irlandes

Thank you for explaining your very important rules, but I do not plan to be here again. I have finally dumped Mandriva for its many serious failures on almost all versions after using it exclusively 1999. Let me inform you that on the same computer Kubuntu 6.10 there are no cursor tracks even without NVIDIA driver installed, thus proving the problem IS indeed a Mandriva problem, not a video card problem. Kubuntu also has none of the other problems that both Mandriva RC2 and Final Release have; also none of the problems that 2005 had. None of the problems that 10.0; 9.1; 8.2; and 7.x had. I had real good luck with 8.1, even produced a book with it. My first, 6.5, was also real good. Except for 7.x inability to find both mouse and keyboard in install, 8.2 running very slowly when 8.1 had worked okay, and 9.x tendency to lose its ability to switch between network Internet and dial-up, I was able to fix most problems eventually, but they shouldn't have been there in the first place. I kept on with Mandriva in spite of continuous problems, because of its really great partitioning tools and installer. Kubuntu is the first distro I have installed since 8.1 that works the way its supposed to work without lots of repairs. It was bit harder to install only because I didn't have any experience with it, but after it was installed it simply worked, something I haven't seen in maybe 5 years with Mandriva, and future installations will be easy now that I know how. I will probably keep a Mandriva CD #1 around for partitioning. In the end, the same problems I described in RC2 exist also in Final Release. Do you guys realize you are claiming that Mandriva makes significant changes in its Final Releases without any significant testing? I don't agree, since RC2 and FR had identical problems, but that's what you are saying, isn't it? Well, you're not just saying it. It's official forum policy that the last RC shall be considered totally different from the Final Release, right? That sure doesn't say much for Mandriva, does it? Also, it is interesting that because of your very important rules, I had to obtain a solution for the identical problems on both RC2 and Final Release on another forum, and on Mandriva Users Org, which is where one would expect to find help on Mandriva problems, I only got lectured on very important rules. My only regret is coming back to supply the solution. That was a serious mistake. >>We will help you as best as we can. Under the circumstances, I consider that sort of a sick joke.

I posted this under software. Since I had RC2, I assume, correctly, it was not that far from the final release. Before I could get any useful feedback from final release users, the moderator slammed it over in Cooker, which is roughly the same as deleting it. So, I went somewhere else for help. I must admit it was very tempting not to return and post the solution after being slammed here. Mandriva Official 2007 Free, the final release, had the same problem, which was sort of a foregone conclusion. (RC2 was the last release candidate actually publicly tested. Since Mandriva has admitted in the past they ship Free versions untested, which essentially makes them alphas, and that has been obvious to me, unless they have changed that, the best free download is the last release candidate, which has had at least some testing.) To find this out, instead of other users seeing my posting buried here in Cooker, I finally had to download the Final release, burn it, and install it on another partition. Following suggestions on another forum, I tried changing fonts used by firefox and evolution. No help. I updated to 2.0 firefox. No help. About the time I began to think of a video problem, someone said he had the same tracks with the VESA video driver, and installing NVIDIA driver fixed it. Mandriva Free installer tries to download the correct NVIDIA driver and install it, but it crashed with no explanation. I finally discovered one needs the kernel-source, not the stripped version which I had already. So, the cursor tracks problem is solved on both RC2 and Official Free by installing NVIDIA driver. In the process of struggling with this relatively minor problem, I discovered lots of other problems, again both on Final and RC2. Some examples: 1. Firefox often crashes when trying to download files, especially if mirror forces me to use right click to save what it wants otherwise to send to screen. 2. The packaging utility in the K-menu reads data base when you select install, or remove, and simply returns to the original screen. Originally, it worked fine. 3. When I boot, it mounts all my partitions as I spelled them out, from /etc/fstab but during operation, it loses them, and even df only shows hda7. 4. Both RC2 and Final break if you change the theme from Mandriva to KDE-classic, then back to Mandriva. The windows lose their right top corner buttons: Close; Minimize; Change Size, in both themes. If I change to KDE-Classic and reboot completely, then it will work as long as I leave it in KDE-classic. But, Mandriva theme never works again. I have used Mandrake/Mandriva for a long time. 6.5 was pretty cool, if it hadn't been, I would never have become addicted to Linux. 7.? was pure crap. I tried installing maybe 50 or 100 times and couldn't even get it to install the mouse and keyboard reliably. 8.1 was good. I produced a book on it using LyX. 8.2 was so slow it seemed to freeze, I went back to 8.1 9.? had the horrid video problems. I got it working, but had the problem when I shifted from dial-up to network DSL, it would lock up, and even attempting to re-install the kernel didn't fix it, so I'd have to reinstall. Or, maybe that kernel problem (the kernel at that time is what decided where packets went) was 10.0, I can't remember. I still have Mandriva LE 2005 on my old Dell Laptop. It had some bad stuff in it, but over a year's time, I got it mostly working, instead of having to work around stuff. 2007 RC2 had some real problems. One was a bug in totem, and file associations type configuration wouldn't change things to mplayer. I had to actually delete the totem files to get it to run radio streaming well. I thought I had it mostly working, until I decided to chase this problem. I now have more problems than when I started. I have tried over the years to move to another distro, but they always seemed for one reason or another to not do the job and with only one computer too small to run multiple partitions, I was forced to go back to Mandrake. SuSe 9.2 cost me $100 and it was so poorly tested it wouldn't even open the KPPP window. The guys who don't travel told me to use, um, wvdial, which is so pathetic you need to carry a list of stuff and reconfig it each time you change numbers. Support was stupid, and told people you needed an external modem, which is totally false, had nothing to do with KPPP bug. I think instead of trying to cope with moderator slams and all these new problems, its' time to try another distro. I am not going to be rash and say I am done with Mandriva. I have tried to escape before and failed, but I am going to use my energy on another distro for a while.

On any forum window, or on Evolution compose pages, if I hit the left arrow to back up the cursor to fix something, it leaves a | beside every letter it passes. I thought it was Firefox 1.5, but when I finally installed Evolution, it does the same thing. Firefox 2.0. still does it. If I hit the enter key for a line feed, the tracks go away. Ditto if I minimize the window and then maximize it. Waiting does not seem to affect it. Sometimes the cursor line is invisible, I don't know if that is a clue or not. Opening another application window over the one with the problem, then minimizing it also cleans up the tracks. Kate and Kwrite do not do this. Konqueror Internet browser does not do it. Any ideas? I try to search whenever possible, but don't even know what to call this. Here is an example except I made this with the | key, it looks much worse in actual usage because the spacing is nil: W|h|a|t| h|a|t|h| G|o|d| W|ro|u|g|h|t|?| I sure hope it is something I can configure, because I hate to have to do a new install after a lot of set up is done. Thanks for any help, even knowing what to call it so I can search. [moved from Software by spinynorman]

They sure do! And, suddenly firefox 2.0 opens in Mandriva 2007 free RC2 and no missing libraries, and spell check works. I wanted 2.0 to fix a strange problem, it doesn't fix it, but will open a new thread. Thanks for urpmi libstdc++5 tip.

I've only d/l an address, and changed it to an address (URL) that mplayer can use. It's one I found on this site: http://www.musicradio77.com/ and Firefox plugins would not handle the URL Show me a link to what you want to listen to and I'll check it. http://www.wabcradio.com/ and follow LISTEN LIVE And we want to listen to it for long periods of time. I suspect until there is a fix for totem, or I figure out how to change firefox preferences to mplayer, we will be using XP for this. However, I am interested to see what you come up with. Thanks.

It seems what you are doing involves archived files, download them then play them. Does this relate to my wife listening to Paul Harvey? Sorry I don't understand this. Here's a workaround (hack) to convert http to pnm (ram to ra) and use mplayer: [greg@halfway temp-real]$ wget http://musicradio.computer.net/images/ingrampromos61a.ram --17:04:30-- http://musicradio.computer.net/images/ingrampromos61a.ram => `ingrampromos61a.ram' Resolving musicradio.computer.net... 207.50.192.229 Connecting to musicradio.computer.net|207.50.192.229|:80... connected. HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK Length: 39 [audio/x-pn-realaudio] 100%[========================================================>] 39 --.--K/s 17:04:31 (3.10 MB/s) - `ingrampromos61a.ram' saved [39/39] [greg@halfway temp-real]$ cat ingrampromos61a.ram pnm://207.50.192.228/ingrampromos61a.ra [greg@halfway temp-real]$ mplayer pnm://207.50.192.228/ingrampromos61a.ra MPlayer 1.0pre8-4.1.1 (C) 2000-2006 MPlayer Team -snip- Playing pnm://207.50.192.228/ingrampromos61a.ra. STREAM_PNM, URL: pnm://207.50.192.228/ingrampromos61a.ra Resolving 207.50.192.228 for AF_INET6... Couldn't resolve name for AF_INET6: 207.50.192.228 Connecting to server 207.50.192.228[207.50.192.228]: 7070... Cache size set to 64 KBytes Cache fill: 12.50% (8192 bytes) REAL file format detected. Stream mimetype: audio/x-pn-realaudio demux_real: invalid chunksize! (0) Clip info: name: A Series of Early WABC Dan Ingram Promos author: Dan Ingram copyright: courtesy www.musicradio77.com you can ignore the invalid chunksize... it plays very well :)

>>maybe you have to reconfigure your helper-applications (the way how firefox handles files), it is in the downloads section of your firefox settings I would sure like to do that! I have a problem with audio streaming. I am in the Third World, and want to listen to radio streaming, to wit, US talk shows. They come in fine in XP but I don't want to use XP. In Mandriva free 2007 I get the audio player for WABC to come up, then it says: CAN'T PARSE THAT NO FILES. I have narrowed the problem to a bug in totem. The Ubuntu team allegedly developed a patch 12/03/2006. See https://launchpad.net/distros/ubuntu/+sourc...otem/+bug/71113 This may be called bug 350912 or 35803. by the ubuntu gnome team I don't know much about this bug stuff. So, one assumes eventually there will be an update for totem. It is currently 2.16.1 I think. However, I just spent large amounts of time installing; installing; reinstalling etc. mplayer. All I need to do is convince firefox 1.5 in my Mandriva 2007 to change from totem player to mplayer. about:plugins shows them both present, and I spent a large amount of time messing with mplayer stuff, .so and .xpt etc before I ran top and discovered it was running totem-mozilla-v not mplayer. In Preferences > Download > Edit & actions, it does not list anything but an RGB file, and there is no way that I know of to add a file format so it can be changed. The usual wisdom says to change the call-out but that is not possible unless there is a hidden config file I can edit? Any ideas?

Tried both things. At first, with .so for Flash 9, had same symptom. Then, I tried old .xpt file from /root, date 03/05 and it was dead. Put back in Flash 7 .xpt, chopped again. I went to KDE Control Center, started to change settings as recommended. No sound at all. Put back defaults, no sound. Somehow I have completely lost the audio for the video. Tried re-booting; changed ~/.mozilla/plugins back to Flash 7. No change. Well, I have progressed, will keep at it, now that I know it is Flash. I will look at live CD's and see if they use Flash, etc. Note that basic sound, such as log-in, log off works fine.

Thanks!!!!!!! I have downloaded it and when I get time after while will try it. I bet it will fix Big Daddy, too, if it works on mine!

When I got free 2005, it had a lot of bugs in it. I have mostly worked them out, one major one (excluding wireless) remaining is video play, such as youtube or www.upi.com . It will display the picture, but the audio seems to chop on and off, making an illegible gobbling sound like the Chipmunks. I have no idea what is happening, nor which app runs this. The common suggestion is to update, but what I've read about 2007 does not motivate me to change to something that has more problems if there is a way to fix this video. It seems to take so much time to get everything working like I want that I don't want to update until I have to, and for sure to something with few problems. Interestingly, Pclinuxos 0.93 Big Daddy Live acts the same way. Freespire 1.? and puppy 2.10 (after set up of player) both handle them fine, though nothing handles those that require ActiveX. Any ideas at all where to start? I am not a newbie as such, but sure don't claim to be a certified Linux guru. I never tried video before, because this is the first time I ever had high speed Internet in my house.Interestingly, this first DSL is in the Third World part of rural Mexico. Some of our neighbors live in houses made of sticks with palm leaf roofs. A neighbor asked my wife the other day for a pail of water so she could give her elderly father a bath. Yet, here I am with DSL.

My biggest Linux peeve is bogus information given on Linux forums on logging in as root. Unlike most of the people who tell us not to do it, have never tried it, and will admit it, but still claim they know what will happen. I started with Linux in Dec. 1999, and until 2003, I used ONLY root login. Why? BECAUSE IT WAS MY COMPUTER AND I WAS LEARNING, AND BECAUSE I WANTED TO. PERIOD. I was vilified rather angrily by some really belligerent and aggressive people when I said so on a forum. This somewhat angered me, so I spent quite a bit of time trying to find out what was true and what wasn't true about logging in as root. 1. If it is your own computer, and you are willing to stand any costs of problems, as unlikely as they are, and you happen to have any reason whatsoever to log in as root, it is no one's business, nor do you need to explain or apologize. Especially explain. I might question your intelligence if you took an axe to an expensive new computer, but if you want, and don't try to file for insurance later, that is your business. 2. If you are using someone else's computer, whether a friend's or your bosses, it is imperative you never log in as root. The legal term in American law is "fiduciary responsibility". I agree absolutely with Gowater's statement that she would fire anyone on second offense, except if I were her, I would probably tell them when they were hired they were not to log in as root ON MY COMPUTER, and would fire them on the first offense. This isn't even about root; this is about whether you want to receive your paycheck from me. The same thing applies to any other work rule I make, RIGHT OR WRONG. Follow the stated rules or go home. If it takes you longer to do it that way, you are getting paid for it. Plus if you work with Gowater, she will rather quickly and efficiently teach you the ways to do those things. (I had no one to show me anything.) Let me add that while I am not sure what Gowater does outside of post here, she seems to be a high rated geek, and if she can't routinely select employees from the top 10% of geekhood who don't need that training, maybe she also needs to be fired. :) Thus, by the time someone works for her, they should be able to run the command line very well. If she hires someone who can't do all the stuff from user mode, she has made a serious hiring error. I am generally down around the half way point of all Linux geeks, except where I am, Third World rural Mexico, and in retirement I have only minimal experience with networks because I just don't have a network to use, which thus shoves me way down the geek ladder. 3. Logging in as user does give more security, especially when connected to the Web. It is logging in as user which makes it impossible for viruses, trojans, and spyware to be helpless on Linux. If everyone logs in as root, Linux would soon be as messed up as Win is. 4. One bogus statement made is that su protects you from messing up your machine. I have had a standing challenge for some years, anyone who believes that, take your best computer with all the important stuff on it, and su, then type: rm -fR /* and hit the enter key. Then, when you get to a computer that works, let us know how well su protected your machine. Note that I am not 100% sure on this, because I simply won't try it on my good machine because I am convinced su won't save you. If you think su will save you, show us. 5. I went to ShieldsUp and checked my machine. Nothing open. I logged in as root, same result. 6. I asked on a Security forum what really happened when logged in as root, and all they could tell me was at one time SANE had a bug which would go crazy and start wiping out HD stuff. 7. Logging in as root does not chop off your fingers. it does not wrench off your arms. And, it does not cause a flaming wreck. These sorts of analogies are counterproductive. Neither does it cause your computer to blow up and kill you. All it does is reduce security below the maximum. 8. I agree with creating that file of command line semantics. I also have that in my ~ folder, MY_LINUX_COMMANDS file, and any weird thing goes there with an explanation so I don't need to open a terminal and struggle to decipher a complex man page. I do keep it in alphabetical order, though. 8. If I had stubbornly logged in only as user, I would not be using Linux today. No, I am not going to defend that statement to anyone, but I know myself very well. In 1999, two years after I retired, there was only what I call "Linux quality documentation" which meant in those days, total junk. To date, I have only personally known two people besides myself who use Linux, plus a brilliant woman here in rural Mexico who was given a thesis project to program for her diploma in Software engineering -- I taught her how to run Linux for that project. She did not need to be told anything twice and she got her diploma. One is a programmer in Texas, and the other is a man in Mexico City. I had no one except what is today called justllinux.com for help, and it was very slow to figure out anything, even with their help. When you work in or with a group of people, learning is many times faster. Today, there are a lot of good tech writers producing Linux docs, and with google one can get help in a few minutes. As time passed, I gradually learned more techniques on getting work done in user mode. So, when I bought this new laptop, I set it up in user mode. I learned how to modify the icons for programs I needed, which made them run as superuser, You do this by -->Propterties -->Application -->Advanced Options --> Run as a different user, then input user name, in this case, root. which then requires you to input the password as it opened. Be sure to rename icon as 'super user' so you are not confused. Still, for example, konqueror can't open a terminal window in root mode under TOOLS, and run anything as it can in user mode. It can delete files better, but not open a terminal. (If you want a real safety rule, learned by DOS/Win users years ago, do not ever delete files from the command line if you have a choice.) The fix for difficulty in deleting directories in user/su mode was I finally noticed the -d for rm. Today, I do very little experimenting, so seldom need to log in as root. Plus, as I said, gradually, I learned the other techniques. I probably don't log in as root once a year now. Comments edited out by Ixthusdan