New2MDK

I'd like to thank everyone who helped me get back to the right point.

Thank you,

New2MDK

As you suggested, I ran XFdrake as root. When the dialog box opened, I could see it had all the correct options selected. However, I went into each to make sure, I even ran a test which was fine. I then booted in using KDE. But when I did a system boot then it brought to a Non GUI Mandrake login, which only let me into root.

As I was booting back in, I saw 2 lines which did not appear normally:

root filesystem

check after boot

filesystem

check after boot

I don't know if that has anything to do with any of this.

Thx for you patience,

New2MDK

one question though, before you do a reinstall: what hardware do you use? maybe it is not a system-services problem but a hardware-thing (like graphic-card issues) please give us some info on that.

 

in case your graphic card is causing trouble (which is quite possible), open a terminal, log in as root and  type "XFdrake". this will start the config tool for your graphic card. check the settings. if they are not the way they should be, set up your gfx-card and resolutions again and try to log into kde.

PIII-930Mhz

256RAM

NVIDIA Geforce2 (which it detected with a linux driver)

TurtleBeach santa cruz

I won't re-install yet

Thx

New2MDK

I was able to enable all services, hower, that did not work. I'm going to do a re-install, and really I only need to save a couple of this (bookmarks in firefox and email messages). Since booting-up failsafe will allow me to get to a command prompt, I am able to get to /home. Am I able to save that particular information, and could you please help me achieve that.

The reason being, having used M$ way to long, I have become paranoid with installing over another corrupt install and normally like to do a clean install. Am I able to do the above then a clean install.

Thank you again,

New2MDK

Thank you for your reply,

I am not sure what services I disabled. I have booted into failsafe mode, and actually I was able to get to a command prompt, if thats important? I am also able to boot into WindowMaker and WVMsomething I think, both of which I am to deal with services. Would I be able to enable all serices just until I get a proper boot, or is that not recommended? If I can do that, how would I know which services I could disable?

My /home is on a seperate partition from /root. Are you saying even if I would end up reinstalling, hat would be intact?

Thank you very much for the help

New2MDK

Hi, I finally got everything going with guarddog earlier and after I finished disabling services I wasn't using, I thought. Apparently, I stopped a service that shouldn't of been stopped I'm guessing. Anytime I try to boot, it has trouble starting the ROOT FILESYSTEM it says. Boot continues and takes me to the login screen, I sign in and the KDE GUI starts, but stops at 'intializing services configuration'. At that point I have no choice but to hard boot. Then when I tried again, it said hit Y to rescure root filesystem, which I did. Boot continued and the same thing happened. Then I used the boot disk >hit F1 for more options > rescure> repair /root filesystem and that never resolved anything.

Did I screw things up bad? Can I recover without re-installing? And if I have to reinstall, is there a way to keep my bookmarks, docs I haved saved in Mandrake right now?

Please help, I'll be a newbie forever if I can't get in to learn MDKlinux

Thank you very much

New2MDK

Heather,

this is some real saddness on my part. I continued disabling serices I don't need, after I wrote you back. Apparently, I stopped an incorrect services, because now I can't get in . During boot it asks me to press Y to check and fix something in root. Then it takes me to the login prompt, and as its booting in, it stops at loading services. Please help :D

I didn't even do your last suggestion, because I can't. I had to come back to the miserable side of M$ XP.

I await any help, Thank you

New2MDK

Yes, that message is perfectly normal. Now as far as setting it up the internet zone will be highlighted and that's what I configure,

 

                        Click on the protocol tab and place a check (by clicking in the box) of everything you want allowed, I allow nothing under Chat, nothing under Data Serve, under File Transfer I allow FTP, HTTP, and HTTPS. Then nothing untill I get to Mail where I allow POP3 and SMTP..........by now you're getting the hang of it I'm sure........then I allow DNS which is under Network

 

So that's just me you'll have to go through and see what programs you use that need the internet that I don't (file sharing perhaps). Then that's it.

 

Post back if you have any other problems. Oh I should tell you I have to launch Guarddog everytime I boot the computer I'm sure there's a reason and I could fix it but I don't. You probably won't have that problem but just in case.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Sorry for being a complete nuissance, however, is the protocol tab the only thing I need to specify in. what about ZONE internet & local, PROTOCAL local and the ADVANCED tab. Again I apologize for my ignorance. I'm trying to read up on as much as I can so I don't have to rely so much. But then again, thats why they call them newbies

Thanks again

Gianluca aka.New2MDK

Thanks everyone for helping me understand, and thank you heather for giviing me the pointers. I have it up, just configuring it now.

Thank you everyone :D

New2MDK

Heather,

thank you for the reply and help. I downloaded guarddog through the same like. Then through the link for the RPM repository I did this as root urpmi.addmedia simonzone http://www.simonzone.com/software/mdkrpm/ with hdlist.cz.

Then I installed the package using rpmdrake within Mandrake 10.1. I ran guarddog as root and got the following:

[root@gian]# guarddog

Link points to "/tmp/ksocket-root"

QPixmap: Cannot create a QPixmap when no GUI is being used

QPixmap: Cannot create a QPixmap when no GUI is being used

Link points to "/tmp/kde-root"

QPixmap: Cannot create a QPixmap when no GUI is being used

QPixmap: Cannot create a QPixmap when no GUI is being used

kbuildsycoca running...

Reusing existing ksycoca

Launched ok, pid = 6406

ALSA lib pcm_hw.c:549:(snd_pcm_hw_start) SNDRV_PCM_IOCTL_START failed: Broken pipe

ALSA lib pcm_hw.c:549:(snd_pcm_hw_start) SNDRV_PCM_IOCTL_START failed: Broken pipe

ALSA lib pcm_hw.c:549:(snd_pcm_hw_start) SNDRV_PCM_IOCTL_START failed: Broken pipe

FOLLOWED BY:

Guarddog was unable to read the file at /etc/rc.firewall as being a Guarddog firewall.

This probably means that this file in not actually a Guarddog firewall.

This is not a problem, but please note that if you exit Guarddog via the 'Ok' button this file will be overwritten.

If you do not want this to happen, then after closing this message, immediately quit Guarddog using the 'Cancel' button.

Also please be aware that the firewall settings shown may not represent the system's current firewalling configuration.

(Detailed message "Error reading firewall file. This does not appear to be a Guarddog firewall file."), which came up in a different dialog box.

Those messages is what prompted me to ask whether or not I needed to uninstall my default firewall first, which I believe is called "shorewall" I think? Any help you could give will certainly be appreciated.

Thank you

After having read the FAQs (securtiy section), I'm still unclear of something. It described guarddog as being more of a newbie firewall who don't understand the configuration of fire walls to well. So for me it sounds like a good thing. However, I'm confused, does it work in conjunction of my default firewall, or does that need to be uninstalled? If so, could you please give me direction on how to do that?

Thank you all very much,