danleff

Is it telling you that the file does not exist, or the device?

Take a look at the following post on OpenOffice fonts. Since you have some experience with the command line now! http://www.mail-archive.com/newbie@linux-mandrake.com/msg113252.html

...ok, and the answer to DapperDan's question about swap space? Then we will look at lilo.

There have been a couple of issues with Mandrake 10 and system freezes. What you can do, in addition to answering DapperDan's questions, is to post what motherboard/system that you have. Among issues that I found were; 1. Bios problems. Having "Plug & Play OS" set to yes in your bios settings. 2. Hardware issues, such as an nForce chipset motherboard, or using a USB mouse. If the freeze seems to occur with using the mouse, this may be the issue (yeas, I know, you always use the mouse). Some video cards continue to be an issue. 3.Laptop issues. These installs have always been problematic. Is this a laptop install? 4. Is this a dual boot system? As DapperDan stated, has another distro of linux run OK on the system, or are you also using Windows XP? 4. Last and not least, the need to have noapic set in Lilo or Grub, whichever is your bootloader. So, give us some more information to work with and we will try to assist!

Ditto that. Also, don't forget the gals on this forum!

I'm going to take a total guess on this, but it seems that you issued the wrong command. Assuming that you compiled coorectly, did you do; modprobe slamr Then issue the command, as per the directions; /usr/sbin/slmodemd [options] <device_name> Also noting the directions; Quote: Where device name is appropriate device node for your modem (look at output of 'dmesg' command). Run '/usr/sbin/slmodemd --help' for details. Examples: # /usr/sbin/slmodemd --country=USA /dev/slamr0

Good answer! I finally found this out in my sarge install. I took the easy way out. Created an icon on the desktop for K3b and elected to run it as root. This prompts you for your root pasword when envoked and the cdrdao and cdrecord permission messages are gone.

idud, read the quote that you noted from my post again. I stated EXISTING NTFS PARTITION. I did not suggest changing the previous NTFS partitions with Mandrake's partitioning tool. In fact, just the opposite. If the user elects to keep the pre-exisiting NTFS partition and use the free space after it for the Mandrake install, you may get overlapping between the existing NTFS and the free space that Mandrake uses. This is a documented bug with RedHat Core II and previous XP installs, as well. So, if the user elects to keep the pre-existing NTFS partition and use the free space at the end of the drive (NTFS is the last partition before the free space), there is a problem when Mandrake takes the free space and creates it's filesystem. Interestingly enough, my issue was with a previous fat32 partition. PartitionMagic and qtparted will fail to read the partitions on the drive. PartitionMagic will complain of a problem and mark the drive as "bad" being unable to correct the issue. Qtparted will give you all kinds of strange, multiple partition layouts for the drive that do not make sense. Some people, like myself, find that everything seems to work ok, but some people, who's XP install is on the previous NTFS partition, have reported failure of their XP install to work after the install. The issue is to be cautious about such installs and to use only one partitioning tool to set your partitions, before the Mandrake install. Either set up all your partitons using one tool ahead of time, or, if you have a simple system (only 1 previous OS install), allow Mandrake only to do the work. At this point, I would suggest using PartitonMagic to set the partitions ahead of time and use expert install to use the partiton that you created for Mandrake with PartitionMagic, as your install partition. Just my experience with the current Mandrake release.

In terms of the patch file, I can think of two things. 1. Make sure the patch file is located in the directory that you are attempting to patch to, such as /usr/src/linux; and that you are cd 'ed into that directory, as you attempt to apply the patch. 2. Assure that the patch is decompressed. In other words, the patch does not have a .gz extention. To get an idea of what to do, see; http://www.uni-paderborn.de/Linux/mdw/HOWTO/Kernel-HOWTO-5.html

I would consider sata/mainboard the issue. Support in Linux is brand new, relative to older ata drives. Just a note, I have two WD drives with Mandrake, Lindows, Debian and Knoppix on my second system with no trouble. Except for a slow tranfer of large amounts of data from drive to drive, they function very well. One is a 80 gig and the other 120 gigs. Granted they are relatively new, which apparently speaks for an improvement in quality control. I just had an old 4 gig WD drive fail (the first hard drive to fail on me) after 7 years of use. I consider that a pretty good record.

It all has been said! The issue is always back up/have a working backup of your data before making any changes and monitor your defrag tool to see if it does what it says it will do.

Yep, if your going to do it, go with the source kernel. I just got 2.6.4 up and running on my Fedora Core I box with the source from kernel.org and the following; http://www.linuxelectrons.com/article.php?story=20040315152255759 I'm going to try Mandrake 10 next, first with the kernel-image, then source. The Manrdake box should be easier, since 2.6 comes default on the distro, so the dependencies should not be a problem.

Since you are using Windows presently, try the following app.; http://winmd5sum.solidblue.biz/

Mel's points are well taken. I have tried the stock kernels available for Fedora Core 1, including 2.6.0, 2.6.3 and 2.6.4. The only one that works on my system is 2.6.0, and that with a lot of tinkering. The other versions caused all kinds of major issues with booting up Fedora. Fedora 1.9.0 is what it says it is, a test version. As such, it is intended for Linux geeks to TEST and give feedback. Certainly it should not be used in your main system. It is not totally stable, nor is it intended to mess with for average users. You really should only use a stable release of any product on your main productionsystem. Wait for the final release of Core 2, or try another distro, Like Mandrake Community Edition (Mandrake 10), if you insist on having kernel 2.6. Let the developers work out the bugs first, then try it. The 2.6 kernel kernel series handles hardware in a different way that the stable 2.4.X tree. This means that you need to adapt your system to the changes required in some core packages that Linux uses. This requires a fair amount of skill and know-how. Of course, this is just my opinion!

Nice, but since this is a Compaq/HP softpaq, will it work in any system, or just specific Compaq/HP systems. If any system, this is great!

I like the title of your post, which is actually accurate in your case. Once you try to recover Windows, or re-install it, the Master Boot record gets written over. What this means is that lilo or grub is essentually wiped from the MBR. To complicate matters, if the partition scheme gets changed for some reason in the process, boot.ini, the windows boot loader, may get confused. How I recovered from this once, was to use the installation cd, in your case fedora, to recover lilo or grub, whichever bootloader that you were using. Windows will not read your linux partitions, so My Computer does not see them. If you do have a functional windows install now, and you have PartitionMagic, you can look at the partition scheme and see what you have, then use the Fedora cd, hopefully, to recover lilo or Grub. If you don't have PartitionMagic, grab the latest version of Mepis or Knoppix and use qtparted to look at the partition scheme. Write down what they are. If you can tell which ext3 or whatever is root, then you can try to recover. Now, I can't remember which way Fedora does this off hand, but once you know where root is for Fedora, you should be able to add a modifier when the cd boots, to get into your Fedora install (the most recent one) and see if it will recover. Usually this requires that you add the modifier at the boot screen prompt, like linux root=/dev/hda3, or whatever the root of Fedora is. It looks like you did a fresh install of the most recent Fedora, so you would want to try it with that cd and the proper root designation of Fedora 1.90, or whatever it is. This hopefully will allow you to recover both Fedora installs in Lilo or Grub, and also, hopefully allow Windows to be an option as well. Now if the windows partition designation has changed, you may need to alter Grub or Lilo to point it in the right direction. Again, if you are lucky, you will get more than one choice for windows, and use the right one to get into windows. Just remember, windows likes to be on the first partition of the drive, so this can be a little tricky, if you re-installed on other than the first partition of the drive. If you can figure out or know where everything is, we can help walk you though it, with the proper methods, maybe.

jimf43 makes a good suggestion. If Mepis can do it, then it can be done. A couple of issues, as I see them. ATI cards, especially in laptops are a problem, even the ati cards in desktops, I found that these cards are a real problem overall. ATI has drivers for these cards for use in linux, if you have the expertise to install them. In laptops, the monitor settings can also be an issue, dependent on what you told Mandrake it was during the install. During the install, did you choose to auto detect the monitor's settings, and did this result in a graphical interface during the test? With LCD desktop monitors, you have to assure that you have the correct horiz. and vertical freq, as jimf43 stated. Also look in the users manual or online at the monitor's site for the ranges. I keep forgeting the tool in Mandrake (once the install is finished) that you can invoke at the command prompt to configure the settings. DapperDan has this. This way you don't have to do it by hand at the command line. I think it was Xdrake. I also have found that the monitor resolution should be 1024 X 768 to get a working monitor for most LCD monitors. Then you can go from there. In terms of the "frozen" screen. Is it really frozen, or after the error messages, do you get a command prompt? If you are unsure, try typing on reboot and see if the system reboots, or gives you an error message about the command not being found, or needing to be root to use the command.

Yep, as idud stated, if you deleted E: and did not merge it with d:, Mandrake will use the free space to allocate the partitions that you need. If you did merge d: and e: already (as it looks like from your description of partition sizes), then resize d: to make enough "empty space" at the end of the drive and let Mandrake use this free space during the expert install. PartitionMagic or Mandrake partitioning tool, whichever you choose to use, will show you the relative free space on the d: partition, so you get an idea of how much available space is on the d: partition that you can use. To clarify; If you delete a partition, like e:, this will leave this space as empty space at the end of the drive that Mandrake will be able use. D: does not take that space, unless you tell your partitioning software to do that. This is not necessary. The empty space will show in PartitionMagic, for example, as just empty space...c: and d: will remain the same size. Make sure that you run defrag to move all the blocks together and toward the begining of each partition. This prevents and data from getting writen over. Remember my comment about the overlapping partition that Mandrake seemed to make. You want to assure that if this indeed does occur, no data is written over, hence, the defrag. You can watch the graphical details during defrag to see if the data is indeed moved away from the end of the partition, which is what you want. again, it may take more than one pass with defrag fore this to occur. Back up any data on d: just in case something does happen. Since d: is a NTFS partition, I do not know how well Mandrake will properly allign the space that it uses, relative to the existing, d: NTFS partition. I hope that this has not been too confusing!

Oops, you got yours in first!! Forget my scheme for the partitions! By the way, how large is your hard drive/the partition that is empty and that you want to do the Mandrake install on? What make/model system do you plan to install Mandrake on? If you have the room, this is what I suggest. Run defrag before you do anything! on both the XP and d: drive with the program files. Be very careful about the first XP partition. I found that I had to run defrag a few times before it moved all the data on my XP drive toward the begining of the installed XP partition. Back up all your data. Do not alter the d: drive. This has your program files on it and is a NTFS filesystem!!! The issue is that I do not know if Mandrake will properly use the last NTFS filesystem to install mandrake on. You can delete the empty NTFS at the end, if this is an issue. Leave space at the end of the drive for the Mandrake install. at the very least..10 gigs or more if you have the space and depending on how much you plan on using the Mandrake partition and how many apps./storage space you plan on using. A basic install would be about 5 gigs, if you plan on just trying it out, but this limits your expansion possibilities. I don't recommend it. You will always use more, believe me! Install Mandrake, allowing it to use the free space that you have. When you get to the partitioning utility during the install, choose custom install and allow it to allocate the free space. An alternate way to do it, is to add another hard drive to the system for Mandrake, if you are short on space, or are unsure about the above. Disclaimers If you have a Compaq, HP or Gateway system...be careful. These systems can have a hidden partition that holds recovery information and possibly bios data. You do not want to overwrite this space by accident. Before you do the install, make sure that your hardware is supported by visiting the Mandrake site, or feel free to ask us, if you are unsure.

Good questions! Let me share my partial experience with this. Normally I would recommend using the Mandrake partitioning tool to change your partitions as you like. However, I do not know how it handles NTFS repartitioning. But this is what happened to me with one of my installs. I used PartitionMagic 8 to create a fat32 data partition to share with Mandrake. This is correct. You need a fat32 share partition. If anybody has more experience with this let me know. I can read and take data from my primary NTFS Windows XP partition within Mandrake, but I don't know if write to the NTFS works..have not tried it yet. It is supposed to work. But we will see. I then did the Mandrake install using the "expert" option on booting the Mandrake disk #1, This has always worked for me in the past with Mandrake. This allows you to custom partition your drive(s) without Mandrake trying to choose / at the first Linux partition that it sees. This was applicable for me, since I have multiple linux partitions and Mandrake wanted to put / on one of my other Linux partiitons already occupied by another distro. I then set up the ext3 partition for Mandrake at the last partiton on the drive (previously set up as ext3 in PartitionMagic). Again this had always worked for me before. I let the install proceed. Alls seemed fine. Mandrake auto set an option in grub for the XP boot. All was well. However, when I boot into XP and open PartitionMagic, it sees the drive as "bad." No alterations of the drive are possible and PartitionMagic is unable to correct the apparent geometry issues that it detects ("overlapping sectors between two partitions"). When I removed Mandrake, PartitionMagic was able to read the drive OK, without any errors. All my other Linux distros had a problem with the Mandrake partition. However, qtparted also has problems with the drive with Mandrake on it. There is something that has changed in the new Mandrake partitioning tool that affects PartitionMagic's and qtparted's ability to read the drive correctly. So, if you plan on leaving the system as it is, with XP partition/data fat32 partition/Mandrake partition, you should be fine. So, I suggest the following; 1. Use either Mandrake or PartitionMagic to set your fat 32 and Mandrake partitions, do not use both. I suggest creating the data fat 32 partition to be on the safe side. You can always change this later on, although there is no real reason to do so. NTFS support is still new and I am cautious about this. 2. Back up all your current existing data. 3. If you plan on resizing partitions later on, be prepared that this may be an issue with PartitionMagic. 4. DapperDan had an experience with backups with a fat 32 partition, I think using Linux. be aware of that and have an alternate back-up plan for the data partition, such as a cdr or dvd for important data, just in case. I realize that the above mmay be an error on my part in allocating partitions correctly, but be safe.

Interesting product, but it requires knowledge about systems, partitioning and multiple OS schemes. I just read the documentation..very interesting! The documentation is a must read for users. If you are not cautious, you may trash your multiple boot ability on uninstall. However, I have a few questions for SoulNothing. This is shareware. I got the sense from the Cnet user reviews that multiple OS users may have issues uninstalling the product and retaining their original ability to boot all their OS'. 1. What has been your experience with this? 2. Do any features, besides the image stuff get disabled after the 30 day trial? In other words, can it be used without paying the registration fee to safely recover your old scheme, or add new distros? My point being is that the average user may not change his/her configuration or add new distros, but us multi-distro bugs need to change the number of OS' that we use. Therefore we need to retain all the features, especially for an uninstall. 3. It appears that if you choose the "limit partitions" option, then BootitNG takes over as the MBR and uninstalling it works, as long as you do not have more than 4 primary partitions at the time of uninstall. If you choose "do not limit partitions" then it seems that you can regain control of the system easier (your multiple boot options) when uninstalling. I assume this is what you have done to make a successful uninstall? 4. Can it be used totally from the CD, without installing to the hard disk? This way, you can "remaster" the boot CD when you add or remove distros? I hope that I have been clear in my questions. The point...read the directions carefully before using it!

I only have one more thing to add. The reason for installing Win first, is that by installing it after RedHat, it will overwrite the MBR and most likely trash the lilo or grub bootloader for RedHat. Windows installations are not friendly with Linux when installed last. There is a way to boot RedHat (in theory anyway) after the fact through boot.ini (the windows bootloader), but that is a bit complicated. The question is, did you make a boot floppy when you installed RedHat? This will allow you to get into RedHat again and re-write lilo or grub to the MBR. Then you can add the commands to lilo or grub for Windows afterwards.

Nice! I have not used Gimp yet. I have to give this a try.

Another nice find by the Dapper!

Agreed. Nice work! This is why I thought having a "howto" section of the forum would be a good resource to refer users to.