stan

Thanks, I put that on another sticky note on my screen...... I was thinking of re-installing. As you surmize, the little personal info I have in there is old and not very important. I bought the discs from a shop (a download-and-burn was definitely not possible at dialup, it's a skill set I haven't acquired yet; even at dsl it would take a long time) so they should be good. If I come into any $ I may get the 06 set to install instead. Due to schedule this may not happen immediately. Thanks for your attention, will post again after: [pick one] Crash and Burn / Victory and Freedom.

Progress is occurring, but on its own, I'm not doing much. I rebooted to see the screens (after unplugging my usb memory-card reader, which I don't use anyway) and it noted a pile of sda's removed. Config? I said Y, it said Choose a partition: hda1, 5, 6, 7: FAT32 (win), ext3 (/), swap, ext3 (/home). I chose Cancel, since it didn't say what it was thinking to do. It may have been HardDrake, not DiskDrake. I don't know the difference. Boot continued normally, Printer boot didn't say FAIL this time. Opened System Config in KDE normally!! Enabled "dhcp" to see my dsl modem, though some "host name" questions I did not understand so I left them blank (Help no help at all, no terms defined or explained: Noobs need better help. Anyone willing to write a deeper, simpler Help that noobs can select?) Konqueror sees /home and /mnt/windows but nothing in / or on the zip drive or floppy. Didn't see an easy way to "enable" access (in case it was caused by not being root). Rebooted, this time harddrake didn't run. Everything looked good but no connection to internet. Sys Config froze at splash. LogOff refused, had to power off by hand. On this boot was fast enough to visit BIOS and changed OS to "not PnP". Opened Sys Config this time, enabled dhcp "connect at boot". "Services" icon doesn't work (had visited that on first boot above): "Loading, please wait" forever. Sorry, don't have that much time. Close Sys Config, Konqueror won't start. LogOff Session. Restart Session. Tried Home icon on desktop. Eventually opened in Konqueror but Very Slowly. Everything else very slow. Closed Home. Restarted Konqueror. Tried to connect to internet. Works!!! But speed is more like dialup, not dsl. (dial modem is off; dsl modem lights indicate that is path used) Anyway, here I am in Konqueror. Problems remaining: Nothing shows in / or zip drive, floppy. Long delays. Sys Config balky. Will fully reboot again and see what's new. Just confirmed printer, so that's OK now. Edit: Rebooted, tried Konq to zip drive (which is "devices:/devidehost0bus1target1lun0part4mntzip"). Konq shows no files, freezes. Had to close by taskbar ("Not responding, you lose all") Reopened Konq (define: stupid), typed in mandrivausers.org, froze again. Closed. Opened Epiphany, got here and logged in. Then decided to open Control Center (=sys config). Froze at splash, couldn't get it off screen so had to log off forum, end session. Never offered a new session, had to hard-power off. On reboot printer failed to register. Opened Control Center OK this time (first thing) and enabled printer without incident. Closed CC, opened Nautilus, clicked on removable (disk), said Loading but froze instead. Had to close it. Refuses to restart. Opened Epiphany, came here thoroughly disgusted and out of time. I assume I can use GEdit to redo some obscure text file somewhere and get access to my drives, although that sure doesn't seem to me to be a 21st century way to do it.

1. Lilo, plain screen 2. Haven't had the box open 3. Had a key drive on a usb port when I first booted into MD. Thought it might be the cause so I took it off and rebooted, same results, except an "sda" listing in the 'Drake screen was not there. 4. I have a 100M zip drive, a CD drive, and the 60G HD divided in half, 30G each Win and MD. MD has /, home, swap. On usb I now have the HP printer, a mouse, and unconnected camera and key drive cords. Will reboot later and get back on the last request.

Hi, I run Win98Se on a Duron with 320M ram. Loaded Mandrake 10 from CD back in Jan 05 and all was well, except external modem hard to use. Uploaded a few updates from web (very slow) but can't remember what all. Didn't boot into MD for about 4 months. Who knows what all changes (in Win) to config since, mainly these: got USB port expander and replugged things; switched from dialup to DSL using LAN modem. The problem: Booted MD, it fails to find usb printer, and starts DiskDrake and wants to do something unclear to my hard drive partitions. I'm not about to let it reformat or repartition anything with no more explanation than it offers. Cancel, KDE starts OK but Konqueror can't see any drives. I try Config System utility, but it hangs at splash. I logoff to shut down, screen goes blackish but system does not power off, I have to pull the plug. I am tempted to uninstall, but don't know how to safely do that. Would rather fix but cannot spend hours. Poked around on forum but didn't find anything I could understand. If the Q has already been answered here, point me at it. Just remember that EVERY step needs to be spelled out: what does it do? If it needs information off my machine, where do I find it? If the command line needs {yourfilename} do I include the curly braces? My original purpose for returning to MD was to connect with the DSL. Poked around and found no help doing that either. I thought it would find it by itself and work without any input from me (beyond opening a browser of course) but of course not. But first things first. What happened to the drives?

Yep, here I am in Konqueror. At device speed 38xxx. I think I had tried the 56xxx speed and when it failed didn't go any lower. So close... wonder why kppp won't talk to this modem any faster? allegedly Win98 is OK at 115xxx. Doesn't seem to greatly slow the connection, which maxes out at 31K where I am. I can't get high speed out here in the sticks.

I didn't look, I just assumed the needed files are on the CD or it would know to create it (after all I didn't tell it NOT to, and all my other instructions in creating an account inherently imply such a file would be needed; so why would it require the user to manually create it? However, the knoppix CD is not shutting down the computer correctly and is not booting visibly (during boot all I get is the "out of range" error notice from my LCD monitor; using cheatcode knoppix vsync=60 I can see KDE once it arrives). I can run knoppix (which is almost as fast as MDK despite being a LiveCD), but I'd rather just fix MDK. I have just dialed in using Win98 while "open a terminal after dialing" so I could see just what my ISP is sending that kppp doesn't like. Maybe if I set an "expect" in a script it will handle it properly. May not get to that tonight. It said: ** Ascend TNT Terminal Server ** Login: [which I entered] Password: [ditto] Entering PPP Session IP is [xxx.xxx.x.xx] [did this on two dial-ins, varied] MTU is 1524 then I hit F7 and proceeded to surf. Am I on the right track?

FWIW: I finally got knoppix back (apparently the last time I ran it was before I switched to an LCD screen, so now I have to use a cheatcode to see it). Knoppix had gotten online without a hitch (unless my memory is REALLY shot) back when, but now it gives the exact same (lack of) results that MDK does. So if this is a MDK problem, knoppix is leaning on some config that MDK set up. More likely they are completely independent, so what has changed?? The modem is flawless in Win98. Now that makes Linux look bad... Revision: the garbage from the ISP shows up either way if I put in a few seconds pause in a script to give it time to arrive.

cat /etc/resolv.conf doesn't return anything. It just drops down to another prompt. However I just spent 2 fruitless hours banging my head against kppp in MDK. The kppp manual said to remove the "lock" entry in etc/ppp/options AND in ~/.ppprc. Did the first and could not find the second. It said make sure pppd is a binary not a script but gave not a clue how to do that. I found a 220K file in /sbin which I assume to be the binary. It said "do chmod u+s pppd as root" which also just dropped to the next prompt line. I haven't the slightest what that does, but it's done. The u+s part I am writing here from memory, if it's wrong. I did it right. OK, a more accurate description of the problem (which would be EVEN BETTER if my memory didn't do a RESET every time I close an app): The debug screen shows: starting pppd at the bottom ATZ --> OK ATM1L1 --> OK ATDT [phone number] [dials] CONNECT 28800/ARQ then the status line at the bottom says starting pppd again, and nothing happens until it times out (set for 36 sec). The 3 lines of garbage occur when I make the connection manually in a terminal. I couldn't communicate with the modem after it returns the CONNECT so I couldn't hang up except by turning it off. So I read some more and made the DTL change so that quitting kppp also hangs it up. Why doesn't kppp just have a "hang up" button? The ATI commands return this (I didn't write it all down, there are a lot of Sxx returns too) ATI 5601 ATI 1 E735 ATI 2 OK OK ATI 3 or 4? U.S. Robotics Sportster 56000 Fax v4.1, then [incomplete]: A1 B0 C1 D2 G0 H0 I0 K1 M4 N0 P0 R1 S0 T5 U0 Y1 ATI 6 I think, partial: V32bis,V.34,x2

etc/ppp/options reads: lock noauth noipdefault usepeerdns That is all, and I don't know what they mean or what to change them to. For example, if "lock" is wrong, should it be "lock=no" or "unlock" or "# lock". Also, "noauth" -- does that mean it fails to offer the ISP my password? I'm sure I have that provided in the kppp wizard. etc/resolve/conf does not exist as a text file. There is a icon with a gnome footprint on it, shown as "0 byte". I think it is etc/resolve.conf, didn't write that detail down. There is also resolve.conf.start, also 0 bytes. Does this help?

Problem in MDK 10.0 using an external USRobotics 56K modem, it dials fine but refuses to recognise my ISP. Tried almost every setting in the ppp wizard, no help. Windows 98 surfs fine, MDK won't get past "CONNECT". (The debug shows CONNECT 28800/ARQ (if I remember right) then the ISP sends about 3 lines of unreadable characters. If I start pounding keys (might as well be at random for all the good it does) the ISP (or modem) sometimes reacts with a few more inscrutable boxes and curse characters. But it never says "connected, ready to roll." I've read on this forum till my eyes got sore, lots of people with similar (?) problems but did not understand answers given. Micro-rant: there are a lot of threads that end in midsentence, apparently resolved, but solution not spelled out. Really would help us lurkers to come back one last time and let us in on the answer, we might not ask so many questions!! Did see a well-hidden reference to "change ATZ to AT in modem initialization" but that was for a "no connect" problem. Haven't tried that yet. The problem is at home, I'm at work, so will try out your answers later. Thanks I am still trying to learn Linux, but am stymied by the argot. I speak English, not Linuxspeak. Spell it out step by step, please assume no prior familiarity. Moved from Software to Networking - Artificial Intelligence

This started with a problem in MDK using an external USRobotics 56K modem, it dials fine but refuses to recognise my ISP. Tried almost every setting in the ppp wizard, no help. Then I recalled that Knoppix 3.3 LiveCD surfed before installing MDK, so I put it in to compare. Boot screen fine, but as soon as past boot:, screen goes black with an error from the monitor "out of range". Knoppix is booting (I hear the sultry "initiating starting sequence" and can back out using the keyboard with a sequence I found on this forum) but I can't see any of it. Monitor is Komodo 15 inch LCD. The Question: what did MDK do that is blocking knoppix? At the boot splash I've tried setting the resolution with "knoppix screen=1024x768" (my screen native) but no help. Is there a file set by MDK that I can edit to fix this? MDK and Windows 98 both still boot fine. 98 surfs fine, MDK still won't get past "CONNECT". (The debug shows CONNECT 28800/ARQ (if I remember right) then nothing happens till it times out.) I've read on this forum till my eyes blanked out, but found neither problem addressed. Did see a well-hidden reference to "change ATZ to AT in modem initialization" but that was for a "no connect" problem. Haven't tried that yet. Note: I am still trying to learn Linux, but am stymied by the argot. I speak English, not Linuxspeak. Spell it out step by step, please assume no prior familiarity. The problem is at home, I'm at work, so will try out your answers later. Thanks Just got back from the knoppix forum and found this is a common problem. Will try a pile of cheatcodes until one works. It was a while back that I first tried this CD maybe I fixed this then (I have a leaky memory problem) and it wrote a conf file which got blown away when MDK installed. So if I fix this I will probably destroy MDK.... Will repost my ISP problem seperately

I am very new to Linux. (Did try OpenLinux a while back but never got it to work right) Installed Mandrake 10.0 and have worked out several problems, but this one has me stuck. Using an external Robotics Sportster 56K, configured kppp to ttsy0 with my username and password and dialup #. No problem there. Hit connect, dials fine and gets noise back from isp. Then it sits there like it's waiting for something and times out. (The debug screen says the modem replies CONNECT 28800/ARQ [i think, that's from memory, the machine is at home, I'm at work].) (Have rechecked and re-entered id & pw several times) I called the isp and he blames linux of course. I don't see anything else to adjust. If it helps: I don't have a network so the long boot delay looking at eth0 (always "FAILED") was eliminated by unchecking that in a startup-config thingie. The modem problem was before that also, so I assume there is no connection. Bear in mind I have no idea what a lot of these shorthand words you guys use mean. Another thing, I got access to my zip disk by adding mnt/hdd4. Supermount puts mnt/zip on the desktop, but clicking it just makes the disk whir but gives no files in Nautilus. It has a greatlooking icon, which I would like to reassign to hdd4, but I don't know where the icon comes from. Is mnt/zip stuck looking for linux filesystem? Its fstab lists vfat after [oops, memory failure: ext2? ] so what stops it from seeing the files? Last thing: Mandrake froze up several times while entering the config software (and some other functions) but after each reboot it went further til finally it seems to get along OK. Is it really fixing itself or am I about to hit a mine?