Dapper Dan

Since RedHat is mostly identified with the RPM, that's how non- distro centered type programs are sometimes labled. its sort of a generic term for RPM. If you download an RPM, try to install it and see if it works. I've got a few on my SuSE 9.1 box that were lablesd as "RedHat" or "Fedora." and they work fine. You could also try apt-get for Suse if you can't find the package you want in Yast.

Look in your Mandrake Control Center. I forget where it is, but there's a utility in there that will allow you to switch your preferred desktop environment to KDE. Does KDM, (the sign in window thingie) come up for you? if not, do Ctrl-Alt-Backspace and see if it takes you to it. If it does, go under sessions and choose KDE and log back in. That should set it as your default.

Hi tony starks and welcome Another thing you can do is put the install cd 1 back in and do an upgrade not and install. You can also add a few more packages this way if you want. It will take you to the part again offering to upgrade or re-configure the boot loader. Do this, installing Lilo to the MBR. I think Mandrake does this automatically. Also make sure your XP is there as a boot choice as well. Just take your time and it will come out OK. then proceed to the end of the install as before and reboot. Lilo should now be installed to the MBR, and give you a nice dual boot screen when you first boot. If you can't get this working, post back and let us know. Good Luck!

danleff is right. Most external modems will work with Linux. I think external modems are the way to go, all the way around with Linux and Windows, because they will normally give you better stability and performance. The Actiontec 56k 92v serial modem is, to me, the best choice for performance and price. Also, the Best Data V92, should work equally as well.

Hi joe Slaney and welcome I Googled your modem and it doesn't look good... http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&l...amp;btnG=Search The good news is, there are some really good modems out there for Linux that can be had at a reasonable price. External modems are your best bet for compatibility and performance. Danleff can better help you with sound, see what he has to say. The easiest solution though is to just go out and buy a Soundblaster. *Most* of them work with Linux and can be had at a reasonable price. It will likely perform better too. As I posted just yesterday, ATI makes great cards but unfortunately they don't support Linux very well like Nvidia does. Is yours working OK? What you have to understand is if you have trouble with hardware, it isn't Linux's fault, it's the fault of the hardware maker. They put all their effort into "drivers" for Windows, and we are often not even a consideration. In many cases, if you do get hardware to work in Linux, it's because someone in the Linux community built drivers for that hardware.

You can run Windows games under any distro of Linux with varying degrees of playability. Have a look at this list from Transgaming to see where your favs come in under Winex/Cedega. As far as a first distro goes, go with something easy to install and configure with easy to understand utilities. I highly recommend SuSE followed by Fedora Core 2, then Mepis which is Debian based. I would not recommend any new person to Linux go with Debian proper as the install is text only, archaic and difficult to follow. Once you get your feet wet and understand more about Linux, then you can start investigating other distros.

Do you have synaptic installed? If not: apt-get install synaptic [enter] After it installs synaptic just go... synaptic [enter] ...to bring it up. Then you can see from it which packages are installed on your HD.

I think it is only natural for new users to try to make Linux as Windows-like as possible when they first move over. I did it myself. As time goes by though, and you become more experienced, you learn to appreciate Linux for what it is. Danleff gives real good advice here. When running a distro, stick with the progs and apps it offers. After all, the folks who make your distro know what works best with it.

Hi Darth Yoshi and welcome! Wine should already be in your menu if you installed everything from the Mandrake tree. If it's not in yours, it's a simple mater to install it. First let's see if you have it installed properly. open "konsole" which is in your menu under "terminals." Then type: wine And press enter. Does it say, "command not found?" if so, then it isn't installed. If, on the other hand, it offers you a list of options like this... Code: Could not stat /media/cdrom (No such file or directory), ignoring drive M:Wine 20040213Usage: wine [options] [--] program_name [arguments]The -- has to be used if you specify arguments (of the program)Options: --debugmsg name Turn debugging-messages on or off --dll name This option is no longer supported --help,-h Show this help message --version,-v Display the Wine version then Wine is installed properly. If wine isn't installed, you can install it from the Mandrake disk. Become root by going: su [enter] It will ask for your root password. Enter it and also press enter. You'll notice the $ sign is now a # sign. Now type: urpmi wine [enter] Mandrake will ask for one of the cds. Just follow the directions and it will get installed. When running wine you also do that from the command line, although you can configure your menu to run Windows programs with wine *if* they run to your satisfaction. Lets say you want to install widget.exe, that you downloaded off the net. As root go: wine widget.exe [enter] And that should start the install. After installation, you have to run the program from the directory where wine installed it. Wine usually installes programs in the Program Files directory unless you instruct it to do otherwise. This fake Program Files directory will be in a hidden directory in your home directory called .wine. You won't be able to see it unless you have your file browser set to show hidden directories just like in Windows. From the command line as regular user you would go something like... wine .wine/fake_windows/Program\ Files/widget.exe [enter] to run. Please remember that some Windows programs run satisfactorily with wine while others do not, and everything in between. On the other .rpm you installed, if it doesn't show up in your menu, you will have to enter it by hand using the menu configurator in your Mandrake Control Center. For now, you can run it from a terminal. Try F-Prot [enter] We don't know the command to run it so it will take some investigation. From your konqueror file browser, go to /usr/bin and see if you see anything that looks like the "executable" for that program and try it from the command line in the same way. I hope this helps some...

Hi grandmasterB and welcome. ATI makes great cards. It's a shame they don't support us more. I have an ATI card working with Fedora Core 2, but its an old Mach 64. If you want to cut down on a huge amount of headaches, I would consider going out and purchasing an Nvidia. They do give Linux users a great deal of support, and just about everything they make will work with Linux.

I like a distro that is easy. OK I've said it! Presently on my 120 gig hard drive I have Gentoo, Suse 9.1 Professional and Mandrake 9.1. With any Linux distro, you can get up to your neck in tinkering, compiling and customizing all you want. That goes for Mandrake all the way through Gentoo and Slackware. Although I can clearly see and appreciate Gentoo's philosophy, and the efficiency with which it compiles and operates, it simply makes my head hurt! Trying to understand all the directions given on the Gentoo site for doing the various things I must do to get an operating system to my liking is just more work than I want to undertake. I see Gentoo as my "hot rod" in the garage I can tinker around with, but for my day to day mode of travel, I take comfort in SuSE 9.1 Professional. I like the Debian distros, Morphix, Mepis, Knoppix, Kanotix, Ubuntu, and Damn Small, and at some point, have installed all of them to Hard Drive. I like Debian, but I'm just more comfortable with the utilities offered by Mandrake, Fedora and Suse. urpmi, Yast and apt-get RPM make installing packages with these three distros ridiculously simple. I personally have experienced no drawbacks whatsoever from using RPM based distros. I think SuSE is the best distro for new users, and guys like me who not only like to tinker, but want a distro they can always count on to be simple to install and easy to run, customize and manage.

Hi vital! Glad to have you over! An external ADSL modem is likely gonna perform better for you anyway. Check out some of these.

I'm sure the answer is out there, but I don't seem to be googling for the answer correctly and I keep coming up empty. How do you run more than one command in a shell script so that one command runs immediately after another is completed? Can a string of commands be run in this way indefinitely? Thanks

Sure! I think a thread of useful shell scripts everyone could share would be terrific!

So do you need to have "**" between commands? Or can you just write commands one after another and they will run in that order?

Well I finally took the plunge. I'm posting this from mozilla-firefox which I emerged from Anaconda-Gentoo. If you've not seen it, you can pick up the ISO's here. The installation was a breeze! What they've essentially done is take the Red Hat Anaconda install and made it to where it installs a core Gentoo system. From there you can emerge the packages you want. The hardest part of the whole thing was getting the Internet configured. After several hours, I finally figured it out. It will also install grub, so you will have to do some editing to your /boot/grub/grub.conf, if dual booting like me. There are two things that are really neat about Anaconda-Gentoo. (1) The install appears the same as the Red Hat/Fedora install, only you wind up with Gentoo and TWM from which to do your emerging. I quicly emerged IceWM, VI (since I hate Nano), and mozilla-firefox, all the essentials of life. (2) It's amazing to watch those packages get emerged without dependency complaints! I've been working and fixing things all day. I cannot get scroll to work with my Logitech USB wheel mouse. Come to find out I must upgrade the kernel. Aaconda-Gentoo runs the 2.4 kernel. I'm trying to figure out if there is a way to upgrade to the 2.6 kernel from here. Any help will be appreciated! Maybe I'll learn enough about Gentoo from Anaconda Gentoo so I'll understand more about what I'm doing if/when I try to do a genuine Gentoo install. It's very impressive though!

That's quite an impressive list OldSpiceAP! That's a really good find! I knew Linux was more versatile when it came to varieties of software, but I had no idea how much so! Thanks for than link!

I never could have imagined that Winex/Cedega would improve as much as it has over the last year and a half. With the old Winex, Trespasser wouldn't even run, and none of the option would work. That has improved to such a degree that Trespasser, under the current version, runs as well as in Windows in software mode. In fact, it may even run better!

Found this... If it were me, and I was looking over these directions, I'd bail and get one of the wireless PCI cards that are known to work with Linux right out of the box.

What is the exact model you are trying to get working?

Can you share with us the exact model of the Orinoco? It likely works with Linux as most of the old Gold and Silver cards do. As far as WEP goes, everything works withoutn WEP, and then when you turn it on from your router and enter the WEP key in SuSE it stops working? Do you have a dash between every four digits of the WEP key? xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xx etc? Are you re-initiating the card after enableing the WEP key? That is, pulling it out, waiting a few seconds and sliding it back in?

I've been Googling your card and have come up empty with it working with Linux. The reason I asked about regular PCI slots was, if your ASUS card can't be configured to work with Linux, you may want to consider another wireless PCI card. I use the Netgear MA311 802.11b. It's not that expensive and does work very well. Just something to consider...

Just so we all can have a visual, is this what you have? Also, do you have any regular pci slots on that motherboard?

I swear, Firefox just hates me! I'm back to using Mozilla again! Not only does Firefox just suddenly crash and disappear without warning, it also will often not let me paste what I copy or copy what I've pasted! If you regularly post on forums, you know what a pain it is not to be able to count on cut and paste! ;(

Also, since we had this thread, I've learned that games now install better using Point2Play. The good thing about it is, you can run different games with different versions of Winex rather than having to do with just one. No matter how I tried, I couldn't get Steam operational without using Point2play to install it. iamroot, I've been playing around with regular Wine lately, and it has improved significantly since I last use it about a year ago!