Hi I wonder if anyone can help a new Mandrake user. I finally got the Gui installed but can't seem to connect to the internet or my windows shares. The only place I can find to configure my modem and network card is when I click on the "connect to internet" icon. Then I start a wizard and try to configure my modem which won't ever connect and then my network card which seems pretty straight forward but I don't know where to go to see my windows shares. I have samba installed but I can't see my linux box from my windows machines either. Then modem and network do seem to be recognized buy the operating system. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

You can conigure your modem and nic using Mandrake Control Center. After configuring it, check if samba is started (also in MCC).
Also look if you can ping other machines.

Hi Mara, I did go to the Mandrake Control Center and configured my modem and nic and when it came time to connect to the internet it said my modem wouldn't connect. I barely heard a noise from the modem so I'm not sure what to do next. I've gotten into webmin to work on sharing files with my windows machines so I'm having some success there. Do you think I need to download the linux drivers for my modem if there are any. Where's a good place to go for that? Thanks Mara for your help.

If you can find Linux drivers for your modem, install them. It won't make it worse, for sure

Hi Mara I went into configure-hardware-hardrake and my modem was listed in there as was my nic. I ran the configuration tool on the modem and up came the old "stop" sign with a warning that I have a win modem. I guess that's the end of that right? I might as well try some other modem. Can you point me to the hardware configuration list for Mandrake? Thanks.

linmodems.org

Having a winmodem does not mean it's impossible to run it under Linux. It's sometimes possible. First place to look at will be producers webpage. Maybe they're providing Linux drivers...

Thanks Mara I'll give it a try. I'll have to download the driver onto a windows machine and then put it on a floppy. I know how to install a linux program using the rpm command. How do I install a program off a floppy? Is the file an executable like in windows and you just click on it to install the program? Thanks for the help.

If you're lucky, the driver will be a precompiled module (with a .o extension) which you'll just have to copy in the correct directory. The driver should come with at least a readme file to help you out.
If its a source file (a .c extention), you'll have to compile and there should definitely be some instructions if that's the case.

If the package comes in a compressed and/or archived format, copy it to a temporary location on your drive and unzip/tar/whatever it from there.

.rpm file: you said you know how to deal with them

.bin file: Binary executable,the equivalent of a Windows .exe. just type the filename to run it

.zip,.gzip file: Compressed, use gunzip to decompress

.tar.gz, .tgz file: group of files which have been archived with tar, and then compressed with gzip. Tar used with the -z will uncompress the archive and then extract the files.

Thanks DMR I'll try to track down the driver for my modem and take it from there. Thanks for the help.