Ok look, i am new to linux and always lived from the windows os, and ive installed linux a week ago it looks easy but installing things which i still dont know is hard and i have NO SOUND which is my main problem in the moment and i need help..!!!! and i need someone to walk me trough all the steps and also to give me like a little tour of linux mandrake and all its features that if has, i made my change to linux because i heard is stable virus free and it was crash windows is good but is kinda of a bigginer type os i wanna move on already , so it will be a good help is someone could take a time and talk to me and get me started

Thankz Jimel J. J


NEED HELP URGENT ALSO i need help in installing things and knowing my system and getting my way around i only stay in the deask top and thats it for me i need HELP

it would be great if ya helped me thankz JJJ

Mandrake has a tool called urpmi for installing packages. Urpmi has a gui called rpmdrake (Rpmdrake is basically the software module in the Mandrake Control Center). You can add more sources for packages using instructions available at easyurpmi. www.zebulon.org.uk has a good guide for using urpmi/rpmdrake although some links on that page are broken. Once you have setup your urpmi sources, you can install packages from the command line or using rpmdrake. If you use rpmdrake, packages are grouped according to function and there is a description of what each package does.

As for your sound run the Mandrake Control Center (Start -> System -> Configuration -> Configure Your Computer) -> Hardware -> Lok At and Configure your Hardware -> Soundcard. If its properly configured and you still don't get any sound try unmuting the volume.

I will try and get you started. If you search this forum, you would find lots of "sound" problems. That is very common for a new install, on many distros. Sound has a great deal of support, with multilple sound systems.

I think the first thing for you to do is determine if your install has loaded necessary sound modules in the kernel.

Here is how. Open a command prompt, and log in as root. You will need your root password. If you are logged as root, the command prompt will show a #. If it is showing a $ you are still a user and you will likley get a command not found error on commands needing root privliges.

Now at the command prompt type "lsmod" ( without the quotes ) and press enter. You will get a list of the modules loaded by your system. Here is what this looks like on my Mandrake 10.1 install.

Notice part way down the list you see things that start with snd . These are the sound modules. The sound modules you have loaded ( if any ) will vary with the sound card ( or chip set on the system board ) If they are there, you are in luck, it means the system has detected your sound card and loaded the necessary modules. The most likely problem will be you are muted. In this case you need to find the mixer, and un mute the card.

If the modules are not there, then you need to tell us what sound card you have. ( or chip set on the system board ).

As for the features Mandrake has, like most distros, the things it can do are endless. Please ask more specific questions, and try and supply as much specific information as you can find. Remember, I can't see your machine, or your installation. The help you get will be as good as the question you ask.