[Menai-LUG] Re : Mandrake 9.2 installation problem

[Kevin Donnelly]

On Friday 25 Feb 2005 10:13, Llywelyn Owen wrote:
> That seems do the trick, what does acpi do that made the install stick in
> the first place? How do I find out which installer Mandrake uses?

ACPI is something to help modulate power usage (http://www.acpi.info), but its 
implementation by different manufacturers can be buggy, and support for it is 
still being worked on in Linux anyway 
(http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/docs/HOWTO/other-formats/html_single/ACPI-HOWTO.html).

I think MDK uses its own installer, although it was originally based on Red 
Hat's Anaconda.  The boot manager they install will almost certainly be GRUB.  
You shouldn't really have to worry about these unless you have something like 
a dual-boot setup, in which case it's still relatively simple.

> However, now I can't get the setup to recognize my graphics card setup
> (Asrock P4S61 M/B with SiS Real256E VGA o/b) and it won't accept anything
> else from the list either where do I go from here?

I don't know how the MDK video setup is ordered, but can you try using 
something like VESA 800x600 @60Hz as some sort of lowest common denominator?  
If that is impossible, you would need to google on some MDK lists to see if 
there is anything reported about that card.
>
> I've downloaded SUSE 9.1 personal and that installs without a hitch the
> same machine, which brings me to Firefox. After I install it on SUSE 9.1 it
> opens fine first time then cleans up it files and it's gone! I moved the
> install file to my own usr directory and it's fine. Where should the
> installed files be deposited? Anywhere but Temp?

I personally think SUSE is significantly better than MDK in terms of quality 
control (to date ...).  There should be covermounts of 9.2 about now, and 
they will have updated software (eg I just discovered last week that the 
version of KAudioCreator in 9.1 doesn't add ID tags properly when ripping 
CDs).

Where did you install Firefox from?  A SUSE rpm?  A download from the Mozilla 
site?  How did you install it?

I would highly recommend, if you are using SUSE, to install apt4rpm, which 
allows you to update packages very easily over the web by allowing the use of 
a Debian-type apt repository (http://linux01.gwdg.de/apt4rpm).  The latest 
one listed there for 9.2 is 1.0-6.1, but bless me, I don't know where it's 
located in the "real" virtual world - I'll try and find out.

Assuming you used a package from the Moz site, you might try the following 
instructions for I did for 9.2, which should also work with 9.1:
1       Download installer pack from www.mozilla.org, untar, and change to the 
resulting firefox-installer dir.
2       Open a terminal, type: sux [Return], and give your root password when 
asked.  (Graphical superuser access is necessary because the installer uses a 
graphical install.)  Type:  mkdir /usr/local/firefox, to create a directory to 
install it into.
3       Type: ./firefox-installer (that's dot-slash)
4       The installer will open.  Choose Forward -> Accept -> Change 
destination directory (to /usr/local/firefox), and delete the 
"firefox-installer" left in the location field.  Click OK.
5       Choose Forward -> Install
6       At the question about being the default browser, untick the checkbox 
and click No.  
7       Close the graphical installer and press Return at the terminal to get 
the command prompt back.
8       Type: ln -s /usr/local/firefox/firefox /usr/local/bin/firefox, to link 
the executable to a directory that is already in your path (or you could 
adjust the path if you wanted).
9       Press Alt+F2, and type: firefox [Return] to start Firefox as your 
user.  It will ask again about being the default browser (the first time was 
for the root user, now it is for your user).  Again, untick the checkbox and 
click No (unless you want to make it the default browser, of course - I 
prefer to keep Konqueror as the default because it is better integrated with 
the KDE desktop).  Close Firefox again.
10      In the terminal, still as sux, type: cp /usr/lib/browser-plugins/* 
/usr/local/firefox/plugins, to copy the existing plugins to a location where 
Firefox can use them (you could also create symbolic links, but this is 
quickest for you).  Close the terminal.
11      Right-click the desktop, and select Create New -> File -> Link to 
Application.  Click on the icon to change it, select Other Icons, and 
navigate to /usr/local/firefox/icons.  Select the largest Firefox icon.  Fill 
in Firefox in text box, and then click the Execute tab and fill in firefox as 
the Command.  Click OK, and you should now have an icon on the desktop - 
click it to open Firefox and start browsing.

There are, of course, a number of ways of doing all this, but the above seems 
to work OK :-), and ensures you can use the latest Firefox release.  However, 
using rpms will ensure a more consistent system, that can be updated by 
YaST/apt4rpm.

> This current flurry of activity is an attempt to install a linux setup to
> my liking so that I can genuinely try to "live off it" for a month at
> first. I'm always falling back to Windows and don't see the benefit. I
> expect to install WINE soon to TRY to get TheBAT e-mail client (my favoured
> one) and possibly Paint Shop Pro7 working on linux. I'm very inexperienced
> with linux and STILL can't get my head round lots its conventions - when
> you explain things to me could you compare to how Windows does things
> wherever possible...

Yes, you're right.  Unless you actually switch off your Windows box and use 
nothing but Linux for a while, you never make the changeover properly.  Each 
time there is an issue with Linux, you will tend to go back to Windows, 
because that's easiest, instead of taking the 20 minutes to learn how to do 
it on Linux - that's what you had to do on Windows originally, but of course 
you tend to forget the time spent in the past.

I've looked at theBAT's features (http://www.thebat-email.com/features.html), 
and to be frank, there are none of these you couldn't do with KMail, which is 
the default KDE email app.  To ease your transition, I would suggest starting 
off by using it - it really is very good, and is also part of a wider 
Outlook-type setup called Kontact, if you need that.  You could also try 
Mozilla Thunderbird, if you want to look at something that runs on both OSs.  
You could then investigate how far theBAT will run under WINE, if at all.

PSP is listed as a Gold app at WINE HQ, so presumably that should run without 
issues.  However, you might also have a look at the GIMP.  This has a complex 
interface (but then so does PSP!), but is very good, especially in the latest 
incarnation (2.2, I think).  There will be a learning curve, though.  For SVG 
vector drawing, you should look at the excellent Inkscape 
(http://www.inkscape.org).  For 3D work, Blender (http://www.blender3d.org) 
is the standard app, but again, not something you'll pick up in an afternoon.  
For 2D tech drawing, you might look at QCad 
(http://www.ribbonsoft.com/qcad.html).

> So you can expect quite a few questions from me in the next few weeks.

Fine :-)  I may not be able to answer all of them, though!

-- 

Pob hwyl / Best wishes

Kevin Donnelly

www.kyfieithu.co.uk - Meddalwedd Rhydd yn Gymraeg
www.cymrux.org.uk - Linux Cymraeg ar un CD!