Ok so what do ya think...

[lazygamer]

So I've spent a bit of time with Libranet. Yes it definitly goes faster then Mandrake, but you guys indicate that it's only because of what Mandrake has load up that it goes slower.

Im wondering if I was too hasty to get rid of Mandrake. I just wanted speed, I thought Linux=uber fast and Mandrake wasn't living up to that ideal. However, Mandrake may be better in the end because it's so friendly.

Today I wanted to take a leisurely cruise through the Libranet manual. Ok so let's jam to some CD music. Pop the disk in and use the CD based play button. Hmmmm very low volume. There must be an option to crank it up somewhere. Although I found some sound things, no "Crank it up" stuff was present. In addition, the CD player didn't want to play my music CD. Heck, im not sure if Libranet fully acknowledged my CD drivs exsist, cuz it woulden't browse my other drive(with a data CD in it), even though it seemed to think it sort of existed. Now I did have a CD-RW in there, but it installed and booted ok off that very CD-RW disk.

In addition, Mandrake has an absolutely flawless bootloader. The grub bootloader under Libranet don't like windows. It acknowledges the exsistence of a windows partition, but try to boot off it(from grub), and it just drops me to a BASH command prompt.

There also appears to be other possible little Libranet niggles. So do you guys think I should just throw in the towel and go back to Mandrake, no matter how slow it may be? I guess it will take awile to learn how to optimize it, but damn im such a n00b...

Hehe I love my CD-RW disks. I overwrote Mandrake disk 3, now I can just D/L Mandrake disk 3 again and overwrite Libranet.  

So in closing, will Mandrake make a huge difference in my journey, ever if it is slooooow?

[lazygamer]

Oh hell, maybe I'll just install Mandrake anyways.

Ok here's my questions.

1)What package selections will I NOT need? Package selections that would be for absolute nerds etc.
(C is fine, but stuff for l33t network operating geeks is not)

2)What services can I safely choose to knock off? Once again, there seems to be alot of nerd only stuff.

3)How can I make a disk that allows me to boot into Mandrake to right any BIG mistakes I make that prevents Mandrake from booting? Unless of course that's what the bootdisk does. REMEMBER, I cannot survive a shell. What I really need is something that will save me the time of 1.5hrs of re-installing Mandrake if I fuck up. Even some "auto default settings restorer bootdisk" would be great.

4)Anything I can do to speed up Mandrake after it's installed?

I don't care how techie it is(well perhaps...), step by step=something I can always do.

[Stryker]

your cd problem...
the data cd probably was not mounted, and you probably don't have an audio cable from your cd drive to your sound card (which is usually required for the music part). but i wouldn't know for sure, as i can't see it. on kde's desktop, rightclick and go to new->cd/dvd device
and then on the right tab see if they are all there. then just cancel out. if it is there make sure you mount the drive before using it, otherwise you'll likely get nothing. (no need to mount for the audio cds though)

[choasforages]

mount /mnt/cdrom

that should mount the cd

or cat /etc/fstab to find out where the system wants the cdrom mounted

as for music

the wonders or aumix

type in
aumix

in the console, there, you should be able to figure out how to use it from there, as for bootscripts, just give us a list of boot scripts in the init directroy, and i can try to figure out what does what

[choasforages]

as for speed, try the XFS enhanced version of redhat. it is redhat 7.3, and you need four discs, the disk off of sgi's site and the normal redhat 7.3 disks, but last time i used that verison it ran very fast.

and go buy a linux book, and read it cover to cover.

[lazygamer]

Oh yes, the Linux book. Well that will honestly have to wait. I have decided to try Mandrake again, so perhaps these other questions can be answered...

[ September 03, 2002: Message edited by: lazygamer ]

[lazygamer]

Hmmm, well I actually found out the answer to the services. I used a search engine and found out mandrakeuser.org, quite a good site.

I just wish I knew how to back shit up. Oh well, armed with a list of what services not to fuck with(and what they do), that backup thing won't be so important.  

[lazygamer]

The CD music does work in Mandrake. Problem is, the audio is so low by default that I have to crank my speakers up a whole lot, and that creates a shitload of background noise. There is some sound configuration program in Linux, but I must of clicked something and the whole panel went blank. I can't find away to unblank it. There is also another program for sound, but it doesn't have any options for volume. I am using a soundblaster PCI 128 that is detected, but acts wierd. It doesn't give an option for a midi mapper, I don't believe(not postive) that sound works in Falcon's Eye. I think I had sound problems with Falcons eye last time I had Mandrake on, but I have to check it again.

Ok, Tux Racer does not work, the program appears on the taskbar, but doesn't run. Falcon's eye hangs when you quit, I doubt that it's truly hanging Linux cuz it's susposed to be ultra durable right? So how do you close or switch out of a program in Linux?

I wonder for the soundcard, if I need special drivers from Creative... if they have Linux drivers.

Although I was able to switch off all un-neccesary services(with Mandrake working normally this time, woo-hoo!), thanks to www.mandrakeuser.org. This has an effect on boot time, but only like 15 seconds. It might have a minor-moderate effect on speed. Hopefully there is several things I don't know about that can be done to speed up Mandrake. If you know of any simple stuff, might as well tell me now.  

BTW, this time I said f0ck W98, im assuming I will someday master Wine, WineX, and dos emulation. So Linux gets a hearty 7.4 gigs of Reiser FS space.

Linux has a frustration factor not from being hard to learn, but wanting to do certain tasks, and having to learn a shitload of information as a whole before your able to do such tasks(or easily solve problems). Thus I have to ask simple n00b questions at MSE. Such stuff like how to fix your volume, soundcard, Tuxracer(I wanna race teh tux!), close a hanged program etc. could probably be learned by reading ALOT. But you contemplate all the reading before you can enjoy the tasks you want to do perfectly, and get frustrated. Maybe you just feel hopeless to. Like Tuxracer won't work and your like WTF?! You(Mandrake) say I have a voodoo 3, why won't you work? Do I have to download Linux compatible 3DFX drivers? Do I need some dumbass Linux 3D acceleration patch etc.

PS:Is it possible to get my Sidewinder freestyle pro working with Mandrake? It really scares me because it's MS, i'd laugh if they tell you on their site how to use it for Linux(im so hopeless about this venue that im not gonna even check). I also have a fear they might have something in it to prevent it from working with Linux, and/or all the Linux hackers hate Microsoft and don't wanna help their shitty hardware work with Linux.  

[voidmain]

I don't know what GUI you use but I assume you want GUI answers since you are in the learning stages. In KDE "kmix" will contain your mixer/volumes. "kpm" is like task manager in Windows to see your running processes and kill them off (although I prefer ps/kill command line). But there are many ways of performing these tasks. As for Tux Racer, I have no idea, tried it once and it was a slow piece of crap, of course I wasn't really interested in it so I didn't give it a second look.

You shouldn't need special drivers for your sound card and I am pretty sure that joystick is supported by the Linux joystick driver in the kernel. You might want to search google for "linux joystick driver" and take note of the date on the pages you are looking at, as well as the kernel versions associated with it.

[choasforages]

is it a usb joystick, casue if it is, a simple

modprobe joydev

as root, will make it work, atleast my $10 game pad did

[lazygamer]

Well, it looks like my search is over, I found something that looks really good. Perhaps tommorow I'll have to install it, and see if Harddrake detects it.

Ok much thanks! I found the mixer thingy, and I was like "WTF?! Why didn't this have a shortcut?!". My sound works FINE! Just crank 'er up and all the music and SFX blasts through.

Ok but this is funny, alot of the games don't seem to load at all on my Linux. My theory is that it's my video card. Ok I guess custom Linux drivers are on the shopping list. At least I know a great place to get voodoo 3 drivers.

In addition I took my baby steps and... READ THE FUCKING MANUAL! I've finished the "computer retard section", I think im at chapter 10 now. I wanted to tackle more chapters, but I need a sleep! Im afraid that after the user guide ends, it will be nothing but raw reference guides. That's no good. What's a direct link to semi-tutorial documentation on the net, that's perfect for someone who has just finished the user guide? I know of a few sites that I could sift through, but it's nice to know EXACTLY where to look on the site, not just "dig through this pile of n00b stuff and you'll find something".  

Oh and here's a question. I removed most of the panel icons in KDE. I thought it would TEMPORARILY remove them, and they would be back after re-logging in. Boy was I wrong. Any way to reset the panel icons to their default setting?

BTW, I re-tested my Mandrake. Removing those services vastly improved Mandrake boottimes.

Mandrake boots in 76 seconds, XPoo boots in 35 seconds. XPoo restarts in 40 seconds, Mandrake restarts in 48 seconds. I judge boot times from the moment I press enter on the Lilo boot menu, to the moment I can click on the start menu. I judge reboot times from the moment I choose reboot, to the moment im into Lilo. Why does XPoo boot quicker?

As I continued my tour, I've noticed even more cool things in Mandrake, and im sure I'll discover more and more as I grow to accept my new friend.  

[voidmain]

quote:Originally posted by lazygamer:
Ok but this is funny, alot of the games don't seem to load at all on my Linux. My theory is that it's my video card. Ok I guess custom Linux drivers are on the shopping list. At least I know a great place to get voodoo 3 drivers.

Are the games you are trying to run actually installed? I don't know if this is still the case but I recall in past versions of RedHat there would be shortcuts for all the games on the K menu, even if you didn't install the games.  Maybe Mandrake is the same way?  I think the *only* game that comes with RedHat that I've ever had trouble with is Tux Racer, but like I said I didn't spend any time on it.

 

quote:
In addition I took my baby steps and... READ THE FUCKING MANUAL! I've finished the "computer retard section", I think im at chapter 10 now. I wanted to tackle more chapters, but I need a sleep! Im afraid that after the user guide ends, it will be nothing but raw reference guides. That's no good. What's a direct link to semi-tutorial documentation on the net, that's perfect for someone who has just finished the user guide? I know of a few sites that I could sift through, but it's nice to know EXACTLY where to look on the site, not just "dig through this pile of n00b stuff and you'll find something".    

Sorry I can't be of much help here, when I was in your postition with Linux it was nearly 10 years ago, things have changed drastically. All I can say is there are *boatloads* more n00b documents out there than there were 10 years ago.  In fact the RTFM source was pretty much the Linux source code itself.  It may be daunting but you'll eventually run by sites with information that make sense to you. Just type your questions into Google and generally it spits out useful information.

 

quote:
Oh and here's a question. I removed most of the panel icons in KDE. I thought it would TEMPORARILY remove them, and they would be back after re-logging in. Boy was I wrong. Any way to reset the panel icons to their default setting?

http://www.kde.org/documentation/userguide/adding-programs.html
The "kpersonalizer" command runs the same configuration command that runs on a first time login and would accomplish an entire reset.

Of course you could fiddle with the "kickerrc" file, maybe deleting/renaming it would cause a new default one to be generated but I doubt it.  One solution would be to generate a new session with "kpersonalizer" then make a copy of your ~/.kde directory so you can copy the default files back when you want them (like the ~/.kde/share/config/kickerrc). Maybe someone knows an easier way?  I always change the default anyway and put my own ICONs there.

[lazygamer]

quote:Are the games you are trying to run actually installed? I don't know if this is still the case but I recall in past versions of RedHat there would be shortcuts for all the games on the K menu, even if you didn't install the games. Maybe Mandrake is the same way? I think the *only* game that comes with RedHat that I've ever had trouble with is Tux Racer, but like I said I didn't spend any time on it.

I chose to install all the games, but I didn't choose indivdual package selection. So maybe several games weren't installed by default? How would I go about installing specific games from the Mandrake games package, without having to re-install Mandrake?

So if it's the fact that the games don't actually exsist, maybe my card works fine. Oh... I really need to try out an emulator on Linux. Okay... get teh joystick driver, ummm a driver is easy to install right? Ok well I'll take my chances. Oh yes, I probably have to compile the damn emulator. So I'll D/L it, then ask for help.  

[TheQuirk]

I remember something about going to a settings panel or something like that.. Or was it administrator panel? There was a "package manager." Just click on it and you'll have a list  of al the RPMs you installed and can installed (under the instalable tab). Just search for "games" and then selct all of them and hit install. It will then prompt you for the Drake CDs.

[lazygamer]

Thank you Quirk. Well I've have done a n00b mistake. Everytime I learn how to fix a mistake, rather then re-install Mandrake, I get better.

Here's what happened. An idea crossed my mind! Just delete my "Shawn" account. Then create a new one. KDE default stuff restored. I musta fucked something up, cuz now when I go into userdrake I get a "Error. Cannot lock user lib file /etc/ptmp or /etc/gtmp exsist". I think userdrake prematurely closed on my actually, can't remember. So what did I do exactly, and how do I fix it? My account is still there in the exact same condititon, but Userdrake don't work now.