zenarcher

Thanks for that info, Dan....I opened Konqueror and found the .wine folder. It is home/zenarcher/.wine There are 2 files there....config and config.bak at this time. I am not exactly sure if downloading and installing is different than with Windows...Let's say I download a Windows program....should I save it to the desktop....then try to run the install...and install it to the .wine folder??? Regards, zenarcher

Thanks to both of you for the tips and information. Yes, I did install the version of Wine which on the Mandrake 10.0 disks. Right off, I can't think of any other programs I'll probably want to use with Wine. I'm a pretty avid geocacher and the program is a big help with geocaching. If this were a perfect world, I'd probably like my Magellan GPS map program to run under Wine, as well, but I'm not expecting that to happen. Overall, I've found a Linux program for about everything I've ever used in MS...and I've been pretty competent with M$ since DOS 5.0 through Windows XP. If all else fails, I have my shop computer, which I use since I have a computer repair business, and have two hard drives...with Linux and Windows XP installed...so could put the programs there. I also have my wife's computer with Windows XP, since she absolutely refuses to learn anything about Linux. Even though she uses my computer to play Linux games. I have the three computers on a network and the Mandrake 10.0 has really been the easiest one for me to use and the one which installed without any problems. Again, thanks so much for the assistance. I was thinking I had to create some sort of C drive area on the hard drive, where I would install Windows programs, so this looks easier than I had anticipated... Thanks, zenarcher

I am running Mandrake 10.0. I currently have 512M or RAM and am increasing RAM to 1 Gig. I notice that the swap is not really used and have read posts indicating that everything would probably run faster, if the Swap was removed. I did see some posts talking about removing Swap, but I'm really a newbie and not sure of the exact steps to do so. Could someone help? Thanks, zenarcher

Thanks for the suggestion. I will follow that one. I have learned about the vi....when I had to install the drivers for my NVIDIA card. I got the instructions from a forum, which explained the vi command, so it came fairly easily, since I didn't know any other way! I'm thankful I was familiar with DOS 5 and 6...worked with them a lot, long ago. While I've forgotten a lot of it, the concept of command line is somewhat familiar....once I know what I'm looking for. Also, a thanks for my copy of "Linux for Dummies." zenarcher

I may have done this all wrong...I'm not sure. I'm using Mandrake 10.0. I went into the Configure Your Computer....to a section called Mount Points and removed the Swap there. Initially, when I set Mandrake up on the computer, I let Mandrake automatically create the partitions. Maybe you can guide me from there. Thanks so much for the information on the comment line. I am making notes of all the information and help I get for future reference. It is sincerely appreciated. zenarcher

No, I did not remove that comment and I'm not quite sure how to do so. Could you please detail the procedure for me? I'm completely new to Linux, so trying to learn this as I go. Also, I see when I look at the partitions, since removing the swap, there is a small area, where the swap was located, now apparently not allocated to anything. Is there some simple way to rectify this? I have rebooted and not seen any errors, but would like to remove the comment you mentioned. Thanks, zenarcher

I figured this one out on my own. A bit scary, being new...but I removed the swap, rebooted and all is working....and a bit faster, I think. zenarcher

I can't answer most of the questions posed by ReFoRMat, but will say that I've had a pile of BSOD experiences over the many years I've dealt with M$. And, I enjoy not seeing them with Linux. As for the WD hard drive...this has been the first one that worked. I think many HD companies are having problems. I built this system for myself, a few months ago. Here is what happened. Within 2 months, two brand new Maxtor hard drives failed and were sent back for warranty replacement. Then, tried a WD hard drive...failed after one week. This is the replacement for it..and has been working fine for about 3 months. But then, I never power down my systems. In my very near future plans, I'm going to pull this hard drive and install two SATA drives in RAID configuration. Hope this one lasts until then! zenarcher

Well, as I say, I'm quite a newbie to Linux. My experience seems to be, based on what I've tried and read about others....you just have to find a distro that runs with your hardware. Mandrake 10 runs very fast on this desktop system. I have no complaints. Motherboard MSI KT6V Processor AMD XP3000+ 512M PC2700 RAM 60G WD Cavair 7200 RPM Hard Drive NVIDIA FX5200 Video Card 128M RAM I'll probably add another 512M of RAM, which I intended to do with Windows XP Pro on the system. I did run into some problems with an older munti-function X63 Lexmark printer, so just traded with my wife's computer and a HP multi-function printer. My Sony PDA works fine and synchronizes perfectly, as well. I can't connect my Magellan GPS for updates, at least I haven't found a way, yet. Fortunately, my wife refuses to learn Linux, so I have Windows XP on her system...and two hard drives...one with Linux and one with Windows on my workbench computer.....so not a problem when I do need Windows for a particular task. In time, I'm sure I'll find more Linux software to meet my needs. zenarcher

I'm a real newbie to Linux and have worked with M$ since DOS 5.0 through Windows XP Pro. Linux was really frustrating to install and start learning, no question about that. Like you, I tried several distros. My hardware is all quite new, as the box is one I custom built a few months ago. Basically, I use an MSI motherboard, AMD XP3000 processor 512M of RAM and a NVIDIA video card. Anyway, I was really trying to get SUSE to work for me. No luck. It would install perfectly, on a freshly formatted hard drive. To use it, I just kept one hand on the mouse and the other hand on the power button on the box...because every few seconds...up to a few minutes...the whole darned thing would freeze up. Didn't matter whether you were doing anything or not. You'd see the clock stop...and the only way out was to actually hit the power button on the box and shut down. I posted the problem on several forums and about all the help I received was several others with the same problem. Someone suggested Mandrake. I installed Mandrake 10 and it has worked perfectly! I'm planning to get the Power Pack version now, as I could not be happier than I am with this distro. The few minor hardware problems were corrected with a bit of trial and error and I wouldn't go back to M$ for anything. I build and repair computers and have several customers wanting to try Linux after seeing my setup. I tell them if they aren't willing to learn about Linux, don't ask. Stay with M$....but if they are willing to take the effort to go through the learning curve, it can't be beat! zenarcher

There is a new Firefox extension, called Tweak Network Settings 1.0, which will allow you to tweak some of these settings right from the Tool Menu. This may help some people improve the speed of Firefox quite easily. Just check the newest Firefox extensions. zenarcher

I'm very new to Linux and this forum is a great help! I just tried the modification to Firefox and it's fantastic! I also set the maxrequests value to 250 and see no problem. Firefox is WAY faster!! Thanks again! zenarcher