theYinYeti

Yet another error: <append key="volume.mount.valid_options" type="strlist">gid=</append> But even with this correction, nothing changes. I looked at the diff on lshal between the standard config and my changed configuration: nothing unusual. I now think the problem comes from DevTray. I'll look at the source code and let you know. Yves.

Further reading the HAL documentation, I saw that /usr/share/hal is for the distribution, and /etc/hal is for the administrator (me). I also found an error in my above file. So I put this modified file in /etc/hal/fdi/information: <deviceinfo version="0.2"> <device> <match key="@block.storage_device:@storage.originating_device:info.bus" string="usb"> <match key="block.is_volume" bool="true"> <append key="volume.mount.valid_options" type="strlist">gid</append> <merge key="volume.policy.mount_option.umask=002" type="bool">true</merge> <merge key="volume.policy.mount_option.gid=6" type="bool">true</merge> <merge key="volume.mount_point" type="string">/media/usb</merge> </match> </match> </device> </deviceinfo> My file is seen. Here's the diff from the "sda1" udi without my file to the same udi with my file: 25c25 < volume.is_mounted = true (bool) --- > volume.is_mounted = false (bool) 30,31c30,31 < volume.mount.valid_options = {'ro', 'sync', 'dirsync', 'noatime', 'nodiratime', 'noexec', 'quiet', 'remount', 'exec', 'utf8', 'shortname=', 'codepage=', 'iocharset=', 'umask=', 'dmask=', 'fmask=', 'uid=', 'flush'} (string list) < volume.mount_point = '/media/disk' (string) --- > volume.mount.valid_options = {'gid', 'ro', 'sync', 'dirsync', 'noatime', 'nodiratime', 'noexec', 'quiet', 'remount', 'exec', 'utf8', 'shortname=', 'codepage=', 'iocharset=', 'umask=', 'dmask=', 'fmask=', 'uid=', 'flush'} (string list) > volume.mount_point = '/media/usb' (string) 40a41 > volume.policy.mount_option.gid=6 = true (bool) 41a43 > volume.policy.mount_option.umask=002 = true (bool) However, the "<merge...>/media/usb</merge>" line is in my file because without it the "volume.mount_point" becomes empty when my file is in use! And more importantly, although my file is seen and apparently correct, nothing happens: no mount point created, no automatic anything... Yves.

The file command may help you, eg: [yves@localhost ~]$ file -k ./collector.ear ./collector.ear: Zip archive data, at least v2.0 to extract Yves.

I took a look, but it is almost the same advice I already read from DevTray home-page links. It doesn't work, probably because of missing groups: the mentionned groups don't exist in Mandriva. I went as far as creating those groups and registering myself in them, to no avail. As for pmount/pumount, this leads to nowhere because DevTray doesn't seem to use them, or at least it doesn't change anything. (BTW: /etc/hal is empty because the files are in /usr/share/hal instead) So I went to the source: hal.freedesktop.org. There, I looked at the doc, looked at the output of lshal, and I wrote this file: /usr/share/hal/usr/share/hal/fdi/policy/20thirdparty/yg.usb-storage.fdi <deviceinfo version="0.2"> <device> <match key="@storage.physical_device:info.bus" string="usb"> <match key="block.is_volume" bool="true"> <append key="volume.mount.valid_options" type="strlist">gid</append> <merge key="volume.policy.mount_option.umask=002" type="bool">true</merge> <merge key="volume.policy.mount_option.gid=6" type="bool">true</merge> </match> </match> </device> </deviceinfo> After hal is restarted, the file is taken into account, but it doesn't work. Before the change, the mount point was created, the device mounted on it, and I could unmount it; however I couldn't write to the device. After the change, nothing happens; all I can do is, with root, create a mount point and manually mount /dev/sda1 on it. What is wrong with my file? Besides, I'd like the mount point name to be the value of "@block.storage_device:info.product" (or is "storage.model" a surer choice?); is it possible? Yves.

You shouldn't need the backslash. Writing [0-9-] or [-0-9] should work, IIRC. Yves.

No. As you can see, I have nothing there. And I don't know if anything should be there because I have no experience with HAL. I just thought this information might be important since the mount options mention "uhelper=hal". What is in charge of the user rights when there's no line in /etc/fstab in the first place? Yves.

I thought so... Bye bye Linux for OLPC. Microsoft: first the OS, then offerings for education (how kind of them) centered on MS applications, then kids used to MS environment, then future adult MS users... Yves.

Hello, Due to my growing dislike with Gnome, I'm now a happy ROX user (ROX-Session, ROX-Filer, Metacity). However, I'd like removable media to be easily manageable. Currently, I use DevTray, which auto-detects the USB key, auto-mounts it, and opens it in ROX-Filer. But I cannot write to the key! Here's the output of some commands while the key is mounted (/media/disk): $ ls -la /media/ total 21 drwxr-xr-x 5 root root 184 2008-01-11 10:55 ./ drwxr-xr-x 22 root adm 544 2008-01-11 09:00 ../ drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 48 2007-09-05 11:39 cdrom/ drwxr-xr-x 4 root root 16384 1970-01-01 01:00 disk/ drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 48 2007-09-05 11:39 floppy/ -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 69 2008-01-11 10:55 .hal-mtab -rw------- 1 root root 0 2008-01-11 09:07 .hal-mtab-lock $ mount /dev/hda6 on / type reiserfs (rw,noatime,notail,user_xattr) none on /proc type proc (rw) /dev/hda7 on /home type reiserfs (rw,noatime,notail,user_xattr) none on /tmp type tmpfs (rw) none on /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc type binfmt_misc (rw) none on /sys/fs/fuse/connections type fusectl (rw) /dev/sda1 on /media/disk type vfat (rw,nosuid,nodev,uhelper=hal,flush) //160.14.120.10/Backup on /home/yves/.mnt/smb/backup type cifs (rw,mand) $ grep sda1 /etc/fstab $ find /etc/hal/ /etc/hal/ /etc/hal/fdi /etc/hal/fdi/information /etc/hal/fdi/policy /etc/hal/fdi/preprobe $ ls -l /dev/sda1 brw-rw---- 1 root disk 8, 1 2008-01-11 10:55 /dev/sda1 $ id uid=501(yves) gid=100(users) groupes=4(adm),5(tty),6(disk),7(lp),19(floppy),21(tape),22(cdrom),43(usb),71(messagebus),73(haldaemon),80(cdwriter), 81(audio),82(video),96(zeroinst),97(ivman),100(users),102(xgrp) $ ps -eww o cmd | grep -Ei 'ivman|hal|messagebus|sda' hald hald-runner hald-addon-input: Listening on /dev/input/event4 /dev/input/event3 /dev/input/event0 /dev/input/event5 /dev/input/event6 hald-addon-acpi: listening on acpid socket /var/run/acpid.socket hald-addon-storage: polling /dev/hdc (every 2 sec) hald-addon-storage: polling /dev/sda (every 2 sec) grep --color -Ei ivman|hal|messagebus|sda I tried removing pmount/pumount from the system, but those were obviously unused because this causes no change at all... In case this is of any importance, several configuration panels of DevTray throw an alert (AttributeError: type object 'XXX' has no attribute 'icons') for each UI change (field entry, check box...). Yves.

In my opinion, you'll have a better ergonomy/usability by using an rsync-based backup system: while only the differences are stored each time, you have the appearance of several full snapshots. Yves.

To launch a command in a terminal (command-line mode), you have to open a program that provide this feature (terminal); there are a number of such programs. The most used are: konsole, gnome-terminal, xterm, aterm, rxvt, but there are many others. In such a program, typing for example "mcc" without the quotes will launch the Mandriva Control Center. Sometimes, you don't know the exact name of the command, or its name is long and you don't want to bother; in such a situation, you can type the first letter(s), and a hit on the [TAB] key will auto-complete the command name if possible; you can auto-complete in several steps if the first [TAB] leads to several possible completions. ffi says that the command is named amdccc, or something like that, so you can for example type: [a][m][TAB], which will hopefully auto-complete to the wanted command. While using the command line is not an obligation in modern Linux, it still is very present because it gives more information in case of trouble, and because, unlike old DOS, it is well integrated with the whole environment, and in particular with the GUI (graphical interface): you can launch any graphical tool from the command line. Besides, the Unix/Linux command line is way more powerfull than DOS ever will be, and can accomplish things that no graphical tool will ever do. Yves.

I'm not an expert in this area, but as far as I'm concerned, the only special thing about a Mandriva CD/DVD is that it is bootable (ie: the BIOS can launch it). This property is set at "burn" time by pointing the burning software to a bootable floppy image found in the DVD contents. My "naïve" answer, would be to dump the DVD contents somewhere, eg: /tmp/MdvDVD, and then remove every package for the i586 architecture, which should roughly halve the size of the DVD, and finally burn the DVD, not forgetting to point the software (eg: K3B) to the right floppy image so that it is bootable. However: - I never tried such a thing. It may fail. - I'm not sure it will fit on a 4GB DVD because Mandriva media are well known to be well filled (almost over-burnt), and removing all i586 does probably not quite result in half the initial size; but then, a single-layer DVD is more than half a double-layer DVD, so... - I'm not sure it is a good idea. As far as I know, you need the i586 packages for a few things; for instance Flash plugin, and the libraries needed by it probably. Yves.

Netscape 4.x is still a nice internet suite to use for an old PC such as my "nomade" laptop. I remember using Netscape back in 1995; at that time, I also used Chimera on my Atari... Netscape was not the first internet suite, and was not actually the codebase of Mozilla (gecko was born out of a complete rewrite or netscape engine). But still they gave a lot to the open-source community (they did give code, and a lot of man-work), and more generally to the Internet. Yves.

By "UI", I mean Controls. In fullscreen mode, Xine can't display controls. Am I the only one?

Another vote for Filelight. It is an awesome tool. Yves.

I can't say it will help for sure, but when I had DVD problems, this page was of great help to me: http://fy.chalmers.se/~appro/linux/DVD+RW/ (especially the Tutorial). Yves.

One command I use a lot is du -ks * | sort -n This sorts the items of the directory you're in, based on their sizes. Yves.

I suggest you see is there is a difference in loaded modules between the working Linux and the non-working one. (command: lsmod) Yves.

I don't have a ready answer, but this may help if you understand French: http://wiki.mandriva.com/fr/Personnaliser_le_clavier

Depending on the PC, I'm either a ROX-session user, or a Gnome user (both with metacity as a WM). On either I have this bug: My prefered media player is xine-ui. The UI works fine; fullscreen works fine, but both together don't: I get fullscreen, but no UI. I've tried playing with both "always on top" settings in Xine, or with the "compatibility mode" of Metacity (in gconf-editor), but with no result... Yves.

The standard Unix way of solving this issue is: - choose the group for the place you want to share, - make sure all is part of this group in this place, - make sure all users who must have rw access to this place are in this group, - chmod -R g+rwX this place, and +s for folders on the group and optionnaly on the user too, - make sure all users in the group have an umask 007 or more permissive, but no less. Example. Suppose you have user "child" in group "child", and user "parent" in group "parent" and also in group "child"; let's assume it is "child"'s home directory you want to give access to, to all users of group "child" (this is what I understand of your situation): # cd ~child # echo 'umask 007' >>.bashrc # chown -R child.child . # chmod -R g+rwX . # find . -type d -exec chmod ug+s '{}' \; # cd ~parent # echo 'umask 007' >>.bashrc # chown parent.parent .bashrc Some programs don't follow the umask, though (bad of them), so you'll have to repeat the chown/chmod on ~child regularly (for example with cron) for better results. In this case, given the directory you share is a home directory, you may have to change msec rules too, because msec by default will regularly revert access rights to home-directories. Yves.

Does it seem to you that your problem is similar to this? http://qa.mandriva.com/show_bug.cgi?id=34970 I entered this bug some time ago, but unfortunately my private life did not leave me enough free time to search the matter more, and give the needed details. Since then, I've discovered that the problem still exists with the "old" driver (see the bug report), and that the problem may actually be more related to 3D. It seems (but I'm not sure) that the bug only appears after 3D has been actually used; eg: no problem after seeing the menu in Torcs, but problem after playing. Or other 3D games for that matter... Don't hesitate to improve the bug report if you have interesting information. Yves.

For those interested: //Initial content: //- setxkbmap -print >$HOME/{this file} //Sources of modifications: //- http://wiki.mandriva.com/fr/Personnaliser_le_clavier //- http://listserv.bat.ru/xkb/Message/154.html //Activate with: //- xkbcomp -w 0 -R/usr/share/X11/xkb/ $HOME/{this file} $DISPLAY default xkb_keymap "xkb-shift" { xkb_keycodes { include "xfree86+aliases(azerty)" }; xkb_types { include "complete" }; xkb_compat { include "complete" indicator "Caps Lock" { whichModState= Locked; modifiers= Shift; }; }; xkb_symbols { include "pc(pc105)+fr+compose(rwin)+capslock(shiftlock)" }; xkb_geometry { include "pc(pc105)" }; }; It works great! Xkb is cool and gave me new ideas :) Yves.

Thank you for this information, michaelcole :) I'll have a look. Meanwhile, I found that Xkb can be configured to shift the whole keyboard instead of just letters, using an "Option". I've made no attempt yet, but it should work. I may just discuss the whole matter with the specialist (ergothérapeute), and see if she wants sticky keys or a Windows-like shift-all-keyboard caps-lock key... Yves.

I finally understood how to read those two parts you mention, neddie. It seems the Macintosh does like Windows does. That and the fact that it would be easier for my son made me decide that's how I want things to be. Linux is the outsider here; I wonder why! On the even darker side (there's no bright side it seems), I looked at the xmodmap man page and did some tests: there's no way to control what caps-lock does using xmodmap. :-( Do you know of any way to reconfigure the caps-lock key à-la-xmodmap so that it shifts all the keys? Yves.

Spot on, neddie. Unfortunately, you're right, and I am too... That's the way it is with French keyboards. You have to use the shift key for numbers, unless (in Windows) you keep the caps-lock key on while you need them. That may be one reason why all French people that I know use the numbers on the right of the keyboard instead of those on the top, and many do the same for the dot. Yves.