First select your version of Mandrake, and hit 'continue'. The next section contains checkboxes for a variety of media; check the boxes for main, contrib and PLF. From the drop-down menus beside each check box, select a remote source (this is where the experimentation comes in, it's hard to know what server will be fast for you). Then click the next proceed button, and three rather complicated-looking commands will appear in a black box at the bottom. Now open a console, become root ('su' then your root password), and type this: urpmi.removemedia -a This removes all your existing urpmi sources, and lets you start from a clean slate. Software installation won't ask you for the Mandrake CDs any more. Now run the commands that the Easy URPMI script generated, one at a time. They will contact the server you selected and download the list of packages; this is 20MB each for main and contrib, so it may take some time. If the process appears to freeze or fails to contact the FTP server, hit ctrl-c to kill the command (if necessary). run urpmi.removemedia -a again, then change mirrors in the Easy URPMI script and try again. As for powering down, damn, that often fixes it :(. No, turning ACPI on shouldn't slow the system down, unless something is broken (in which case it will be a drastic effect that you would notice). I'm glad it fixed your printer problem, though :). You might like to try a different option, in that case. Following the same procedure as before in lilo.conf, add a *new* kernel option like this: noapic So if previous you had a block that looked like this: acpi=on vga=788 resume=/dev/hda5 You would change it to read: acpi=on vga=788 resume=/dev/hda5 noapic Run lilo again, and reboot the system. Hope this is helpful!

there are 10.1OE images freely available now, on the mirrors and via BitTorrent. Just go to the MDK home page.

partitioning a drive will do absolutely zip for performance; it's all just basically abstraction stuff. You do it because it makes your work easier, not because it makes the system run faster. With that said, this is my setup: / /data /home /usr /usr/local I don't tend to multi-boot or mess with other distros, so I don't need /boot. /usr isn't *really* necessary, as has been described above, but it's pretty standard practice so I just do it :). I split /usr/local off so that my user-compiled stuff is *completely* separable from the main distribution. /home split for obvious reasons. /data - since the system does a lot of media work I decided to create a very large, separate partition expressly for storing video, audio and so forth. On a normal system, I'd keep 'em in /home, but for this system I made a 120GB ReiserFS partition for them and gave my user read/write access to it.

inkscape was actually a fork of sodipodi caused by frustration with sodipodi's development policies, wasn't it? I've heard it's good, though. Not really an app, but my one of my favourite Things - adblock plugin for Firefox (and any other Gecko browser) - http://adblock.mozdev.org/ . Be sure to visit the 'advanced filters' sticky thread on the forum for the best filters. Banner ads? What are they? bluemote - lets you use bluetooth-enabled Ericsson cellphones as a PC remote control. http://www.geocities.com/saravkrish/progs/bluemote/ units - console-based conversion of just about *any* unit to any other. It's probably already installed on your system but you also probably didn't know about it :). Just type 'units' at a console, then try and fool it. sound-juicer - lovely HIGified CD ripping goodness for GNOME. It uses gstreamer and both a) actually works and B) shows why gstreamer is really good - it uses gstreamer's pipeline-based design to rip direct from CD to ogg in a single process, rather than the two-stage -> wav -> ogg process most rippers use. Once it has quality settings (next version, supposedly) I'll actually use it instead of grip. :)

dcgui-qt is your best option. It's butt-ugly but it works. Install it from PLF - use easyurpmi to set up a PLF source if you don't have one already. http://easyurpmi.zarb.org/

swfplay is a free, written-from-scratch flash viewer. It does a good job in the circumstances, but if you're not overly ideological and you just want the browser to work you're probably better off installing the closed-source flash plugin from Adobe. You can download it from their website. Remove swfplay (or swfdec, whatever it's actually called) with the Mandrake package management tools - rpmdrake-remove or urpme.