BluesRenegade

John, I don't know what you read in my message that leads you to think I create the problem. I said I viewed that file. I did NOT create that setting, merely told the thread what it says. I assume the setting got there because I changed the gdm thru the Mandrakelinux Control Center, the System choice on left, then I clicked on the Display Manager icon. Isn't that how it is supposed to be changed?? I may be a Mandrake newbie, but I sure as heck didn't create this problem. I changed it the way the Help file says to, and it is NOT working!! I'm telling you, there is NO .wmrc file in /home/blues directory. I did check very thoroughly. I even redirected the output of ls -al to a file and then examined the file carefully with cat <filename> | less . i.e. ls -al > ls-al_longlst.txt cat ls-al_longlst.txt | less There is no such file .wmrc in /home/blues directory. I've also checked the /home directory and I logged in as su and tried: ls -aR .wmrc from the top-level / folder and no such file or directory message returned. I logged in as su and tried: slocate -u (to update the database with security settings) followed by: slocate .wmrc locate .wmrc Nothing found. Blues

I did that, already, but that didn't change the system default session. If I login and leave it set to "Last used', it always uses KDE regardless of the fact that GNOME *was* the last gdm I used. So, now what?? Blues

I checked that, and it has 1 line: DISPLAYMANAGER=GNOME So, that's set correctly, but thanks pointing me to that file. Blues

Environment: Mandrakelinux 10.1 Community GNOME Terminal 2.6.1 1.) I unzipped linux-509.tar.gz in /home/blues/acrobat directory. 2.) I read the README. 3.) I entered INSTALL at the prompt and get the following error msg: bash: INSTALL: command not found What next folks? Thanks in advance! Blues

There are a lot of hidden files in my user home directory but none that even begin with a 'w', much less .wmrc Any more suggestions? Thanks and cheers to you, too, mate! Blues

I did that already. I changed it gdm and it still insists on using KDE unless I select the session at each and every login. Any other suggestions? Thanks, Blues

Thanks for the reply! I have multiple users setup on this machine, so an autologin is not the solution. Autologin just presets the session and logs in to that preset. That's not the same thing as changing the system default session. The reply I got after yours may be what we both were looking for, Ranger. I'm gonna check it out and I'll let this thread know the result.

How do I change the system default session from KDE to Gnome? Even when I select "Last session" after logging in on Gnome, Mandrake 10.1 Community still logs me into KDE desktop.

Thanks! That was simple. I'll take that the problem is solved and mark the thread solved - Artificial Intelligence

Thank you!

After posting this message, I started digging around the forums and looked at the FAQ. I thought I found the answer in the FAQ, "RPM-02: How to use Urpmi And Solving RPM Dependencies." Here are the commands easyurpmi.zarb.org said to run in console as root: urpmi.addmedia plf ftp://ftp.free.fr/pub/Distributions_Linux/plf/mandrake/10.1 with hdlist.cz urpmi.addmedia main ftp://ftp.phys.ttu.edu/pub/mandrakelinux/...i586/media/main with media_info/hdlist.cz urpmi.addmedia contrib ftp://ftp.phys.ttu.edu/pub/mandrakelinux/...6/media/contrib with media_info/hdlist.cz urpmi.addmedia jpackage ftp://ftp.phys.ttu.edu/pub/mandrakelinux/.../media/jpackage with media_info/hdlist.cz After completing all of those, I ran the following command per Step 3, urpmi --auto-select --no-verify-rpm --auto Installed/updated were a few codecs, Magick, and a few other apps, which all appeared to be media related apps. Was hdlist.cz overwritten each time? What wasn't updated were the apps I really wanted updated: Gaim, Mozilla, and OpenOffice. Any suggestions or help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks, Blues

How do I completely uninstall gaim? How do I completely uninstall mozilla? How do I completely uninstall openoffice? Mozilla, OpenOffice, and many other apps strongly recommend uninstalling the old version BEFORE installing a new version. In Linux, that is a lot easier said than done. It's no sweat in Windows, so please tell me how to do it in Linux so I can get the latest versions installed and up and running properly. I have downloaded the latest version of gaim, per the advice message that popped up in the software while running it. Since it is the smallest app of the 3 I specifically asked for help with, I think it will be the one I will cut my teeth on. Thanks in advance!

I read the suggestion to go to Slackware 10. I'll go a step further since you're willing to recompile everything. If you're savvy enough to do that, then why not go all the way? Create your OWN custom installation (distribution, if you want to think of it as that)!! Check out Linux from scratch (LFS) at http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/ LFS is not a distribution, but a How-To project that is put out in book form. There is also a BLFS (Basic Linux From Scratch), which has OpenOffice and a few apps so you're not starting from nothing but an O/S. But the premise is the same. Want to REALLY understand what you're running and how to control and configure it? Build it from scratch. Learn how the kernel, scripts, etc. all work by compiling yourself and writing yourself. I've looked at Knoppix, SuSE, Red Hat, and now, Mandrake. SuSE was the best so far and as I recall it also used the Reiserfs File System. I have 2 hard drives and use one exclusively for Linux evals/learning. From what I've seen so far, Linux is NOT ready for the desktop, not as an immediate replacement for Windows (I wish it was though!). The reason I say that is simple. Uninstalling an application and then installing the latest version should be a breeze. It is anything but that in Linux. Even something as simple as installing the Java Runtime Environment for Mozilla can take a newbie hours of researching (unless the person just installs software haphazardly, and even then, it's likely to crash Mozilla or not work at all). NOWHERE did I find COMPLETE installation instructions for the Java Runtime Environment, but between the various bits I did find at Sun and Mozilla and these forums, I finally figured out what is REALLY required to do it right. And I did have to use Find and Slocate to search out where all the Mozilla directories are located (the redundancy is one of the most confusing parts of software installation in Linux). Why are there 2 Mozilla directories, for example. One is simply called Mozilla, while the other one has the version number tagged on the end of the dir name (Mozilla-1.7.2). As one person added, he's been a Linux user for 2 years and he still considers himself a newbie. How in the world are people that struggle with Windows with its simple Setup programs and Uninstall programs ever going to deal with Linux?? No wonder Bill Gates is so confident that Windows doesn't have much to fear from Linux. I wish someone, some organization (preferably non-profit) would prove Bill WRONG by making Linux truly user-friendly. And not just with GUI's thrown on top of everything, but truly simple software installs and uninstalls. There are only 3 possibilities for software installs in Linux, from my limited experience. 1)the /usr/<appname>/ location where anyone could possibly run the app; 2)the /usr/local/<appname>/ location where only local users on that box could run the app; and 3)the user's own /home/<username>/<appname>/ location. So explain to me why I find /usr/lib/mozilla/ and /usr/lib/mozilla-1.7.2/ directories in my Mandrake distro? Better yet, just eliminate the redundancy. It's obvious that as soon as I upgrade to Mozilla 1.8 I will have problems with what's left behind in /mozilla-1.7.2 directory unless I can figure out how to properly uninstall 1.7.2 version first!! I dare anyone to tell me where those instructions are COMPLETELY documented!! (Sorry for the ranting, but it wasn't too far from the topic, was it? lol) Blues