Crashdamage

As I said earlier, you should be able to install 10.1, (unless your bios won't cooperate with a 2.6 kernel as YinYeti suggested) but NOT KDE or Gnome. Your machine will not run them. Think of it like this: KDE and Gnome are XP-class (or better) full desktop environments, with hardware requirements to match. You wouldn't expect your old box to run XP, so why expect it to run recent versions of KDE or Gnome? Keeping that in mind, your box wiil do fine for a server or router/firewall, but probably not "to run advanced webpage design". Still very useful to learn some stuff... DO install at least a couple of lightweight window managers like IceWM, Fluxbox, etc. They will not limit what you can do, they're just not so Windoze-like, so you might have to learn some different tricks. The installer is telling you it needs more than 64MB of memory to do a GUI install. You need to do a text-mode install. Do the 'F1' thing, but at the prompt type 'text'. You should be good to go that way. Choose your packages manually and skip KDE and Gnome. If you choose a package to install the requires some KDE or Gnome libraries, the installer will sort that out for you, installing only what you need. If for whatever reason you still can't get 10.1 to install, then like I said before and JonEnberger and scarecrow also suggested, you can either try an older version of Mandrake like 8.2, which was excellent, or another lighter distro intended for meager hardware. I'm not sure what's up with this since the main (and I assume in this case only) HD is usually named hda, not hdc. Also, seems it's trying to access and area not on the disk. Get into the bios and make sure the drive is properly detected. If it's not it may be hooked up wrong, like to the secondary IDE controller, set as a slave or maybe just in need of a good formatting.

Well, when using a notebook here and there the only thing I can think of is when you know your next reboot will be without a 'Net hookup, to go to MCC and disable eth0 before you shutdown so it doesn't waste time searching for a connection at boot. Maybe someone else here has a better idea... Because all or most of those bugs probably have nothing to do with stability or because they affect only certain apps, not the OS as a whole. Of course. This isn't Windoze, where Win98 was better than WinME, Win2k was better than XPee, Office 2000 was better than Office XP. With Linux, most stuff is GPL so changes are made to actually improve things, not just to get new product on the market. Real, meaningful progress is contatnly being made in Linux distros and applications. That doesn't mean you have to have the latest, greatest Linux distro to have good system, any more than you have to have the latest, greatest Windoze to have a good (cough) system. This is not unusual at all. Windoze needs crutches and bootable CD's of Linux makes handy ones. Can't help you with IM - never sent one, never will.

Nothing really. As far as I can tell, they're intended to ease the Win-Linux transition for Windoze converts. I appreciate that, and all the work the developers have put into to them to help converts make the change. KDE certainly helped me make the changeover initially. But unless you want a clone of Windoze-like desktop functionality there's no particular reason to use them. The way I look at it, if I wanted something that looks or works like Windows, I'd just use Windows. M$ sucks but if you can overlook that registry, Win2k Pro acutally resembles a decent OS, albeit one with a lousy user interface. I mean, with some tweaking Win2k really is pretty stable, fairly fast, reasonably easy to install and everything works with it (almost). Originally, I went to Linux because XP is a bad joke, just Win2k all f'd up, I can't stand M$'s monopolistic business practices and I knew I couldn't run Win2k forever. When XP was about to be released I could see it was clearly time to make a move out from under Billy Bob Gate's thumb. Besides, I wanted something different, something more customizable, simpler, faster, better. And something with no friggin' desktop icons. So I went to Linux, then soon started checking out window managers. As for me, I never use either KDE or Gnome anymore, haven't since about a month after I first loaded Linux. I don't have KDE installed at all, and Gnome is only still there because some apps I use require it. You may need one or both installed for dependency reasons, depending on what apps you use. I've haven't logged in with Gnome since Mandrake 8.0, couldn't even tell you what it looks like now. Try it if you want. I've found Mandriva to be absolutely rock-stable, so Debian couldn't do any better for me in that regard. The stability thing is more reputation than fact. Debian is a little harder to install. You might want to try Unbutu (Debian-based w/Gnome) or Kunbutu (Debian-based w/KDE) as they're easier for n00bs. I found no particular advantage to Debian and for a few reasons have stayed with Mandriva and will for the forseable future. But to each his own...

Then why don't you leave it plugged in? If you install XP plus the Windoze equivelents of all the software included and installed by LE2005, do you have any concept at all of how many bugs would be found in that much Windoze software? People forget how much software beyond the basic OS is included with Linux distros. When M$ talks about bugs in Windoze, there talking about the base OS, a browser, email client, Wordpad, Imaging, etc - i.e. the base OS plus a few basic apps. But when the number of bugs in a Linux distro is discussed that includes much, much more - sometimes literally thousands of applications, which are not under the supervision of a single company with unlimited resources. IOW, the total number of bugs found in a huge beta release like 2006 is amazingly low. Billy Bob Gates can only dream of doing so well one day. If you want to see how much space your have on you partitions, the quick and easy way is open a terminal (konsole, aterm, xterm, whatever) and at the '$' prompt type: $ df -H ..which should return info something like this example from my box: Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on /dev/hda5 818M 212M 565M 28% / /dev/hdb1 99G 78G 17G 83% /data1 /dev/hdd1 61G 23G 36G 39% /data2 /dev/hda9 11G 8.1G 1.7G 84% /home /dev/hda1 2.0G 811M 1.2G 41% /mnt/windows /dev/hda7 4.2G 3.0G 990M 75% /usr /dev/hda8 2.1G 1.3G 731M 63% /var If you want a Windoze-type GUI instead, try KDE System Guard (ksysguard) or Gnome System Monitor (gnome-system-monitor). Either of these will give you partition info, CPU and memory usage, running processes, etc.

A 10x version of Mandrake/Mandriva with a 2.6 kernel would be better than a 9x version with a 2.4 kernel. The 2.6 kernel makes a nice speed improvement, even on old hardware. If you want to use 10.1 with only 64MB of memory, certainly you can but don't expect to be able to use KDE or Gnome in a worthwhile way, if at all. Stay with a lightweight window manager like Fluxbox or IceWM. There's plenty of other window managers to choose from if those don't suit you. You should be able to skip installing KDE, (I don't have KDE installed on 10.1) maybe even Gnome too, depending on what apps you want to run. That will save lotsa precious space on that 2.5G drive. If 10x just won't work or you really want KDE/Gnome, you could try an older version like Mandrake 8.2, which has older and much lighter versions of KDE and Gnome. Or try one of the distros intended for old hardware with limited memory like Vector Linux or Peanut Linux. There's a Linux distro for every need.

I've been using 1.0.6 but wanted to give the new version a try. After a couple of days use, it seems to be a little quicker loading both the program and webpages, and Foward-Back are certainly much quicker. So far has been nice and stable, and the problem I've always had 'til now, with all versions of Firefox, of scrolling with the mouse wheel coming and going seems to be fixed - scrolling has always worked so far. But be aware that most extensions don't work with yet in this Beta. Some pages do render differently than with 1.0.6 - mostly for the better. As for Java, well, Java applets mostly but not always work. For example, java applets on these sites fail with with Firefox-1.5 but not 1.0.6: http://www.bodo.com/javame.htm (a tough test) http://www.dslreports.com/stest/ But that could be because I still have jre-1.4.2 installed. I may update to jre-1.5 and see if that straightens things up, but I'm kinda leery of doing it 'cause I found using the Win version of Firefox-1.0.6 with jre-1.5 breaks a couple of websites I use, so I had to go back to using 1.4.2. I really haven't fooled around with jre-1.5 on Linux yet with any version of Firefox, or tried the Firefox-1.5b1 Win version with jre-1.5. Still sortin' this stuff out. Any advice on Java would be appreciated. By stable-release time Firefox 1.5 should be very nice. I posted this with it. Anyone else try 1.5b1 yet?

Don't use the old 'rpm' commands. Use urpmi instead. Unlike rpm, urpmi handles all dependencies for you very much like apt-get does in Debian. Really is very good. Check out 'man urpmi' and the 'Easy Urpmi' link in the top right corner of any page on this forum. There also some good tutorials available on urpmi.

Like many such questions, there's no 'Best' browser. The best browser is the one that does what you need the best. Now, with that crap outta the way, I'll say this... I really like Opera, but Firefox comes close and has no problems with sites I use for bill paying, etc. that Opera couldn't play nice with, so it's become my #1 choice when I need a 'full-featured' browser, whether using Linux or Windoze. But I still do most of my ordinary browsing with Links2 in text mode. Links2 also runs in graphics mode and is hands down the fastest graphical browser I've ever seen. For anyone who wants ultimate speed or has a dial-up connection and doesn't need to use Java applets it's a great choice. Very light on resources too, so Links2 in either mode is great for old hardware.

Mutt for email, slrn for news. GUI email or news clients are just too slow and clumsy, sorry. But I do use Thunderbird for email at work on Win2kPro.

Why can't you install a .deb or .rpm? If really true for some reason, you might want to consider fixing that - commercial software is usually only gonna be available in those formats, and mostly .rpm.

null said: That's probably a fairly accurate comparison, I'm not sure 'cause my Windows copy is a full retail of Nero 5.5, I'm not familiar with the bundled stuff. But you don't really expect to get the $90 "Ultra" program for $20 do you? Get real. And of course, it doesn't include the video editing features of Nero 6.6 for Win (which I've played with a little but don't have myself). Maybe if they sell enough Linux copies, Nero will think about that. We can always dream I guess. Still, I've found the new version of NeroLinux to be very nice, and it does a lot, like copy multiple data tracks, something k3b doesn't do. And I won't have to install friggin' KDE anymore to run it. kb3 was (I think, I hope) the last reason I needed KDE. (Sorry Ixthusdan.)

Thanks for the screen shot A.I. There several more good ones here: http://www.nero.com/en/NeroLINUX_Gallery.html

Pretty much my feeling too. I went in not expecting much after that 1st Nero release, but was pleasantly surprised and really like it. Very nice, polished look, more so than kb3 on my system. So far totally stable. Not quite as comprehensive a feature set as kb3, but everything you'll likely ever need. Yeah, the DMA check is good, and the manual is good too. $20 well-spent. I hope it generates a little buzz and support for Nero's Linux efforts. I've made it official - I put Nero at the top of the list of burners in my Fluxbox menu and assigned a hotkey. But then, I could still be wrong - anyone else?

But A.I., what do you think of it? Or anyone else who has actually tried the **new** version? I'm really not interested in what people thought of the **old** version. We all know it was kind of a P.O.S., alpha stuff. But it was also obvious Nero was just dippin' their toes in Linux waters with that. It wasn't even for sale, it was a freebie if I remember right. They knew it wasn't worth $$ to get it, they just wanted to get some users to try it and give some feedback. Now they seem to be gettin' more serious.

Scarecrow said... Did you expect it would? I mean - well, Opera, for instance requires a separate license for the Win and Linux versions. Nothing unusual. No, that was the 1st version, which did kinda suck. The new Nero-2.0.0.2 release is GTK-2.0, and borrows some of the GUI components of Gnome Toaster. I thought it was fairly nice now, maybe not **quite** up to kb3, but it now supports pretty much anything you want to do with any burner supported by Nero 6.6 for Windows, In other words, it's well, good enough. I haven't played with it too much yet, but from early impression, it may become my #1 burning app in Linux now. And as a side benefit for me, it also gets me even closer to the point of not needing to install KDE at all. No, it's not free, but $19.95 ain't bad, and if we want to see more common Windoze apps ported to Linux, more Linux software in boxes at CompUSA, more desktop Linux users, at some point software makers have to have some $$$ incentive to port software to Linux.

I saw that Nero released an updated version of NeroLINUX. I downloaded the 10-day free trial edition to try with my new H-P DVD burner. Installed no problem, and works very nice, much better than the earlier version. In fact, nice enough I bought it, mostly to show support for commercial Linux software (what the heck, it's only $19.95 US), but also because I've long used Nero in Windoze, so it gives me a consistent UI. Anyone else try it? Whadaya think about it? You can check it out here: http://www.nero.com/en/NeroLINUX.html

If you have urpmi sources configured you should be able to just urpmi inkscape right in. That's all I had to do. I have Thac's inkscape-0.41-1.mdk10.1.thac.i586.rpm installed on my 10.1 box, but if you don't want to use a Thac rpm there's also a version in contrib by Jerome Soyer (saispo@mandrake.org).

You may be using a kernel compiled with gcc-4x, while your system has gcc-3.4. If so, any modules you've compiled and installed such as the nVidia module will not load. This will tell you what version of gcc was used to compile the kernel you are booted into: $ cat /proc/version Also, just to be sure - are you using Win4Lin-enabled version of those kernels? The latest W4L-enabled multi-media kernel I've found compiled with gcc-3.4 is the one I'm using now: $ cat /proc/version Linux version 2.6.11-7.mm.18mdk (peroyvind@n4.mandrakesoft.com) (gcc version 3.4.1 (Mandrakelinux 10.1 3.4.1-4mdk)) #2 Mon May 23 06:13:06 CEST 2005 I've been running this kernel on my 10.1 system for quite a while with no problems, using it with both Win4Lin 9x and Win4LinPro. The exact name of the kernel rpm is: kernel-multimedia-win4lin-2.6.11-7.mm.18mdk-1-1mdk.i586.rpm If you're a Club member, this kernel is available here: http://rpms.mandrivaclub.com/rpms/mandriva...86/KByName.html Any newer kernels than that I've seen, such as the 2.6-11.9mm one you said you tried or those in Cooker, have been gcc-4x kernels. They will boot and run, but since 10.1 + 10.2 (LE2005) are gcc-3.4-based, you won't be able to compile things unless you also install gcc-4 and compile using that or re-compile one of the newer kernels on your gcc-3.4 system to get a match. At any rate, you certainly shouldn't need to reinstall your OS just because you booted into a kernel that's causing trouble. Just boot into a known 'good' kernel and it should run as before.

Well AJ, I'm as big a believer in urpmi as anyone but you have to keep 2 things in mind: 1. The Gimp developers themselves recommend removing any old version before upgrading. From past experience, I can say that's good advice. 2. I cheated. 2005LE comes with gimp-2.2.4, and I installed the latest version, 2.2.8, and not even on 2005LE, but on Mandrake 10.1, and did it using an unsupported rpm from Seer of Souls intended for 2005LE. Kinda out-of-bounds from standard practice. So cheating with urpmi in ways it's not expecting meant a little extra manipulation was necessary. That's ok, I ain't mad about it - I was pleasantly surprised urpmi made it so easy, as usual. What a terrific tool.

Uhhh...bvc, I know you know what you're doing, but...you're crazy. I've never heard of this, and never had such a problem. I've used Linux on Road Runner cable, SBC DSL and even ISDN and never had anything but great speed results, whether browsing the Web or up/downloading. I don't know what else to say except something's just not right.

I have 'gimp-2.2.8-1.SoS' installed on 10.1. Had to uninstall gimp-2.0 first (which required uninstalling sane-frontends), update libgimp and then 'urpmi -v gimp'. Gimp-2.2.8 installed fine, reinstalled sane-frontends, all is well. I haven't had time to play with the new version of Gimp much yet, but it sems to work fine.

Fixed! I posted this problem on Usenet in alt.os.linux.mandrake and Toby replied saying he had the same problem and found through a Google groups search he needed to install mozilla-firefox-devel to get DNS resolution. So... # urpmi -v mozilla-firefox-devel (snip) To satisfy dependencies, the following 7 packages are going to be installed (68 MB): libnspr4-1.0.6-1.SoS.i586 libnspr4-devel-1.0.6-1.SoS.i586 libnss3-1.0.6-1.SoS.i586 libnss3-devel-1.0.6-1.SoS.i586 mozilla-1.7.8-SoS.mdk.i586 mozilla-firefox-1.0.6-1.SoS.i586 mozilla-firefox-devel-1.0.6-1.SoS.i586 Is this OK? (Y/n) y I now have Firefox 1.0.6-1 installed and working perfectly. I'm using it to make this post. Thanks to Toby and this can be marked solved. Marked the thread Solved - Artificial Intelligence

Yes, in desperation, I've done 'about:config' and changed the IPV6 setting - no difference. Google has been no help. I thought maybe somehow the norlug Firefox rpm borked my /etc/resolv.config, but that doesn't make sense, and any other browser uses the same /etc/resolv.conf and they all work fine. But to be sure, I fooled around some more, including trying other DNS servers again. My /etc/resolv.config started out as: search kc.rr.com nameserver 24.94.165.25 nameserver 24.94.13.113 After some flailing around with various configurations, I've just left it as: search crashdamage.net # search kc.rr.com nameserver 24.94.165.25 nameserver 24.94.163.113 nameserver 24.94.165.132 Which actually is not quite correct. There should be no search of the internal network, of course. But it makes no difference, the Road Runner nameserver IPs are still there. And every browser I try still uses them and works fine - Links, Opera, Konqueror, whatever - except Firefox. Just for grins, I tried going here: http://seerofsouls.com/rpm.html ...and added that source to urpmi, then urpmi'ed mozilla-firefox, which installed: mozilla-firefox-1.0.6-1.SoS.i586.rpm ...but still had the exact same problem - no DNS resolution, have to enter an IP. Uninstalled that, reinstalled: mozilla-firefox-1.0.2-1.norlug.i586.rpm ...and all is well again. AAAACK!!! This is NUTS! Has me stumped...just makes no sense.

Quite a while back I installed the norlug site's rpm for Firefox 'mozilla-firefox-1.0.2-1.norlug'. All has been working fine, but I wanted to update the version to a later, more secure one. A later norlug version is not or ever will be available, since the norlug folks are not supporting Mandrake/Mandriva anymore. That's really no big deal, but the problem is that now if I uninstall that version and install any other version or rpm of Firefox, and I've tried several, Firefox picks up all my settings, etc. and works ok except it will not do DNS resolution. It will only find a website if I enter the IP. Now, I've never had any problem with Road Runner's DNS servers before, and other browsers still work ok, but just to be sure I tried using some free public DNS servers, like MIT and a couple of others. No help. So it seems that the norlug rpm I've been using has done something to my setup, but I can't find what and I'm a little lost on how to go about fixing this. I'm open to suggestions...thanks.

This seems like a good time to put in my quickie tutorial... **Basic urpmi setup and usage** Urpmi will easily and automagically take care of finding, downloading and installing software and its dependencies, if any. The "Software Management" utility in Mandrake/Mandriva Control Center is a simple to use GUI frontend for urpmi, but it's also very easy to use urpmi from the command line. To set up your online sources for installing/updating software you need to know how to 'su' to root, which is very simple. Just open a terminal and do this: $ su Password: <type.your.root.password> # Note that the cursor changed from '$' to '#' indicating you now have 'root' administrator rights, so be careful! If you don't fully understand the 'su' process or root permissions some simple Googling will explain it. Now to setup your online software sources. Go here: http://easyurpmi.zarb.org/ or just click on the 'Easy-Urpmi' link at the top right of any page in this forum. Follow the directions to setup your online package sources. Choose them carefully, staying with sources for your particular Mandrake/Mandriva version. You'll probably want to add the main sources for your version, plus updates, the Contrib, the PLF free and non-free, and maybe a few others like the norlug and Thac's rpms sources. Warning: Add the Cooker sources at your own risk. Cooker is beta stuff still in testing for the next release and may or may not cause you problems. At this writing, Cooker has made some significant changes from 10.1/LE2005 and is more likely to be problematic than usual. When you've finished setting up your source mirrors you can start using the real power of urpmi. You can now install/uninstall a package using your newly-setup online sources either by using the GUI installer in Mandrake Control Center, or better, manually from the command line. To install manually open a terminal, 'su' to root, then type: # urpmi -v <packagename> ('-v' for verbose output is optional, but I like the extra info it provides) Note that usually <packagename> can be just the 'simple' version. Using the email client Mutt for example, instead of typing the full package name: # urpmi -v mutt-1.5.6i-2mdk.i586.rpm Use: # urpmi -v mutt Then urpmi will automagically go to the 'Net sources you choose, find and download the latest available Mutt rpm for your version of Mandrake/Mandriva, grab any other packages needed to resolve all dependencies and install everything in the correct order. If urpmi can't complete the install, either because all the required software isn't available on the source mirrors you choose or possibly some other conflict(s), it will stop the install process before actual changes are made and give you some info about the problem. Similarly, for packages you've downloaded and saved, just navigate to the directory where you saved them: # cd /mysaved/rpm/is.here Then (for this, you may need to use the full packagename): # urpmi -v <packagename> Uninstalling a package is simply 'urpme' instead of 'urpmi'. Be aware that while using rpms compiled for other versions of Mandrake/Mandriva or for other distros sometimes will work fine, they may not and the possibility for problems exists. Think of this as similar to installing Windows software where installing something on Win98 ut meant for XP (or vice-versa) may not work. The software should be compiled for use with the distro and version it's installed on. So always try to use correct rpms for your distro and version whenever possible, which in the case of MDK/MDV is almost always. If you must use a rpm from another version or distro, it may or may not work. But unlike Windows, urpmi allows you to do a 'test' installation instead of having to just try it and see what happens. To do a test install, do this: # urpmi -v --test <packagename> This does a 'dry run' to check if the package(s) can be sucessfully installed but without actually changing anything on the system. If all is well, remove the '--test' switch to install normally. It's important to always install rpm packages (.rpm), not from tarballs (.targz), when using any rpm-based distro like RedHat, Suse or Mandrake. This is also true of '.deb' package based distros such as Debian or Ubuntu. Why? Because if you always install rpms (or .debs), then urpmi (or Suse's YAST, Debian's apt or whatever package manager) is able to properly keep track of everything installed on your system and so keep everything correctly configured and updated. But if you install software from source tarballs no information about that software or the files it installed are entered into the urpmi database. You then have a situation where urpmi cannot properly keep things straight since it has no info about the installed tarballs or their contents. The chances of installing from tarballs breaking anything is fairly slight, but it can happen, so why risk it if you don't have to? Sometimes a particular piece or a newer version of software may only be available as a source tarball. No problem - it's still very easy make your own rpms from source with a handy utility called checkinstall, included on the Mandrake/Mandriva CDs. In a nutshell, checkinstall makes a simple .rpm package by replacing the traditional compile and install commands: ./configure make make install With: ./configure make checkinstall I won't go into more detail about checkinstall here. Google for more info about it or install the checkinstall package and type 'man checkinstall'. This should be enough to get you going. For more info, open a terminal and type 'man urpmi" or do some Googling, particularly 'easy urpmi'. Lotsa info available.