'Quick Hacks 8.1' are a loose collection of work arounds, quick fixes and tips for Mandrake Linux 8.1. They are meant as a supplement to the official 8.1 errata page, not as a replacement.

You are invited to contribute your 'Quick Hacks' as well!

Missing Wizards In Mandrake Control Center

Problem:

'Servers' - 'Configuration Wizards' in the Mandrake Control Center shows no wizards, but only a banner and a 'Close' button.

Cause:

The necessary 'wizards_lib-[service]' RPMs are not installed.

Solution:

Install the appropriate 'wizards_lib' RPM as 'root' with:

urpmi wizards_lib-[service]

with [service] being one of these:

• news
• postfix
• firewall
• dhcp
• dns
• samba
• time
• ftp
• web

Notice that installing one or more of these package will trigger the installation of the services to be configured (which is most likely the reason why they aren't installed by default in the first place).

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No DrakFont Feedback Upon Installing Windows Fonts

Problem:

When installing Windows fonts with 'DrakFont', you get no feedback if the fonts have been installed successfully and the new fonts do not appear in the fonts list. After a reboot however the fonts are available.

Cause:

'DrakFont' provides no feedback and the font server isn't restarted after installing Windows fonts.

Solution:

You can check which fonts have been installed by having a look at the contents of the directory '/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/lib/fonts/drakfont/'. To have the fonts available right away, restart the font server (as 'root'):

service xfs restart

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Floppy / Zip Icon In KDE Not Working Correctly

Problem:

When inserting a floppy into the floppy drive and then clicking the 'Floppy' icon on KDE returns an error message like this one:

Operation not supported: ListDir

Cause:

The 'Device' field points to the mount directory, but not to the device.

Solution:

Right-click on the 'Floppy' icon, choose 'Properties' - 'Device' and use the drop down menu for the 'Device' field to set this field to '/dev/fd0'.
This also works for ZIP icons (set to '/dev/sda4'). In contrast to the 'Floppy' icon, however, the 'Device' field will be set back to the old incorrect value every time you start a new session or a second icon with the incorrect path will be generated in case you booted with a ZIP medium inserted. To prevent the former, remove the 'write' permission from the Zip file in the 'Desktop' directory:

chmod 444 Desktop/Zip*

However, the second icon will still be generated when there's a ZIP medium inserted during boot. One could write a short script into the 'Autostart' folder which would remove this icon, but maybe it isn't worth the bother ...

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Turning Off devfsd

Problem:

The Device File System daemon (devfsd) is turned on by default in Mandrake Linux 8.1. Some people experience compatibility issues with some device drivers or applications (VMWare 3.0 for example). In most cases, turning off devfsd alleviates the problem, but it might create new problems, too.

Cause:

Applications and drivers querying the /dev system in a non-standard or non-devfs-compatible way.

Solution:

Upgrade your kernel to version 2.4.8-34.1mdk . This upgrade is recommended since it also closes some other security holes and reintroduces 'supermount' on many machines. The advisory contains instructions on how to perform the upgrade.

Alternatively, you can turn off devfs either by supplying the optiondevfs=nomount to the boot loader prompt, or by removing thedevfs=mount option from the configuration file of your boot loader, either by editing the file directly or via the Mandrake Control Center ('Boot' - 'Boot Config' - 'Configure' - 'Advanced' - 'OK' - 'Modify').

The switch from devfs to the old /dev system will remove some symlinks, notably the link /dev/cdrom pointing to the 'real' CD-R device file. This will effect for example the Software Manager / urpmi, which won't open the CD-R tray anymore. To fix this, you have to add this symlink by yourself (as 'root'):

ln -s /dev/hdc /dev/cdrom

If you don't know the device name of your CD-R drive, run

grep cdrom /etc/fstab

and take note of the first field.

There have been sporadic reports that some ALSA (sound) drivers, do not work properly after a switch anymore.

(Thanks to Mandrake Linux user Gerard Gilbert for his cooperation on this entry.)

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Enabling 'supermount'

Problem: 'supermount' isn't enabled by default.

Cause: Due to inconsistencies in the 'supermount' code at release time, it has been decided not to enable 'supermount' by default. The latest kernel update, 2.4.8-34.1mdk, however solved all outstanding supermount issues, so that it enabled without risk now.

Solution: Following steps have to be made as 'root'.

1. Make a backup of the file '/etc/fstab': cp /etc/fstab /etc/fstab.bck
2. Run supermount -i enable
3. Open '/etc/fstab' in an editor. All entries for removable media should now follow this pattern:
   [mount directory] [mount directory] supermount fs=[file system],dev=[device file] 0 0
   Especially check the first entry. It looks like that for some reason the enabling command puts a none there instead of the mount directory. The first two entries must be exactly the same.
4. Reboot to enbale 'supermount'

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CD-Burning As A User

Problem: CD burning programs refuse to start or run correctly when started from a user account. They do however work for 'root'.

Cause: Only members of the group 'cdwriter' are allowed to use the burner. It looks like the the installation program forgets in some cases to add existing user accounts to this group.

Solution: Add your user account to the 'cdwriter' group.
Start the 'Userdrake' tool, highlight the user account to be added, click on 'Edit' - 'Groups', select 'cdwriter' from right panel, click 'Add' and 'OK', and 'Save' in the main program window.
Alternatively you might just want to open '/etc/group' in an editor (as 'root') and add the account name to the line starting withcdwriter ...
Log off and on again to let this change take effect.

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