simcon

I was trying to setup my cf card reader and read that typing makedev was a good idea, but I was in the /dev folder and typed 'makedev --help' and now I have a folder with lots of files inside it called /dev/--help :D I deleted it and all the files inside it and rebooted and it's come back, so I guess I need to do something else right? It doesn't seem to have affected the way my computer works, but it's just that I should remove it if it's garbage. Help :P Cheers.

I am writing an SDL game on my mdk 9.2 box for the Sharp Zaurus. If I just use libSDL then I can open and load BMPs, but I want to use PNGs, so I am now additionally using libSDL_image. The trouble is with libSDL_image is it requires libjpeg, libpng and libz. The Sharp Zaurus comes with libjpeg by default, but not libpng or libz. libz though is available in a packaged format for the Zaurus and most people would have already installed it. libpng does not appear to be available and from the SDL games I have installed onto my Zaurus so far, I would say they are either statically linking libpng into their programs or not using libSDL_image. So my question is, how do I selectively statically link against libpng, but not lib_SDL or libSDL_image? I understand that if I use the '-static' linker command it statically links all the referenced libraries. Hopefully there's someone here who knows the answer to this, and here are the files in my project and the libraries linked to:- main.c getfps.c tetravex.c <-- TARGET getfps.h tetravex.h -lSDL -lSDL_image Basically I want libSDL_image to talk to a statically linked copy of libpng within my program and not the libpng.so library on the Zaurus (which is not there anyway). Cheers.

phunni, hi. I used to have a Palm but I bought a Zaurus and am very happy with it (once I got it working with mdk9.1). I like the Palm OS because it's simple but effective. I would be interested to know how you got it working but I think you might not be using it with Mandrake right? It's possible I might get another Palm in the future and am interested to know what your opinion of the device is within the context of Linux. I am not interested in Windows syncing at all :P Cheers.

I can't remember what the correct terminology is for these terminals/consoles. When you press CTRL+ALT+F2 etc. from within KDE you can open a text terminal, or even without X loaded when I use 'mc' I get an error displayed at the bottom of the screen which says '*** err[liblow.c(371)]:'. I have seen a post on Google about this but I want to know if it harms my system when using it with this error. Running mc by typing 'TERM=xterm mc' cures it but then the function keys don't all work properly. I did get a file system error once after using it so that's why I am concerned. Any help would be appreciated, cheers.

Woohoo I got it to work! Saved from Windows dual booting hell :D Ok so I might as well document it for anyone who wants to use a Zaurus with mdk9.1. Just one note, as of writing (20031201) there is no Linux Qtopia Desktop syncing software available for the latest Sharp ROM v3 because Sharp have made some significant changes to the ROM, so I am only dealing here with Sharp ROMs below v3 such as 2.38 or 2.39 etc. From a default mdk9.1 installation, you need to do the following things (as root) to be able to communicate and sync via usb:- Create a file called '/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-usb0' and put this inside it:- BOOTPROTO=static BROADCAST=192.168.129.255 IPADDR=192.168.129.1 NETMASK=255.255.255.0 NETWORK=192.168.129.0 DEVICE=usb0 In a console type 'chmod +x /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-usb0'. Open '/etc/hotplug/usb.handmap' and add these 2 lines to the bottom, adding a newline after the last line (press enter):- # Sharp Zaurus usbnet 0x0003 0x04dd 0x8004 0x0000 0x0000 0x02 0x00 0x00 0xff 0x01 0x00 0x00000000 In my previous version of mdk9 the 2nd line above started with usbdnet, and now it is usbnet. This is apparently why I couldn't initially get my Zaurus to work properly. In a console type 'depmod -a'. You can now do one of two things, either type 'ifup usb0' in a console or reboot the machine. I rebooted. With the Zaurus in the cradle and turned on, type 'ifconfig -a' (as root) in a console and you should see the following information included:- usb0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 52:7D:94:B0:1B:58 inet addr:192.168.129.1 Bcast:192.168.129.255 Mask:255.255.255.0 If your Zaurus is configured as 192.168.129.201 then type 'ping 192.168.129.201 -c4' and you should see the Zaurus being pinged 4 times. If yours is a different IP then ping that instead. If you want to ftp into your Zaurus I suggest using ncftp (it should be on the mdk disks) and type 'ncftp ftp://root:root@192.168.129.201:4242 ' or change the IP to match yours. The console ftp does not work with the Zaurus, that's why you should use ncftp. BTW the ftp address I just gave you, it should appear in this post as a URL, you should be able to click on it (in KDE using Konqueror) to browse your Zaurus B) It will even preview the files like images etc. Ok now download the Qtopia Desktop RPM from Trolltech. There is no Mandrake specific RPM but you can download the SuSE or RedHat RPM instead. I use the SuSE one so here is the link: ftp://ftp.trolltech.com/qtopia/desktop/Su...-1su82.i386.rpm. Install Qtopia Desktop and in a console (as root) type 'cd /usr/bin' and then 'ln -s /opt/Qtopia/bin/qtopiadesktop'. Now we are finished with root. Open a console as your normal user account and type 'qtopiadesktop' and you should see the program running on your desktop. You can also create a desktop shortcut, but that's up to you. In Qtopia Desktop click on File->Settings... and then click on 'General' and the connection tab. The 'PDA Connection Method' should be USB and the PDA IP Address should be the same as your Zaurus (default 192.168.129.201). Press OK and now you should be able to Sync All I have attached a picture. Konqueror is displaying the uploaded text and html files on the compact flash card, whereas Qtopia Desktop is displaying all uploaded files.

Well I'm so impressed with mdk9.1 I'm sticking with it and using my winxp partition with the Zaurus sync software that works fine. I found that most people can't get it to work properly with mdk9.1 Although someone who did has the OpenZaurus ROM v3.2 instead of the Sharp ROM. I don't know if I want to get involved in changing ROMs though. OpenZaurus and mdk9.1 info:- http://lists.zaurus.com/pipermail/zaurus-g...ril/012451.html

Ah I see, thanks for pointing that out. I didn't know you could do that. As far as I'm aware, the installer sets up the registry on installation of the game. I see now what you are doing. Am I right in saying you have copied an installed game along with it's registry settings? Otherwise the game's installer would do it all for you.

I believe what you have there is a file that comes with the game and identifies that it is a 'registered' product. It's not Wine or Windows that's telling you the game.reg file is incorrect, it's the game. There is no reason at all why you would want or need to access the Windows Registry unless you like to fiddle, and you certainly wouldn't have to manually enter data into it either. So therefore what you need to do is find out why the game registration details are incorrect.

Hi I've just upgraded to mdk9.1 from mdk9. I followed the same steps involved in getting my Zaurus up and running as for mdk9 and I can ping it but ftp is a no no. Neither does Qtopia Desktop connect to it. This is a major headache as I have files on my Zaurus that I need on my desktop. Basically from my mdk9 experience if I can ping the Zaurus then everything should be fine, but it isn't. I use ncftp as this is recommended to access the Zaurus. Please if anyone is successfully using a Zaurus with mdk9.1 then let me know as I am contemplating going back to mdk9 very soon. Cheers.

No. I don't need MSOffice on my computer. OpenOffice or StarOffice are perfectly capable programs and so is KOffice. Personally for letter writing I use KWord. In the end I tried Freehand 9 and MX, they installed quickly and problem free but when running them the splash screen came up and then a window appeared with no insides. I had to reset them so neither of them work. Maybe when Fireworks eventually works so will Freehand. Conclusion So in the end by using Codweavers Crossover Office 2.1.0 (demo) I've managed to get my development programs moved over to Linux so that my Windows partition has become pretty much redundant. My only gripe with Crossover Office is that it's $59.99 and in the UK that's £35.49. It's equivalent to buying Norton AntiVirus 2004 from Amazon.co.uk or a full priced PC game from the shops. I'm just not sure that it should be priced at that point. I think if it was £19.99 ($33.78) or £24.99 ($42.23) it would be better value and would sell more. After all it's possible to get Dreamweaver MX and Flash MX running under Wine for free, albeit with a little more effort. Perhaps I'll do this test again with Wine only... B)

See the post above about DCOM98.EXE (Flash 4) before attempting these. A final attempt at getting a Fireworks product working, this time Fireworks MX. Ok it installed without a problem. I started it, I got the splash screen and then a Fireworks MX messagebox saying "Could not launch Fireworks. A parameter was incorrect". It's a shame I couldn't get any of them working as I really like this program, more so than Photoshop. Anyway I'm sure someone is working on getting it running for the future. At the end of the day Photoshop works Flash 5 installed and started up great. It fully works but I got some graphical corruption on the image of the flash animation in the main window when overlapping it with other windows. It's easy enough to reset just by doing something that refreshes it. I think it's something to do with my personal setup and not Flash 5 itself. Flash 5 has the benefit of Action Script that you can use to easily create interactive animations such as games, so it's still very useable. The programs I tested above are all unsupported and older so they are the sort of discs that developers discard into a draw or cupboard so you could possibly get them for free or perhaps cheaply on Ebay. Older programs too have the benefit of running faster and being less bloated. Dreamweaver MX and Flash MX work almost perfectly for me but again I got that graphical corruption mentioned in Flash 5 above, and it's not supposed to happen as this version is fully supported under Crossover Office so it must be my setup. I think the colour picker crash problem with Dreamweaver MX is actually to do with Wine and not Crossover Office, because you can download Wine and install these apps too. If you're interested in Wine only then visit this site for application installation instructions - http://frankscorner.org/index.php. I still have Freehand 9 and MX to try later. So then to summarise:- Fireworks 3 Fireworks 4 Fireworks MX Photoshop 5 Dreamweaver 3 Ultradev [Dreamweaver] 4 Dreamweaver MX is a Crossover Office supported fully functioning program. Flash 4 Flash 5 Flash MX is a Crossover Office supported fully functioning program. I've attached a screen shot of Flash 5 running on mdk9 with Crossover Office 2.1.0.

See the post above about DCOM98.EXE (Flash 4) before attempting these. Ok now then it's time to try Fireworks 4. This installed without a problem, although it uses a more modern installer, is more bloated and takes longer it was still quick. I ran the program and the splash screen appeared just like Fireworks 3 but then nothing. I guess there's something in there that the Wine developers still need to work on. Next up is Ultradev [Dreamweaver] 4. This installed just the same as Fireworks above, no problems at all. I started it up and used the same test site I did with Dreamweaver 3 and there's no problem with it so far. Overall though the refreshing of the window and the menus is slower but then it's newer and more bloated. I tested the colour picker in the properties window and it doesn't crash the program, and I haven't noticed any speeding up of the text cursor flashing either, so it seems to be as perfect as you could possibly get. I've attached a screen shot of Ultradev 4 running on mdk9 with Crossover Office 2.1.0.

Ok now I'm going to try Flash 4. For this I need to install the Windows program called DCOM98.EXE which you can get from here (1.2MB) - http://download.microsoft.com/msdownload/d...6/en/dcom98.exe. Why do you need this you ask, well it's needed for some of the installers, especially the latest releases but so far I haven't needed it for Photoshop 5 or Dreamweaver 3 but Flash 4 requires it. Download it to your home folder, change to your home folder and type this: '/opt/cxoffice/bin/wine -dll ole32=n dcom98.exe' (without the single quotes) assuming you installed Crossover Office to it's default location in opt. Now we are ready to install Flash 4. The installation was painless, very fast with no problems. I started the program and opened and ran a sample project and also tested the standalone Flash player with some animations I made ages ago and it works. Ok Flash 4 is getting old but it's Flash and you can make animations with it, but Flash 5 would be better because it has Action Script. I've attached a screen shot of Flash 4 running on mdk9 with Crossover Office 2.1.0.

Hi I've recently downloaded the Codeweavers Crossover Office 2.1.0 demo to see if I could get my favourite professional Windows applications working on my Mandrake 9 box - http://www.codeweavers.com/site/products/d...download_trial/. To be honest I'm quite happy with the applications that come with mdk9 but for me there are three apps in particular that would completely move me away from Windows and they are Macromedia Fireworks (or equivalent), Dreamweaver and Flash. Ok the first app I installed was Fireworks 3. The installation was doing well until it started to install and the progress bar just started going when a messagebox appeared stating that the file in windows\temp\pft05e2~tmp\data1.hdr wasn't write protected, so I cancelled the install, located data1.hdr in the fake_windows temp directory and removed the write permissions. I reinstalled and it was fine. I started it and the Fireworks 3 splash screen came up and nothing else happened. Shame. I have Fireworks 4 and MX to try yet. Ok the second app was Photoshop v5.0, and the v5.0.2 update that I had with it. The installation was going fine until I decided to select a 'custom' install, whereby I clicked on one of the check boxes and it crashed the installation. So I went through the process again just selecting a normal install and it was fine. So far it works flawlessly and haven't yet found any problems with it. I don't have a newer version of Photoshop but there's nothing wrong with v5.0 anyway so it's great. Screen Shot The third app was Dreamweaver 3. This sailed through the installation with no problems. I started it up and tested a previous site I had made with Dreamweaver MX and it seems to work. Just one observation really, that Codeweavers state that if you install Dreamweaver MX don't click on the colour selector in the properties panel as it crashes it. Well I clicked on mine in Dreamweaver 3 and it didn't crash it, but sometimes the text cursor starts to flash a bit fast. Still this disappears just by clicking on other controls. So I can say that really it's fully functional. Again v3 is an older version but who cares, it still does everything you could possibly want and it's Dreamweaver. I do have Ultradev 4 and Dreamweaver MX to try yet. I've attached a screen shot of Dreamweaver 3 running on mdk9 with Crossover Office 2.1.0.

mystified: Thanks for your help. I downloaded the demo and installed Photoshop 5.0. It's old but good. It was so easy to install too :P All I can say is wow! :o Apparently all versions of Photoshop work from v5 up to the present v7. If anyone needs professional development software under Linux I can recommend using this Codeweavers Crossover Office. Until we get proper native support this is a good compromise. Also I expect it's possible to buy up old copies of Photoshop cheap from Ebay or similar :) Cheers.

I use the Gimp and it is great, but I really find Macromedia Fireworks to be the most productive gfx application especially for knocking up quick websites. So my question is has anybody got any Windows apps running under Wine or whatever on their Linux desktop? I think I've heard stories of people using Photoshop before somehow.

I stated in my original post above that I rebooted into WinXP [dual boot] and it worked so therefore it has to be a Mandrake problem and not a disk drive problem. I am still using Mandrake 9 and I don't think DVD-Rs were around then, so maybe I should upgrade. Cheers.

Hi I can't seem to get DVD-R media to mount in my drive. I can get normal magazine coverdisk DVDs to mount fine though. I rebooted into WinXP and it was fine so I guess my Mandrake 9 doesn't know what file system type it is! Here is what happens when I try to mount it manually in the console:- [simcon@localhost simcon]$ mount /dev/hdc /dev/hdc: No such file or directory mount: I could not determine the filesystem type, and none was specified Here is the contents of my /etc/fstab:- [simcon@localhost simcon]$ cat /etc/fstab /dev/hdb1 / ext3 defaults 1 1 none /dev/pts devpts mode=0620 0 0 /dev/hdb6 /home ext3 defaults 1 2 /dev/hdc /mnt/cdrom auto codepage=850,noauto,iocharset=iso8859-15,nosuid,ro,umask=0,user,nodev 0 0 /dev/scd0 /mnt/cdrom2 auto codepage=850,noauto,iocharset=iso8859-15,nosuid,ro,umask=0,user,nodev 0 0 /dev/fd0 /mnt/floppy auto codepage=850,sync,unhide,noauto,iocharset=iso8859-15,nosuid,umask=0,user,nodev 0 0 /dev/hda1 /mnt/windows vfat iocharset=iso8859-15,codepage=850,umask=0 0 0 /dev/hda5 /mnt/windowsg vfat iocharset=iso8859-15,codepage=850,umask=0 0 0 none /proc proc defaults 0 0 /dev/hdb5 swap swap defaults 0 0 This is what hdparm says:- [root@localhost simcon]# hdparm -i /dev/hdc /dev/hdc: Model=HL-DT-STDVD-ROM GDR8161B, FwRev=0101, SerialNo= Config={ Fixed Removeable DTR<=5Mbs DTR>10Mbs nonMagnetic } RawCHS=0/0/0, TrkSize=0, SectSize=0, ECCbytes=0 BuffType=unknown, BuffSize=0kB, MaxMultSect=0 (maybe): CurCHS=0/0/0, CurSects=0, LBA=yes, LBAsects=0 IORDY=on/off, tPIO={min:120,w/IORDY:120}, tDMA={min:120,rec:120} PIO modes: pio0 pio1 pio2 pio3 pio4 DMA modes: sdma0 sdma1 sdma2 mdma0 mdma1 mdma2 UDMA modes: udma0 udma1 *udma2 AdvancedPM=no BTW I did recently put in a new DVD/CD drive as I messed up the previous one. I replaced the original LG-GDR8160x with a new LG-GDR8161B. If I put in a new drive do I need to do anything manually to set it up or does Mandrake automatically do it? It does work anyway. Help :) Cheers, simcon

Hi I have ISDN because I can't get ADSL where I am. I use the program /usr/sbin/net_monitor to connect as it's the same program used to connect dialups in the Mandrake Control Centre. When I connect it starts a program called ipppd which stays in memory during the duration of the connection, and terminates when I press the disconnect button. Ever since I've been using Mandrake 9 I've noticed that sometimes I just cannot connect which is stupid as if I reboot Linux or indeed into Windows it connects flawlessly. Sometimes just plain perseverance pays off and I can reconnect again. Yesterday while experiencing this problem I had 'top' running in a console and saw that there were about 8 ipppd programs running with different PIDs! I prompty killed them all as this didn't look right to me. I then reconnected to the net with no problems at all. I tested the net_monitor program and indeed when I connect it executes ipppd and when I disconnect it removes ipppd from memory. Today my ISDN stopped responding and I found that it had cutoff because I had reached my maximum 2 hour period imposed by my ISP. I reconnected and found that now I had 2 ipppd programs running, so it would appear that if the connection goes down ipppd gets left in memory. This is why it becomes difficult to reconnect, especially when you have 8 of them running I'm wondering if anyone else has experienced this. I think I might put this in the tips section although maybe it's been fixed in a later Mandrake version. Regards, simcon

I've made a script to lowercase all filenames within the current folder. I've tested it and used it. It will prompt the user if it attempts to overwrite an existing file. Place this function into your ~/.bashrc file for it to be always available:- tolower () { echo "Convert all filenames within this folder to lowercase? [yes|no]"; read yn; if test "$yn" = yes; then for file in *; do mv -v -i $file $(echo $file | tr '[A-Z]' '[a-z]'); done; fi }

Thanks ramfree17 :) I made a function and placed it into my .bashrc file so it's always available:- tolower () { echo "Convert all filenames within this folder to lowercase? [yes|no]"; read yn; if test "$yn" = yes; then for file in *; do mv -v -i $file $(echo $file | tr '[A-Z]' '[a-z]'); done; fi } I've tested it with a few files in a folder, some duplicate but different case and it works fine. Will prompt on overwrites. Cheers.

Hi, Is there a lowercase console command? I have just copied 1000s of files across from a DVD and all the filenames are uppercase and I want them lowercase. Cheers.

Linux Format UK magazine has mdk9.2 RC2 on the cover disks. Do you think RC2 is good enough for the general public to install ok?

I've been using Mandrake since mdk8 I think. I've found lots of useful command line programs that I've written into a little book:- lspcidrake lspci -v [in depth pci device list] lsmod ps -ef [dump process list to screen, like 'top' but not continuous] fuser -v /dev/* ifconfig -a [same as 'ipconfig' under Windows] netstat | grep tcp service -s [show current service status] apropos net [search man pages, in this case for all commands that include the word net, very useful] Hope there's something there that you can make use of. The 'apropos' one I found to be like finding the Holy Grail :D

I use LG drives, DVD-ROMs and CD-RW writers. I would not attempt fate by installing mdk9.2 either :) I do know that someone is going to have to fix these dead drives and it does appear to be an LG bug so far anyway. LG drives can be 'flashed' to upgrade the firmware so I am assuming they will release a program to fix this. Otherwise Mandrake would be liable and I personally would not be happy that I'd have to buy another CD/DVD drive. Anyway keep an eye out for a firmware upgrade.