manly

When you run free -m, you get physical ram free, buffers, and swap. Could someone explain what the buffers line is for? Is it things that are using ram but can be removed if needed? Andrew

Sorry. Here it is more specifically: Go to the Penguin Liberation Front (that's plf.zarb.org). They have packages that can't be in the normal mandrake distro due to legal reasons. On their faq page, the have a link to urpmi.setup. It's a program that makes it really easy to add remote FTP access to some rpm sites. You can add the contrib packages there, for example. All you have to do once you have added the sources is load up rpmdrake. In there, sort by source repository. Then, it's easy to browse each source, complete with package info! Check off a package, and it will be downloaded and installed. Hope this clears things up. Andrew

Perhaps an easier way to bring more *nix to the mac would be to install Apple's X11 + fink. You can even install KDE! At least he wouldn't be having to screw around with partitioning... wouldn't he have to reinstall OSX and OS9? Andrew

It's easy to think you have installed all of the packages during the install, but have ended up leaving many out. One of the best things to do is to head over to plf.zarb.org, and run urpmi.setup. Then browse through the things you have added, and install as hard disk space / bandwidth allows ;-) Andrew

Thanks - it worked perfectly :-). Andrew

This is kind of a similar question. How would you set up X so you can have more than one display on one monitor, like the virtual consoles F1-F6? Can KDM be run on more than one screen? Andrew

I found the right file. I tried playing with the Font section, and deleting it entirely. Here is what it looks like: <Font> <Substitution> <FontPairs cfg:element-type="FontReplacement"> <FontReplacement state="replaced" cfg:name="_0"> <Always cfg:type="boolean">true</Always> <OnScreenOnly cfg:type="boolean">true</OnScreenOnly> <ReplaceFont cfg:type="string">Andale Sans UI</ReplaceFont> <SubstituteFont cfg:type="string">Luxi Sans</SubstituteFont> </FontReplacement> </FontPairs> <Replacement cfg:type="boolean">true</Replacement> </Substitution> </Font> This section doesn't appear on the same file under OpenOffice for Windows. Can someone post a copy of their file? Andrew

It works fine in KDE 3.05 too, at least with my Logitech iTouch. Thanks for the tips; I was just about to ask how to get the keys to work! Andrew

Some things I did: Imported Windows Fonts Turned on antialising in KDE, changed to antialised fonts Installed and activated High Performance Liquid Now, no text shows in OpenOffice. Documents show properly, but dialogs, buttons, etc are blank. I tried renaming my .openoffice directory, and reinstalling openoffice. No effect. I also tried loading OO up in windowmaker. Suggestions? Andrew

I'm looking at buying either a PowerPack or a Club membership. StarOffice 6 is included with both. I am using OpenOffice right now. What are the differences between the two programs? The only thing I've been able to find so far is that OpenOffice has no templates or artwork. Also, do I get a license for a Windows version of StarOffice too? What about compatibility between OpenOffice files and StarOffice files? Thanks, Andrew

Somehow, it appears that I was running OSS instead of ALSA. draksound changed it to ALSA output, and now the kind of distortion is different. Instead of just lower-quality sound, the frequencies are shifted. My sound system has dolby 5.0 surround; and it's interpreting the voices as rear channel instead of center. I had MDK9 running on an older system with a Soundblaster Vibra ISA card, and it worked fine. I can't use that card instead, because the motherboard only has PCI slots. The mixer settings appear to be correct. Any suggestions? Andrew

There is some distortion in Q3, but it doesn't seem to be as prominent. SDL games seem to work OK. mpg123 sounds identical to xmms. I'm going to try ALSA 0.5x. Hopefully it will work.. :-) Andrew

Changing the mixer settings had no effect. I've been using xmms. Changing equalizer settings usually causes even more distortion. I've got quake III installed, but I've been too busy fragging to pay attention to the sound ;-). Something I've thought of: xmms is using the OSS output plugin, which is emulated by ALSA. Could this emulation be screwing things up? I tried installing the ALSA plugin, but it crashes xmms. Andrew

So instead of using the ALSA version that came with MDK 9 you downloaded and compiled the older version? Did that fix a similar problem? Either way, I'm going to try the alsa 0.5, and see what happens.

I'd all ready done a google search; the closest thing I came to was this post. Andrew

I have an Asus MEW-AML motherboard with an integrated sound card. The chipset is a CS4280, and the module is the cs46xx, which is *supposed* to be compatible. The output is connected to my 5-speaker minisystem. When I play mp3 or ogg files in XMMS, the sound quality is much lower than I would expect. At first I thought it was a hardware problem, but the sound is fine under Winamp with Win98. It appears that the card uses the AC-97 codec . It's 'software based' - does this mean that it's similar in function to WinModems? lsmod shows that the ac-97 module is loaded. Any help would be appreciated. Andrew

I ran the update, and it changed nothing. My system works fine, but Direct Rendering is still not enabled. I did run as expert, but there was no option avalible. I have installed MDK 8.2 and 9 several times and never seen a similar option. My 2D card is an S3 Virge, but it also has 3D (de)ceelerator functions. Is it possible that it's interefering?

Run df -m at a console. That will tell you what partitions are running out of space. Post the output and I'll help you from there.

Here is the output of glxinfo: name of display: :0.0 display: :0 screen: 0 direct rendering: No server glx vendor string: SGI server glx version string: 1.2 server glx extensions: GLX_EXT_visual_info, GLX_EXT_visual_rating, GLX_EXT_import_context client glx vendor string: SGI client glx version string: 1.2 client glx extensions: GLX_EXT_visual_info, GLX_EXT_visual_rating, GLX_EXT_import_context GLX extensions: GLX_EXT_visual_info, GLX_EXT_visual_rating, GLX_EXT_import_context OpenGL vendor string: VA Linux Systems, Inc. OpenGL renderer string: Mesa GLX Indirect OpenGL version string: 1.2 Mesa 3.4.2 OpenGL extensions: GL_ARB_multitexture, GL_EXT_abgr, GL_EXT_blend_color, GL_EXT_blend_minmax, GL_EXT_blend_subtract glu version: 1.3 glu extensions: GLU_EXT_nurbs_tessellator, GLU_EXT_object_space_tess visual x bf lv rg d st colorbuffer ax dp st accumbuffer ms cav id dep cl sp sz l ci b ro r g b a bf th cl r g b a ns b eat ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 0x22 16 tc 0 16 0 r y . 5 6 5 0 0 16 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 None 0x23 16 tc 0 16 0 r y . 5 6 5 0 0 16 8 16 16 16 0 0 0 None As you can see, there is no mention of hardware rendering. Does Direct rendering mean the same thing? Is there a way I can reinstall just Xfree instead of all of Mandrake, selecting the Hardware Rendering option? If not, can I generate an autoinstall floppy with the packages I have installed now (not the ones I installed when I installed mandrake)?

I have a Diamond Monster3D Voodoo Graphics card. After installing glide, I can run the test3dfx program successfully. Now, I'm trying to set up /dev/3dfx as shown on http://mlug.missouri.edu/~blewis/htmls/dev-3dfx.html. Unfortunately, the source RPM linked to on the site is corrupt, preventing me from installing the kernel module. After looking for other copies of the package, I found nothing that would work on Mandrake 9, as most packages were for older or different distros. So, two questions; 1) Does anyone know of a source or rpm file that will work on Mandrake 9, and where to get it? 2) Is there an easier way to get Mesa OpenGl to work on a Voodoo 1, skipping this process completely? Thanks in advance.