[Sussex] New distro install (Mandriva 2006) problems - where to start?

[John D.]

<snip of the refered message (I hate trying to read through stuff that's 
very long on screen)>
So, by way of reply/response, I did as Desmond suggested and binned the 
"kat" app - though I also went through the list of installed stuff and 
got rid of a few packages that I won't use and one or two that I don't 
recall having to have had previously (acpid/acpi).

Then after reading Steves' reply, I was looking through some of the 
stuff he suggested (I'm glad I have reading glasses these days - the 
default appearance when looking at stuff with VIM is truely horrible - 
it uses all those colour differentiations for different bits of various 
files and somewhat annoyingly, mandriva 2006 doesn't seem to have the 
option to "Open filemanager in SuperUser mode" anyway sorry, I digress....).

The output of "dmesg | tail -20" is this

"agpgart: Putting AGP V2 device at 0000:01:00.0 into 4x mode
Installing knfsd (copyright (C) 1996 okir at monad.swb.de).
bootsplash 3.1.6-2004/03/31: looking for picture...<6>...found (800x600, 
9887 bytes, v3).
bootsplash: status on console 0 changed to on
bootsplash 3.1.6-2004/03/31: looking for picture...<6>...found (800x600, 
9887 bytes, v3).
bootsplash: status on console 1 changed to on
bootsplash 3.1.6-2004/03/31: looking for picture...<6>...found (800x600, 
9887 bytes, v3).
bootsplash: status on console 2 changed to on
bootsplash 3.1.6-2004/03/31: looking for picture...<6>...found (800x600, 
9887 bytes, v3).
bootsplash: status on console 3 changed to on
bootsplash 3.1.6-2004/03/31: looking for picture...<6>...found (800x600, 
9887 bytes, v3).
bootsplash: status on console 4 changed to on
bootsplash 3.1.6-2004/03/31: looking for picture...<6>...found (800x600, 
9887 bytes, v3).
bootsplash: status on console 5 changed to on
eth0: no IPv6 routers present
end_request: I/O error, dev fd0, sector 0
end_request: I/O error, dev fd0, sector 0
bash-3.00$"

though it doesn't seem to tell "us" much ??

I also looked through some of the output of "lspci -v" as Steve 
suggested - but it just seems to list the pci related devices - which 
all appear to be there.

When I had a look through the the /var/log/Xorg.0.log I was looking for 
something that might be listed as (EE), but there was nothing there - 
plenty of the (II) and (WW) but I've seen those before and don't, as far 
as I can tell, cause a problem.

I also had a look at the /etc/X11/xorg.conf - which caused me to think a 
little (yes I can manage that, occassionally :D ). The first thing I 
noticed was that the monitor was set at 1600x1200 @ 70hz. I'm presuming 
that thats something that harddrake or whatever utility, chose 
automatically (my memory suggested that the monitor has been set at 
slightly different "speeds" previously) so I changed it to 1600x1200 @ 
76hz which has made some improvements the normal horizontal/vertical 
settings that [it's] capable of are * "30-94 Khz / 50-160 Hz", *I'm sure 
that previously I've had it  set at 1600x1200 @ 85hz but am not offered 
that option. Hum???

Also, with KDE you get the small "cursor icon" that moves with the 
cursor pointer as you move the mouse. This sometimes leaves a trail of 
"little icons" when the mouse/cursor is moved - the mouse entry of the 
xorg.conf shows that it "thinks" that the mouse uses EXPLORERPS/2 and 
the scroll setting is entered as Option "ZAXIS MAPPING" "6 7". The mouse 
is "working" reasonably well, though with previous distros/installs I've 
always used IMPS/PS2 and the z axis mapping has been set to "4 5". Have 
I got it "wrong" before and mandriva found/set it right?? Or would it be 
safe/sensible to change it???

regards

John D.