payasam

The machine has no brand name, Scoopy, having been assembled by my hardware chap. The component in question is an Intel 82810E graphics controller. My problem is not the green fellow, whom I rather like. It's the background with the vertical green lines. But I guess I'm just being a fussy old coot.

Right. SO comes with Java and asks if it should install it if it is not already present or if an older version is present. Not having Java does not make such a great difference. It's just an annoyance that there should be a complaint about no console.

Sorry I didn't express myself clearly. Java comes as a part of the StarOffice 7 installer. It just refused to install itself.

StarOffice 7 refused to install Java in MDK 10.0 saying that there was "no console found" - although I was in Konsole at that time. I am also unable to find files with the "whereis" command run from / .

I have been a relatively fast and very accurate typist for long, John, and it was necessary in the days of manual typewriters. I also tend to be hyper-critical in these matters: but the good thing is that I'm harder on myself than on others. I struggled to figure out what MUB might have to do with Australia or with age: and the answer turns out to be so bleedin' simple.

I can't help, Ansari Sahab (assuming you are from what is called the Indian sub-continent as I am), except by saying that I was and probably will be in the same boat as you. Strange behaviour - references to devices not present, remarks about kernel being missing, etc. - got me so bugged that yesterday I re-installed Mandrake Official 10.0 from scratch. And guess what? Now there is a CD icon on the desktop. It bugs me when a machine does things which I cannot understand or when it acts arbitrarily.

Yes, John, it is me: and I thank you for your kind words. I couldn't for the life of me figure out what they mean here by "avatar", which is a Sanskrit word whose original meaning I know, so I just tinkered with a picture of myself and said "to hell with language". Now would you please expand MUB for me? And do forgive me for having misspelt "disgrace" in my last. Disgraceful, don't you think, considering that I make my living as an editor and writer, having abandoned teaching?

In desperation. As I said, Devries, the audio which had appeared in Thunderbird and Netscape, disappeared. I still had audio on boot up and at shut down and in Alarm Clock, and an MP3 file played perfectly. I suspect the problem is deeper. I was unable to quit Netscape. I could reduce its window size, but then it just sat there. When I disconnected from the Net, its window also just sat there. I had a screen covered with windows and no way to get rid of them except a reboot. There was one red mark on rebooting in failsafe mode: "umount" and "/initrd device is busy" or something similar. Then "INIT: going single user mode, sh-2.05b". An "exit" command got things running again, but the audio was still as I describe above. I am now thinking of wiping out everything and reinstalling from scratch. All told, OS and software packages should not take more than three hours or so: which is no big deal if there is a reasonable likelihood of getting the system working without too many glitches. Those files which I have written in Mandrake can be stored safely in a Windows sub-directory and brought back.

Adamw: Yes, I have a B: drive - and what's worse, until a couple of months back it was a 1.2MB 5.25" one, which I found far more reliable than the 1.44 kind, whose floppies are almost certain not to be able to carry material from one machine to another. I had to abandon the larger drive because having it maintained had become impossible. Devries: The audio notifications in Thunderbird and Netscape, which had miraculously begun to work, have now miraculously stopped working. I cannot tear my hair, which is too short - but I do have a substantial beard.

OK, Scoopy, toss me about where you please. With olive oil, if need be. You are helpful, Iphitus, most horrendously helpful.

You should be able to hear me, Devries, because my sound works. I am now getting audible notifications of new mail in Thunderbird and in Netscape. I swear I did nothing other than search - without success - for a solution on Google and in a couple of forums other than this one. I also swore at the computer, which may have been what did the trick.

Thanks, John. Having a printer icon cluttering up the desktop would be silly considering that applications call the device directly. I go for the disrace option rather than the not significant one. I've looked everywhere and come to the conclusion that it was Santa Claus, or perhaps one of his reindeer, who wanted information on single clicks.

Will no one help me, please? I think the chap dressed in green is handsome and elegant, but it's that background which is terrible. In Windows I could at least make my own shut-down screens, rude remarks and all.

Did as you said, John, but when I clicked on "apply", the whole ruddy Control Centre came crashing down - and nothing had changed on the desktop.

Thanks, John. Clearly I must have missed the device options thing. Will do what you advise first chance I get. I cannot understand why I am being told about single and double clicks, which is not a matter I asked about. I've seen the options and chosen those that I want. Thanks anyway.

It's only been a few days since I got into 10.0, Adamw, and I don't foresee moving to 10.1 or later until I learn to find my way about in this one. Besides, as I understand it, 10.1 is still in the pre-final stage. In short, I think I shall keep away from your no doubt excellent product with the trade mark.

For 0.0000001 per cent of the country's population, there's everything to be had.

People in Delhi drink their beer almost frozen. I never could stand that. In England I drank Guinness at Guinness Temperature, which some people also call room temperature. We don't get Guinness here: nor, fortunately, Amstel. Ha ha, gotcha.

Thanks, Devries, though I'll have to read all that around three dozen times before I begin to understand it. Strange about time. The system showed you 5:30 behind me (Delhi) whereas Amsterdam would have been 4:30. I was in your city for some while, by the way, around Christmas of 1975. I am a life-long devotee of edam and gouda, though Amstel doesn't come anywhere near Guinness.

Roger, Devries. Though I shall feel unhappy if all that rejuvenating exercise over alsa goes waste. Would your location be close to the same downward line as Greenwich?

Right, Devries, here goes. I decided, for no particular reason, to switch to GRUB from LILO. When I rebooted, all was silence. This may, of course, have been because I did something in the audio configuration; though I don't think I changed anything. I changed back to LILO and booted in failsafe mode. Audio was back. Went out and booted in normal mode. Once again, no audio. Looking into the audio config I found that the driver had somehow changed from the default for i810 to OSS. I changed it to ALSA, which involved installing something or other from CD. On rebooting, audio was back. It was not back, though, in Thunderbird or Netscape. Since both are based on Mozilla, if your suspicion that their settings are to blame, then the same correction will probably work with both. Audacity reported an error initiating audio i/o layer, Host Error. XMMS and JuK did not work either. I must point out that I don't know if all of these are audio players or something else. Finally I tried Noatun. It played an MP3 track perfectly. One other strange thing. When I specify /mnt with the intention of going into my Windows drives C: or D: to get at the two or three audio files I have on disk, the B: drive begins to spin and keeps spinning, while nothing shows up under /mnt. I'll see now if artsdsp does something and will look into Netscape and Thunderbird; though I've used Netscape for years in Windows and cannot remember any settings to do with audio. I might have missed them, of course.

Good god, Anna, how did you get in here? Didn't you see the notice at the top, CHILDREN NOT ALLOWED? Ah, yes, I forget. You still haven't learnt how to read.

My system has Intel 810 AC'97 audio. Works OK (as well as it can, that is) in Windows. I get a noise when I boot into 10.0 Official. But all is silence when I ask, in Thunderbird and Netscape, to be notified of new mail using specific audio files. I've checked the driver and it's the right one. Here's what /sbin/chkconfig --list sound gave: 0, 1, and 6, off; 2 to 5 (inclusive), on. I've no idea what this means: I just typed what I was told to type.

That's immensely reassuring, Counterspy, but just whom are you calling old?

Thanks, Anna, but the fact is that I've been a silly old fool. A while ago I discovered what you've pointed out. The CD drive icon is on the desktop when there's a CD in it. Take the CD out and it disappears. One conclusion is that jokers of 54 need good ophthalmologists. I shall not boast about how unobservant I am (despite having been a photographer since the 1960s) or how lacking in intelligence (despite having been a university teacher since 1977). Long ago someone told me that the older we get and the more we learn, the more obvious becomes our ignorance: and the more appalling.