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Mandriva 2009 device recognition + issues


tetsujin29
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Hi,

 

Noob here just upgraded to Mandriva 2009 and so far it's a mess... 3D desktop seemed to have stopped working as I am writing this post...

 

Just a few random issues:

 

1. Where can I set the auto-mounted devices to be automatically visible on my desktop? This used to be Right-Click on desktop -> Desktop Manager-> Behavior -> Devices etc, now I can't find it.. None of my USB drives are showing up.

 

2. how can I turn off that annoying option where if you single-click on an icon on the desktop, it shows you a transparent side toolbar with the option to rotate, zoom, or x-out that icon??

 

3. Firefox has an autocomplete function whenever I type in an URL - how do I disable that? I fiddled around with all the options to no avail.

 

Thanks and sorry to post all of these in 1 post but I think these are miniscule questions...

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Ahhh, KDE 4. :)

 

KDE 4 is the answer to questions 1 and 2. Namely, it can't put devices on the desktop (as far as I'm aware) and you're always going to get the 'handles' because icons on the desktop are plasmoids, like everything ELSE on the desktop. Welcome to the brave new world.

 

You could create a folderview plasmoid for /media , I guess. That would work much like the ~/Desktop folderview we create by default. As most things that get auto-mounted get auto-mounted in /media , you'd see them show up in the folderview.

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I have to say that so far mandriva 2009 really is an acquired taste, but it is growing on me. Some of my programs became slower (3D desktop doesn't work as smoothly anymore, and having a VLC video open while scrolling through a webpage on firefox slows the system down considerably). Strangely OpenOffice is now loading faster than in mandriva 2008. Other complaints include a lack of customization (can't change the color of my panel) and that some widgets screw up the proportion of my icons.... Also, not all the buttons on my keyboard are mapped correctly - volume control no longer works!

 

Would an upgraded 256MB video card help smooth out some of the 3D desktop issues? I have grown accustomed to using it.. Would there be a patch/update soon?

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3D desktop doesn't work as smoothly anymore, and having a VLC video open while scrolling through a webpage on firefox slows the system down considerably).
I would look at KDE4 as the culprit here. I noticed, even on my fairly beefed system (NVIDIA 8800GTX 768MB RAM vid card) KDE4 + 3d desktop = slowness. KDE3 or GNOME, no problem.
Other complaints include a lack of customization (can't change the color of my panel) and that some widgets screw up the proportion of my icons....
Again, KDE4 issues.
Also, not all the buttons on my keyboard are mapped correctly - volume control no longer works!
You probably just need to set up the keys. I forget what the tool for this is in Mandriva, but there should be something in the Control Center.
Would an upgraded 256MB video card help smooth out some of the 3D desktop issues?
I believe with 3d desktops it's less about memory and more about GPU power. Upgrading your vid card (I would go with an nvidia) might improve perfomance, but as noted, I experience slowdown even with a decent vid card - again, I'd put the blame on the maturity of KDE4. It's functional and they have a lot of the pieces there, but it still could use some optimization and general polish. Edited by tyme
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tetsujin29:

1)There's an applet/plasmoid called media something in the taskbar that would do a similar job, maybe you can put it on the desktop (not on 2009.0 right now)

 

2) Right click on the desktop and choose lock widgets, note you won't be able to move the icons/plasmoids at all.

 

3)A shot in the dark: type about:config in the address bar in FF and hit enter. Next in the filter box type urlbar then double click browser.urlbar.autofill, that should change it to false. Is that what you want? if it's not then revert it to true again.

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Thanks for everyone who replied. It seems that most people are saying that KDE4 is the culprit - hopefully future updates will improve its funcationality - I like it for the most part. The transparency-based folder views work very well.

 

medo381 and tyme, you are right - there is a widget that which allows new media detection and it works fine. I also set up a folder view for the media folder. With regards to the annoying autocomplete url bar issue in firefox, I set the value urlbar.matchonlytyped to true and now it's fine.

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I've actually started to quite like the Awesome Bar lately. Often I'll read a story and then forget exactly where it was, but with the awesome bar, I can just remember two of the more unusual words from the headline, type them in, and it finds it. Useful.

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Why is it that when I click "open containing folder" on any program with it, namely Ktorrent and Firefox download page, it takes me here instead:

 

home > 'file: > home > mark > Pictures'

 

that is the path displayed at the top of the window. At the bottom is this error:

 

the file or folder /home/mark/'file/home/mark/pictures' does not exist.

 

Dolphin should have gone to /home/mark/pictures

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I'm still adjusting to KDE 4.1 myself. Not having any performance or hardware problems though. The installer is absolutely the BEST of any distro. Heck, I'd even say the installer is the best of any OS, Windows, *nix or otherwise. The 3D desktop runs fine on my nVidia 7600. And including VirtualBox OSE in the repositories made setting up a VM server way too easy. I've got Vista running inside Mandriva right now, as a matter of fact. ;) Couldn't get Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V running on any of my AMD boxes and VMWare thinks it's their job to sell SCSI hardware.

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