payasam

When I tried to install WP it kept saying that it needed this or that file. After spending some time searching for those files, I downloaded and installed them. WP then installed itself. I did an ldd on xwp and jotted down the files and paths that came up. These I added to /etc/ld.so.conf, after which I ran /sbin/ldconfig. Still, when I try to run xwp, I get the message "can't load library libXt.so.6", even though that library is on the system and the path to it is included in ld.so.conf. Will appreciate advice. WP 5.1 for DOS and WP 6.1 for Blindows served me well and I continue to use them for specific purposes even though I have StarOffice, OpenOffice and other word processing and DTP programs.

What advice for me? MDK 10.0 Official, problem has occurred twice in the last couple of days. When I want to get out, the blue screen with the cross at the centre comes up -- and that's all. Nothing -- CTL-ALT-DEL, CTL-ALT-ESC, foul abuse, saying "pretty please" -- shakes it. I have to do a reset or else turn off the mains power. On booting into MDK again, there's the "appears to have shut down uncleanly" message.

SOLVED should be NOT QUITE SOLVED It's 17 Nov '04 and KAlarm refuses to accept an alarm for 14 Jan '05 even though I advance the calendar to the correct month and year and click there. Keeps burping at me: "Date already in the past" or something similar. I can of course use another reminder program, and probably I shall, but I'd like to understand why KAlarm is uncooperative and rude.

Thanks, Spinynorman, Coverup, John. I finally lost patience and reinstalled Mandrake and packages from scratch. Lost little data, since I'd been careful to store copies on a FAT32 partition. Lost some hours, of course. Until I've seen Mandrake running without idiosyncracy or idiocy for two months or so, I shall continue to back up data on Windows D:. No one has so far even suggested why a whole ruddy directory (or perhaps it was more than one) should have vanished when I'd asked only for a file (probably a font family rather than a single face) to be deleted. I'll store your advice somewhere, John, in case I should need it later.

This is almost certainly not a hardware matter, Spinynorman, but I don't really care so long as I get the system going again. I've tried to reinstall font files with urpmi, but I keep getting the response "Everything already installed". This would suggest that the stuff is all there but whatever controls it cannot find it. The command "fc-cache -fv" did no good either. Any idea where this 'fixed' font might be and in which control file I should specify its location? I came across a *.conf file somewhere which has the paths to fonts, but EMACS and VIM worked differently - and in any case I couldn't have told them where the 'fixed' font was since I don't know that yet.

Mandrake 10.0 Official (download version) I had too many fo(u)nts and wanted to remove those which I would never use. I went through System and Font Installer and found /personal empty. When I clicked on it, Konqueror started up and I could get into /System, where all the files were. I viewed and then removed two. Devil knows what happened when I asked for a third to be removed, but the whole sub-directory just disappeared. Now when I start up Mandrake, I find myself in text mode. Typing "startx" brings up several error messages, including the following: "Fatal server error: Could not open default font 'fixed'." Where has the sub-directory gone and can I get it back? [moved from Installing Mandrake by spinynorman]

Thanks, Spinynorman. Whether or not this helps solve my immediate problem, it certainly will teach me something about touch and chmod. What, I wonder, is the function of this pspfontcache fellow anyway? Just to be a damn nuisance?

You haven't read anything to the contrary to date, Arctic? Well, I am far ahead of you - I haven't read ANYTHING. That's what comes of not showing reverence for ancestral potatoes.

Disloyal to your own potatoes (or half-potatoes), Arctic? Shame on you. Spinynorman: There was a pspfontcache file. I made a copy, then deleted it, started SO, quit SO - and it was back, 5,139 lines long. I have too many type-faces in this box although I don't need more than a dozen or so families. I just tried to delete some but the fo(u)nt management in 10.0 is awful.

Here we are, Steve: # /etc/fstab: static file system information. # # <file system> <mount point> <type> <options> <dump> <pass> /dev/hda7 / ext2 errors=remount-ro 0 1 none /dev/pts devpts mode=0620 0 0 /dev/hdb /mnt/cdrom auto umask=0,user,iocharset=iso8859-15,codepage=850,noauto,ro,exec 0 0 none /mnt/floppy supermount dev=/dev/fd0,fs=ext2:vfat,--,umask=0,iocharset=iso8859-15,sync,codepage=850 0 0 none /mnt/floppy2 supermount dev=/dev/fd1,fs=ext2:vfat,--,umask=0,iocharset=iso8859-15,sync,codepage=850 0 0 /dev/hda1 /mnt/win_c vfat umask=0,iocharset=iso8859-15,codepage=850 0 0 /dev/hda5 /mnt/win_d vfat umask=0,iocharset=iso8859-15,codepage=850 0 0 none /proc proc defaults 0 0 none /tmp tmpfs defaults 0 0 /dev/hda6 swap swap sw 0 0 ------------------ I wonder, Arctic, if the system check is such a bad thing after all. What if there is an error and the check catches it before it can do anything really damaging? I'd rather be safe than get bugged by a wait of a couple of minutes.

Will do that, Steve, though not immediately. It's a working weekend. That's a relief, Tyme. The "data may be lost" warning worried me a little. I really should have said in my original post that power outages are not infrequent here and I don't have a UPS. May I ask what it is that you're angry about? Unless, of course, anger is a way of life.

Mandrake 10.0 and Win 98 SE. LILO. When I booted into Mandrake just now, I got a message to the effect that the system had been started 29 times without being checked. I was instructed to run fsck manually, but immediately after that there was an offer to check everything. There was also a warning that data might be lost. I told the system to go ahead. After the announcement "/dev/hda7 - forced check" there was a series of messages of the form "Inode x, i_size is y, should be 0" (x and y being numerical values). Then the box rebooted. Everything seems to be OK, but I'm unhappy because I don't understand what the fuss was about. I trust that someone will explain the thing to me.

Thanks, John. We hope to please. If in the process we get others to solve our problems for us, so much the better. Something like a court jester cracking a silly joke for the king and being rewarded with a sack full of gold.

Arctic: Spain -- hah. You want to be roasted, come to India in May. Or dive into a stream and get boiled. We haven't enough oil to fry you, sorry. Arthur: It's always possible, with a bit of care, to make the best of a bad job. For example, for decades I rode motorcycles up to twenty-five years old and never felt handicapped because I knew their insides and kept them in shape. If we are to be honest, Windows is not such a terribly bad job; besides, there are good people out there who work hard to keep out the nasties you've listed. Spinynorman: If the post turns out to be relevant, I thank you in advance. If it should be utterly useless, I'm terribly sorry - I still have to thank you. These cookies insist on crumbling in their own way, you see. [EDIT] It should be relevant, assuming SO has the same sort of cache that OO does. Only way to find out is to find out. But making the rebuilt cache file read only will cause trouble if founts are added later, won't it?

Is that pond you have up there as cold as the Arctic, Arctic?

Hamburg has always been known for the strange things that happen there...

Can someone please tell me why, on the same machine, StarOffice 7 should run noticeably slower in Mandrake 10.0 than it does in Windows 98 SE?

BIN extension, Arctic. No untarring needed, just ./filename.

I didn't have the foggiest, John, what I'd do with a baby kangaroo - but my niece did ask twice if she could bring me anything. Now something cuddly is another matter altogether: I'd welcome that, Australian or Chinese, and not as a souvenir. Devries, the "setup" brings up a Repair/Remove menu. I've been that route and achieved nothing.

Well, I got impatient and wiped out and reinstalled Mandrake. StarOffice wanted to put itself in /root but I changed that to /usr/local. I still haven't checked to see if it behaves itself. In Windows, incidentally, the installations of OpenOffice and StarOffice are identical - with the exception that there is no Adabas with OOo.

Yes, AI, I put exactly what I said here on the SO Linux install forum too. Not a squeak there so far, possibly because they have no bats. Maybe if you'd do a Latin translation for me ...

Let's hope someone does, John, because that's the package in which I do all my writing, spreadsheet and data base work. If it doesn't run in Linux, I'll remain stuck in Windows -- a fate worse than death, some call it. I was talking this morning to a niece who lives in Sydney and is to visit India with her two kids about a month from now. I'm thinking of disinheriting her: she refused, point blank, to bring me a baby kangaroo.

In earlier installs of 10.0 Official, I had put in StarOffice 7, and that program functioned just as it should have done except that it always refused to install the Java which comes with it, complaining that it could find no terminal. But it ran without trouble. I know the software and its quirks well, having used it and its predecessors in Windows for some years. What's happening now is that it's refusing to save the settings I make in its Tools -> Options section. Each time I start it, it's as if I'm making a new beginning. Although I have installed it under /usr/local and also under /home/myname, it has made files in the /root/.gnome and /root/.kde trees, which I have had to delete manually. It has been removed with its own setup utility and has reported success, but each time it has left files sitting around. It does not show up at all in the System -> Configuration -> Packaging -> Remove Software list. I have set to R/W the sub-directory where it saves user configuration but that has not helped. I am at my wits' end: though in all honesty I must admit that it doesn't take much travel to get me there. Why don't I just stick with OpenOffice? Because I have data bases sitting in Windows StarOffice which I want to move into its Linux version. OpenOffice does not come with Adabas and also handles DBF files only in its spreadsheet component. I don't want hours of work to go waste.

Thanks, Arctic and John. I just tested my hard drive (barring a surface scan) with a utility made by its manufacturer, Samsung. The utility says all is OK but I cannot understand why the drive's light sometimes stays lit when there is no reason for disk activity. I shall now run an excellent memory diagnostic program I have. That will leave the mainboard. One thing is certain. Until these things are sorted out I shall not touch Mandrake. Can't afford so much time.

This is not, strictly speaking, an installation matter; but I don't know where else to put it. I had a functioning 10.0 Official system, but it is no longer working. I began to get a "Umount /initrd: device is busy" message. There were several messages which went "dma_intr drive status error CRC ...". When I boot into Linux, the process ends with figures running rapidly up the screen and the hard drive not spinning: the only option is a hard reboot. I tried the "rescue" option but nothing seemed to happen. When I chose the "upgrade" option, after considerable inactivity this message came up: "Can't find Mandrake/base/compssUsers", and things were back to square one. I have also got "XIO: fatal IO error 104". Might this be a hardware problem? The "dma" in the third para above makes me suspicious, and my Win 98 has also been behaving erratically. [moved from Installing Mandrake by spinynorman]