'Hardware Titbits' collects instructions on how to set up hardware devices which haven't been detected or configured by Mandrake Linux.
You are welcome to contribute a titbit, too!

Using A Digital USB Camera On Mandrake Linux 8.1

Support for digital cameras in Linux is realized via the gphoto software. You should check out their list of Supported Cameras before eventually wasting effort on getting an unsupported camera to work. If you have a supported Kodak camera, you should have a look at this Quick Hack.

Make sure the USB subsystem is working (you can of course skip this step if you've already got other USB devices working).
The short way (as 'root') is typing the command:

service usb status

The long way: Open the Mandrake Control Center, click 'System', click 'Services' and search for 'usb'.
You might - for good measure - also want to have a quick look at '/etc/sysconfig/usb' and check that

USB=yes

is set.

Check if you've got the necessary software installed:

rpm -q gphoto2

If you are not using KDE as your standard desktop or don't want to use its file manager for accessing your camera, you should install the 'gtkam' package (provided with Mandrake Linux 8.1) which provides a desktop independent camera thumbnail viewer, either by typing

urpmi gtkam

or by using the 'Software Manager' (e.g. from the Mandrake Control Center).

Next turn on your camera and set it to its 'display mode'. This is the mode where the pictures already taken can be viewed on the camera's monitor.
If the camera is set to another mode, it might not get detected properly or at all! Also keep in mind that most cameras turn themselves off after a short time of inactivity.
Now connect the camera's USB cable on both ends (I have a USB keyboard with a USB hub built in which is very convenient for such stuff).

To check if your camera got connected, do a

cat /proc/bus/usb/devices

(Most likely the camera will not show up in HardDrake.)

You should see something like this:

P: Vendor=[...] ProdID=[...] Rev= [...]
S: Manufacturer=[Vendor of camera]
S: Product=[Name of camera]

If you've got lot's of USB devices, you might have to search a little. Alternatively install and use the 'usbview' utility from the 'usbview' package (Configuration - Hardware).

In order to able to fully access the camera from your user account and not only as 'root', your account has to be a member of the 'usb' group. To do this either edit '/etc/group' directly as 'root' and change the line

usb:x:43:

to

usb:x:43:[your user account]

or achieve the same by using the 'Userdrake' tool (Configuration - Other): highlight account, click on 'Edit', choose 'Groups' tab, select 'usb' from right frame, click 'Add', 'OK', 'Save' and 'File - Exit'.

If you want to use the KDE file manager to access your camera, choose your model on 'Configuration - KDE - Peripherals - Camera'. You will able to access your camera by typing the URL camera:/ in the location bar of the file manager.

If you prefer 'gtkam', start it from the menu (Multimedia - Graphics), choose your camera model from the presented drop down list, choose connection type (usb), then click on the entry on the left hand menu of the gtkam main window. If your camera is connected, turned on and in display mode, gtkam will present you with thumbnail images of the pictures already in the camera. Highlight some, click on 'Save' and you can save the images to your home directory.

Mandrake Linux user Rob Cameron adds:

(...) you might add the note that the new USB varities don't require new software, just an entry in '/etc/fstab' to access the camera's pictures as a directory (using the USB mass storage driver).

Here's the supermount entry that works for my new Fuji Pix2300.
/mnt/fujicam /mnt/fujicam supermount fs=vfat,dev=/dev/sda1,--,user,umask=0,ro 0 0

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Troubleshooting Sound

(Contributed by Mandrake Linux user Stewart Midwinter)

If you get no sound in Mandrake Linux, or if you can get sound when playing an audio file only, but not from the CD, here's what to check.

1. Some on-card sound chips are problematic (e.g SoundPro, aka CM8330).
2. The default sound volume might be zero (mute).
3. You don't have permission to access the audio devices.

1. Check the 'net for information on your particular card or chipset (e.g. onLhD. Also, rule out any physical problems: boot your PC with another operating system and ensure you can get audio that way.

2. The default sound volume might be zero (mute). Install and run 'aumix' from your Mandrake Linux CD, mute and then un-mute the volume channel.

3. chmod 777 /dev/audio*, /dev/dsp*, /dev/mixer*. [Notice that this won't work on Mandrake Linux 8.1 with devfd enabled (default), and opens a security hole on systems where it does work. tom]

4. If you can get sound when playing a file (play test.wav), but not when playing a CD, one workaround is to run a cable from the CD-ROM's headphone's jack to the line-in jack on your sound card. (works for me!). Another reason might be that the audio CD is mounted.

Mandrake Linux user Hian James solved his sound troubles this way:

In KDE mode, I first entered DrakConf. I went into HardDrake and SoundWizard to check that the configuration for I had is correct (ie. before I reboot and the conflict started).
Then, I went into DrakXServices in the DrakConf to remove (deselect) sound from the list of services to start upon booting.
I left KDE and rebooted my computer.
I've only been using KDE at the moment so I cannot say whether my solution is applicable to GNOME.

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Fixing The Athlon AGP Issue

(With help from Mandrake Linux users francis and ~TSS~.)

There's an Athlon AGP issuewhich can cause Athlon machines with high performance AGP video cards to crash under certain circumstances. A workaround for this issue is using the boot loader option

mem=nopentium

In order to apply this option, open '/etc/lilo.conf' as 'root' in an editor, look for all lines starting with append= and add that option.

Before:

append="some_option"

After:

append="some_option mem=nopentium"

When you are done, run this command from a command line

lilo

If you are using the GRUB boot loader, edit '/boot/grub/menu.lst' instead.

Notice that if you are using SCSI emulation, e.g. for an IDE CD burner, the 'ide-scsi' option must come after the 'mem=nopentium' option (that is you have to insert that option before 'ide-scsi'). Otherwise the emulation might stop working correctly.

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