Crashdamage

I beg to differ with some others here. I think there are very good reasons to have at least /, /var, /usr and /home, and a good case made for splitting /local (similar thinking to splitting /home) or even /etc and others. Here's how my drives are partitioned. The main system HD (hda) is the same 20G HD I was using when I first started using Linux (RH6 and MDK8.0). I'm still using it and I've never needed to re-partition it: $ df -H Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on /dev/hda5 818M 133M 644M 18% / /dev/hdb1 99G 66G 29G 70% /data1 /dev/hdd1 61G 22G 36G 38% /data2 /dev/hda9 11G 7.7G 2.1G 80% /home /dev/hda1 2.0G 811M 1.2G 41% /mnt/windows /dev/hda7 4.2G 3.0G 1.1G 75% /usr /dev/hda8 2.1G 1.3G 719M 64% /var The hdb and hdd drives are just storage. You can see the hda drive is split into: /mnt/windows /usr /var /home /mnt/windows is a now-unused old windows installation, now just a shared FAT32 space when connect to other Win boxes. Notice / has little in it. It's critical that / never gets full, or the system won't boot at all. That's why, IMHO, while it's handy to split /home, actually /var is the most critical to separate from /, as it can quickly become full (or fill up / if not separated) with fast-growing logs from something like an out-of control service, even if /var (or /) is fairly large. If that happens, the system is totally broken and the only hope is to boot from a CDROM distro and try to clear some space under /. Similar with /usr - if not a separate partition, it can fill / if you get a little carried away with installing space-hogging apps. I would never load Linux on anything without a /var partition, and in my opinion at the minimum /, /var, and /home partitions should be the default setup for any distro. Separating /var has saved me a couple of times. Anyway, why NOT split things up a bit? Causes no problems or performance penalty. As for fragmentation, in Windoze NTFS does fragment, not nearly as badly as FAT32, but should still be cleaned up occasionally. In Linux, regardless of the file system, fragmentation can and does happen, but even if a disk is used heavily for years it's not a problem. The exception to this is when a partition becomes nearly full. Then fragmentation can happen and enough to become a problem. The closer to full the faster it increases. To be safe, I never let a partition get much over 90% full.

Simplify your life and install the MDK rpm for Fluxbox. If you want a newer version than originally came with 10.1 Cooker has a newer version, either 0.9.12 or 0.9.13, I forgot which and I'm not at my Linux box right now to check. 0.9.13 is the latest development version, so either way it's pretty up-to-date. I've been running the Cooker rpm with no problem for quite a while and it installed and works fine. If you don't want to install the Cooker sources just download it and urpmi it in.

In no particular order... Fluxbox, aterm, Midnight Commander, mutt, slrn, vim (w/mutt & slrn, etc) xmms, Xplanet, Links/Firefox, Win4LinPro (w/Win2k) Danpei, xsane, xcalc. A lot of other stuff, but that's most of the software I use several times a week.

I've had this same problem ever since I went to 10.1 - have to start the net connection manually, even though eth0 *supposedly* starts at boot, the nic card module loads, and ONBOOT=yes Never bothered me much since I normally only reboot after power outages, etc., but it is a curiosity I have found a cure for - but then, I haven't tried very hard, either. Anyway, point is it must be a fairly common problem. I'd like to know the fix, just to learn something.

A quick update for anyone wondering about a fix... I did fix it, but I can't exactly say how. I was reading this: https://mandrivausers.org/index.php?showtopic=25153 ...and that seemed to be exacly what was happening - same exact error messages, etc discussed in that thread. Now, I never needed to make the edits regarding adding "acpi=off noapic" to etc/lilo.conf before and couldn' t really think of any reason I should need to now, but it worked for davcefai, so what the...I tried it anyway. No joy. I only mention it here in case it works for someone else like it did for davcefai. By now much more than a little frustrated, I plugged the cable modem back into my Winshaft laptop so I could log into work and get something done. Ugghh. But this time it wouldn't go. When I did that before it took right off. I had to fiddle around some with rebooting the modem again and hitting the "Repair Connection" button in XPee a couple of times (flushes all settings and gets a new lease) before Gates and the notebook let me become a citizen of the 'Net again. But that gave me hope for getting the Linux box going again...maybe it's NOT my Linux box after all. Obviously, I should try the same thing in Linux I did in Windoze to get up and running. I plugged the cable back in, rebooted the modem and opened MCC to use the quick'n easy method to fool with connections. (I know, but I'm still not a real threat at the CLI with networking stuff, so sometimes I still get weak and lean on a GUI). Anyway, bottom line is after deleting all connections and redoing them a couple of times - just generally messing around - finally it took off! I re-enabled Shorewall, NAT, IPmasq, Portsentry, etc. and all is back to normal. So I don't really have a *specific* fix - type 'xyz' in a terminal and all will be well.. I was just jackin' around and got it working in spite of myself. But at least now I know for sure it never was a hardware thing, and if it ever happens again I'll have a little better idea how to attack the problem.

This is pretty strange...the storms may not actually have anything to do with my problem, but it seems like too much of a coincidence not to be related somehow. Last night big thunderstorms rolled through all night. However, our lights never went out and when I got up this morning my computer was still up, and I was still logged in with everything just like it had been. In short, everything seemed perfectly normal. The only problem was I had no 'Net connection. So I started going through the usual suspects... But just for general info, first let me say I'm using 10.1 and have 2 nics, eth0 with dhcp for the cable connection, eth1 with a static IP so the Linux box can handle routing and firewalling for other computers. No hardware changes for a long time. No changes in network configuration for much longer. Hadn't even rebooted in a couple of months. Anyway... 1. I use Road Runner, and the cable modem had the proper lights lit, etc. I had a connection light on the nic card. I reboot the modem, lights come back up OK. 2. Tried to restart the connection in MCC - failed. 3. Checked network configuration - OK. 4. Uplugged the cable from the cable modem to eth0 and tried it in my Winshaft notebook. Worked perfectly, so now I'm sure the cable connection itself is OK. 5. Tried to delete the present eth0 connection and start with a new one - connection still failed. 6. Stopped all firewalling - shorewall, iptables - no difference. 7. Getting a little more desperate, I tried the old Windoze fix - reboot - and I REALLY hate to reboot. But I figured if I had a hardware problem I'd have to shutdown anyway. Still no good. During boot I get the dreaded red 'FAILED' on eth0, but eth1 comes up a green 'OK'. Now, ever since I loaded 10.1 eth0 would come up 'OK', but I'd still have no 'Net untill I started the connection manually or through MCC. That was no big deal since it always worked and I normally reboot only every few months. But I never got 'FAILED' before. 8. By now I'm thinking my eth0 nic has been zapped somehow. But I've got plenty of nics, so I change not one, but both nics, using Realtek 8139s as before (same 8139too driver). Still no good. 9. Hmmm...maybe the PCI slot got zapped somehow. Not likely, but...so I swapped around cards and slots and put the sound card in the slot previously used by eth0 as a test. No change, and the sound card still works. 10. I give up for now and post a cry for help here. I don't know...everything seems fine, but no go. Any help would be much appreciated.

I've used Danpei for a long time. Sorta similar to CompuPic, but better - the Linux version of CompuPic is pretty lame. Not included with Mandrake, but you can get a rpm that installs fine.

Just a thought - you have to be in the right directory. Did you cd to your folder called 'firefox-installer' first and then type './firefox-installer'?

Check out the Win4Lin mailing list: win4lin-users@netraverse.com There's been discussion there lately about 'unofficial' patches for kernels all the way up to 2.6.12-rc2. Should be some stuff to help you out. Win4Lin has been so busy working on Win4LinPro (and making major strides with it using KQEMU) that they're not quite as up on their kernel patches as they usually are. But you've gotta be kidding about getting DirectX working...no such thing...

That's because the Firefox executable is actually /usr/bin/mozilla-firefox. Try that. As far as I know, there is no Mandrake rpm of the latest version of Firefox (1.0.2) other than the one in the just-released-to-Club-members-only Mandriva Limted Edition. For now, the easiest way I know to get a Firefox 1.0.2 rpm is go to RPMfind-Speakeasy at: http://rpmfind.net/linux/RPM/ Download and save the RPM: firefox-1.0.2-3.i386.rpm (which is actually for Fedora Core3). Then cd to where you saved it and uprmi it in. I usually caution against using non-MDK rpms, but this installed with no problems on my 10.1 box. I didn't even bother to uninstall my old version first, but since you've apparently been fooling around with trying to install by methods other than with urpmi, it might be best if you did. Firefox works fine on all the online banking/bill-paying sites I use (a LOT of 'em). A better browser than 'regular' Mozilla.

You need to install and configure Samba for what you want to do. Should be some help here in Tip & Tricks, on Samba's website or Google will find lotsa info.

You really have been going about things the hard way. Instead of trying to install GTK from source, all you need to do is open Mandrake Control Center and select 'Software Management" (GUI method) or use urpmi (CLI method) and install GTK from there. Or installing any software that uses GTK will also automatically install the required GTK packages with it, including resolving all dependencies. Before you do anything else, it would be best to uninstall anything GTK you've installed from source to avoid any conflicts. Go to the "Easy-Urpmi" link at the top of this forum's opening page and follow the instructions for setting up online sources for software and you'll be ready to install almost anything you want click-click easy or by typing a single command. Also check the FAQs, Tips & Tricks sections or 'man urpmi' for much more info. I always say "Don't install from source packages except as a last resort." This because package managers for any distro, whether .rpm or .deb based, are only aware of software installed from rpms or debs. Source installs are not recorded in their database, so problems can occur with conflicts of versions, installation of multiple versions, etc. Admittedly, serious problems from source installs is unlikely, but it can and does happen, particularly if installing major stuff like xorg, gcc, KDE, etc. If you always install proper packages then urpmi, apt - whatever - can properly keep everything installed on your system straight. Also, uninstalling a package is far simpler.

You can't copy the .so files, that won't work. You have to do symlinks, just like the Firefox FAQ (here it is again: http://www.mozilla.org/support/firefox/faq#q2.2) says to do.

It always helps to check the FAQ's... http://www.mozilla.org/support/firefox/faq#q2.2

You can take care of installing Firefox and upgrading xorg in one shot by going to Thac's rpm repository here: http://anorien.csc.warwick.ac.uk/mirrors/thac/10.1/RPMS/ Add it to your urpmi sources, then: # urpmi -v mozilla-firefox That will install : mozilla-firefox-1.0-2.mdk10.1.thac which I *think* is the latest version available by rpm right now. Been working perfectly for me. At the same time, it will also automatically upgrade xorg to: xorg-x11-6.8.2-6.mdk10.1.thac After installation, you'll need to close everything and restart X for the xorg-x11 upgrade to take effect, but no reboot is necessary. You can pretty much put it wherever you want, but of course /home/myhome is not a good place if you have other users on your box you also want to be able to run Firefox. Somewhere like /usr/local/bin might be better. But I always say never install from tarballs on a .rpm or .deb-based system except as a last resort. If you do, urpmi (or apt, yum, whatever) has no knowledge of the installation and files it added and so cannot properly keep track of resolving dependencies, etc. That means there's some possibility of an oops condition happening sometime down the road. It's also hard to uninstall software installed from tarballs. If you must install from source, it's better to make a rpm with checkinstall. At least then you have your own reusable and easily uninstallable package. It's very easy. Basically, you just install the checkinstall package: urpmi -v checkinstall ...and after unpacking the tarball you want to install, instead of: ./configure make make install You do: ./configure make checkinstall 'man checkinstall' or a little Googling will give more details.

The Firefox executable is actually named 'mozilla-firefox', so that path should be: /usr/bin/mozilla-firefox.

I though this was a great tip, something I'd wanted to know how to do with Firefox and just hadn't put time into figuring out yet. Denial to a site should be very rare, since there are always times when referral information isn't available, like when you click on a bookmarks, type in a URL, click on a link in email or documents. The ability to disable referrer information easily is an important resaon I used Opera for Win and Linux for a long time (or Links, which I'm using right now). Disabling it never caused any problem. Maybe it's relatively unimportant and maybe I'm paranoid, but I take this stuff seriously, even if only just for the principle of it. And if denying referer information keeps me from accessing a site, I probably didn't really want to go there anyway.

For a GUI like the OP asked for, I always liked kpackage. Should do just what he wants. As for using CLI... Problem is, sometimes that's a very long list. I trim it to only executables installed by the package with this: $ rpm -ql mutt | grep bin /usr/bin/flea /usr/bin/mutt-normal /usr/bin/mutt_dotlock /usr/bin/muttbug /usr/bin/pgpewrap /usr/bin/pgpring /usr/bin/smime_keys I don't use the old rpm commands much anymore, partly 'cause I coulda sworn urpmi still tries to resolve dependencies even for non-MDK packages...?? Absolutely. "All the other ones" would be to update software to later versions or to add lotsa cool software available not included on the Mandrake discs.

OK, thanks. Here goes...

Good news that more of the major Win software makers like Nero, Symantec (pcAnywhere, anti-virus for enterprise servers) are starting to pay some attention to Linux. Actually I don't miss Nero when I'm away from Windoze and only have Nero 5.5 anyway so don't qualify for a free download. But Pixel32 does look way cool. I thought I'd at least try the demo version and buy it if I liked it, so I downloaded and did: $ tar xvfz pixel_linux_demo423.tar.gz installpixel32 Uh? How do I do: $ ./configure make checkinstall ...to make a rpm from that? No docs, config file, makefile - just a single executable file? And if I did run it and it installed, how the f*sck would I uninstall it?

You don't *have* to, but it's easier and better to go ethernet. Some experience with DSL, but what's "DSL lite"? As for your Westell modem, brand or model doesn't really matter. You don't need to load drivers, and the 'Net is the 'Net, connection is the same regardless of OS. Just jack the modem into a working ethernet card on your Linux box, go to Mandrake Control Center, Webmin, or do it manually, however is comfortable for you, and set your 'Net connection up just like it is in XPee and you should be good to go... Don't forget, if you do it in MCC, choose "LAN Connection" to do the setup, enter you IP, etc, or set for DHCP if you have one of a few DSL providers that use dynamic IPs. Mine, like most, use static IPs.

Apparently not. Check this in Thac's post: Seems Thac assumed you had already upgraded KDE to 3.3. I only have one more suggestion: See what happens if you use another WM - Gnome, Fluxbox, IceWM - whatever. If other WMs work fine, at least you know it's actually a KDE problem and can attack it from that perspective. Sorry, but I can't help you further if it's a KDE thing. I'm a Fluxbox guy. I don't use KDE and don't know much about it. KDE is kinda broken on my box too but I can still run KDE apps so I have no urge to do anything about it. Maybe Thac will check in on this thread again and he or someone else will have some other ideas. Or Google yourself silly....

To answer Darkelve's question... There is *experimental* support for XP Home. And the 1st Win4Lin Pro revision has just been released which (among mostly fixes for non-english keyobards) includes... ...so maybe another try with the newer version will work for you now. My experience so far Win4LinPro is, well, OK. Has it's ups and downs. Might keep in mind the observations below are with an AMD 2500 Barton, 784MB, ordinary Maxtor IDE 7200 rpm HD for system files, Asus nForce2 motherboard and my trusty but by now fossilized 32MB Savage S3 video card: The Ups: No problems at all loading a Win2kPro SP4 disc. Did a few updates, including Internet Exploder from 5.0 > 6.0 with no problems. Sun's Java 1.4.2 installed fine. Firefox installed ok, including several extensions, and works with Java. Printing is working perfectly, even remote printing through pcAnywhere from my office Win2k box through this Linux box at home. VNC viewer works fine, runs pretty quick too. So far, in many hours of use Win4LinPro has been rock-solid stable. And Win4linPro/Win2kPro auto-configured itself and connected to the 'Net without any assistance at all or changes to the host configuration - very nice! The Downs: Boots at about native Windoze speeds. Not bad, but Win4Lin9x takes about 10 sec. Actually runs at about VMware/Win2k speeds and I always thought VMware kinda sucked. After being spoiled by the blazing speed of Win4Lin9x for so long the speed is disappointing, but speed improvements are supposed to be in the works. Windows cannot be auto-updated through Windows Update, gotta download and install updates maually. Loaded a few apps and most went ok, but the brand-new pcAnywhere 11.5 (remote viewer only) failed installation so I had to go back to using 10.5. Firefox runs pretty slow and for some reason installing the Mouse Gestures 1.0 extension broke Firefox, forcing an unistall/reinstall. That was slightly complicated by the fact Add/Remove Programs in Control Panel is broken. I'll be trying TaxCut soon to see if I can do my taxes on this combo. It's that time of year...aarrrgggghhhhh!

Well... 1st, make sure the urpmi of xorg-x11-6.8.2 went right. Check: rpm -q xorg-x11 2nd, check your logs: /var/log/Xorg.0.log and see if there's something odd there. 3rd, maybe see what '$ top' says. That will at least tell you how many instances of X are running. Someone sharper than me will have to give you a way, if there is one, of seeing what version of xorg is actually running.

As *I* understand things, the default behavior of urpmi is like 'rpm -U' in that it updates only the necessary files in a package, those that are identical are untouched. The difference with rpm vs urpmi is urpmi also takes care of resolving any resulting dependencies. This is also the default behavior of apt. 'apt-get upgrade' is just like 'urpmi --upgrade'. As for 'apt-get -f', it didn't seem to be particularly useful. I don't have a Debian install now, but if I remember right it just tries to reinstall the package and if that fails, then uninstall/reinstall again. Nothing really trick, no magic 'fix'. Like aRTee, I still don't see what that really might be... Fair enough, no doubt apt is good and choice is a Good Thing. But, no offense, but how is a guy who admitted he's never installed Debian gotten to be such a sage about apt? So convinced of it's "superiority"? This whole apt vs urpmi arguement is really a little silly, but this stuff gets out on the web and people read it. And so the perception, the myth that "apt is better than anything" is perpetrated, no matter how good urpmi, portage, yum or anything else really is. So sometimes these spats are needed...