petegavin

I use an r300 and its works fine using the latest (beta) of gimp-print. You will need to install this but it might be a bit difficult if your new to linux. Never tried Fedora so dont know what your up against. Was fairly easy using an RPM file with Suse 9.2. Regards, Pete

Almost impossible, what are the chances of someone having:- The same system. Needing the same applications. Knowing what you want to do with the system. My advice is to try them out yourself (live CD versions if possible) and then give us your view. I use SUSE 9.2 but only because it is the most compatible that I have found with this system. I have no reason to prefer suse over other distros (and i have tried lots of them) except that suse 9.2 is the most compatible for me to date. Using applications appears the same whatever distro is in the background. KDE is KDE on any distro, the version changes of KDE are usually more "different" than say KDE 3.2 on mandrake and KDE 3.2 on suse. Regards, Pete

A quick follow up to my previous post above. I just downloaded the new live cd KDE version of ubuntu (Kubuntu), burned it to a disk and booted from it. As I previuosly said the first live ubuntu cd i tried was not able to start X and I gave up on it. Hey!, the new version does actually start X ok and I was soon at the KDE desktop. On the suse 9.2 live cd i can from this point surf the web etc.by just opening a web browser, not so with ubuntu! Although it now works with my video chipset (on board VIA) it still does not recognise the network hardware and so cant find and use my ADSL router. So, as I said previously, ubuntu, which according to many is a fine distro, is of little use to me and there is no point actually installing it on this SYSTEM. Regards, Pete

Hi, My wife has a couple of usb "flash drives" one is 16MB and the other 256MB. They both used to work fine under linux (think i was using mandrake 10 then?) bur after using some "driver" software for them in windows XP they are no longer appearing in linux????? It seems that they have been formatted in some way by the "drivers" and now linux cant access them? Anyone else had/cured this problem? On a related topic I recently got the new Epson R300 printer which is great, it has a built in data card reader so you can print directly from you cameras flash card (various types, 6 i think) but it also allows you to read/write to these cards too! I was thinking about a multi format card reader for my PC but wondered about linux compatibility problems, this "printer" does the job and works fine, plug in a memory card and it appears as if by magic!

I suspect its a problem with your graphics card. I uesd to get the same problem (not starting X) and it got worse with some distros. Mandrake would run fine on 10 but not 100% on 10.1. Suse 9.1 and unbutu both failed to start X with various errors. I'm using suse 9.2 now and its fine. I have noticed how kernal changes can effect what was previously my distro of choice. You SHOULD NOT have to start X from the command line UNLESS you actually want to! If you are using the standard install options you should be in KDE right away at the KDE login screen. If you choose to auto login (as I do) you should be in KDE without typing anything. I suggest you try several of the LATEST distros on live CD's and when you find 1 that works with all your hardware (or at least with MOST of it) thats the 1 to actually install. Regards, Pete

Hi, find the exe file of the program you want to TRY to run with wine, right click it and select "open with". Now use the browse option to find the wine binary file in /usr/bin and select that. Then open it. You will have the option also to always associate exe files (ie windows application) with wine. Wine's makers strongly suggest you run progams from a safe place, ie not your windows partiton. if your windows partition is NTFS I suspect wine will not work so make a seperate FAT32 area on your drive copy directories to there and try. Regards, Pete p.s. I have tried to run DVD shrink, it crashes

Hi, I have had to use windows for the last year because the lexmark x85 all in one printer/scanner i had has no linux drivers. I just got an epson r300 printer which works with the new (experimental) version of gimp print. I now need a scanner but the canon 3200f i saw some great reviews of does not have linux drivers and is not supported by sane. So, if you have a recent i.e. still available scanner, that is supported and works well, what is it?

Hi, I could NEVER get mandrake to power down my PC. I suspect it's not compatible with the bios. I now use SuSe 9.2 which powers down fine. Just for the record I have tried the following and got these power down results. Mandrake 9.2 will not power down. Lindows 4.5 powered down fine. Mandrake 10 and 10.1 will not powerdown. Knoppix 3.3 will not power down. Knoppix 3.6 powers down OK Mandrake was fine EXCEPT for the power down problem but it is a pain. My own advice after 12 months of Linux is to try a few LIVE distros untill you find one that suits your system and your needs to the greatest effect. After all the applications we use on these various systems are all the same anyway. Regards, Pete

Well i guess theres "technical" best, and then theres best for me ;-) Technical best, ie. lastest all singing all dancing is probably Thunderbird. Best for me (personal choice) is the mail client in Mozilla (no not mozilla firefox) for me it is just so easy to set up and run. Window 1 is the mozilla web browser, window 2 is the email. Anyway they are all available as freebies on the website at www.mozilla.org so try them all and make up your own mind. regards, Pete

Hi, get an up-to-date distro like suse 9.2 (NOW A FREE DOWNLOAD!) and burn it to a DVD (it's a 3.2 gig file and takes about 24 hours on 500k adsl) Boot this from your dvd drive and follow the prompts. This will be able to resize your XP ntfs partion without difficulty and you can decide on the size (ie if you have a 80 gig drive of 1 XP partion just resize it to say 40 gigs and suse will use the other 40 gigs to create 2 linux partitions (1 for a swap file) and then install itself to the new partitions. It will also install a boot loader so you can decide which OS you wish to use at boot time. Regards, Pete

Did i miss something here?.............. pr-man is listed as senior member on my system but "has never used linux before" errrrrrrrrr?????????? ;-) Pete

There is a bug in the kernal of some issues of 9.1 I had the very same problem! Go to your bios and change the hard drive settings from "auto" to allow LBA ???? cant remember exactly Aternatively get the download of 9.2 which is free on the suse website.

After a bit of a nightmare installing suse 9.2 yesterday I was a bit miffed to find there was no p2p software as in 9.1. However i came across post of someone asking how to install LimeWire which said "cd into the directory you downloaded the limewire.bin file and type sh ./LimeWireLinux.bin" Cant be that easy i thought? Anyway it is!!!!!!!!!!! and no root access required!! good god is this a dangerous as it seems?????? anyway it works. So, if its that easy to install software safely in Linux why the hell do we have to put up with all the usual stuff?

So if it is "safe" what about my second question, if this type of installation only effects the home directory, which in my case (and i'm sure many others) is the only user directory on this desktop, why dont all applications install as simple binaries, or at least have that option?