Mixed bag of Newbie Queries.
 

Hello. Brand new to this forum, and likewise to Linux. I have just carried out a successful, if prolonged, installation of Opensuse 10.2 but have several questions I would like answered.
1.
I find that if I leave my PC unattended for a couple of minutes I am locked out and have to put in my password in order gain access. Is there any way in which this lockout time can be extended, or even removed?

2. What are the best settings for colours, etc. and how do I adjust them? Right now, everything on my desk top looks oversized.

3. Can I import my bookmarks from Windows into my current Firefox browser?

4. I have just installed some updates, and shortly afterwards my PC hung and I had to re-boot. Could there be a connection?

Sorry if this is a bit fragmented.
0rinoco

1. Yes, I am on Ubuntu right now but as far as I can remember it's just as easy on Suse: go to System > Preferences > Screensaver and disable the password option.

2. Probably the wrong screen resolution. Try adjusting from System > Preferences > Screen Resolution.

3. Sure. Launch Firefox under windows, select Bookmars > Organize > File > Export, save the resulting file to a shared partition (or a floppy, ...). Then do the same on Ubuntu but use Import instead of Export and give it the bookmarks file you saved.

4. Quite possible. Suse isn't the most reliable updater in my experience.

4. There are milion of reasons your computer can hang up by. don't think it's an effect of the updater.

Novell changed the default online update tool to Zen (zmd) which did have a few problems. I still find it very slow to synchronise stuff and because it also applies the updates it can appear to hang at times. However, best to check system and startup logs for errors.

Thanks for all the input. Very much appreciated.
0rinoco

How do I find System in order to start?

Ah, I think I can see what you mean. Suse uses a menu that is rather different from most distributions. It shouldn't be difficult to add the one that has the "System" submenu but that depends on your desktop. Are you using Gnome or KDE? If you are using Gnome, you can right-click on your the bottom panel, select "Add to panel" and then pick the Gnome menu from the Dialog Box. But screen resolutions should also be available from Control Center in both KDE and Gnome (which may again require that you first install a different menu).

On KDE its Menu - Applications - System - Configuration - Configure X-11 System

Thanks, Jay and Larry. I'm using KDE desktop, but after over 10 years of Windows I am having to relearn. Dozens of new terms, and a totally different way of doing many things. Is there a tutorial available which might help speed things up?
Regards.
0rinoco

I recommend reading this: http://linux.oneandoneis2.org/LNW.htm (Linux is Not Windows). good comparison article.
To learn Linux, you can do worse than read this: http://rute.2038bug.com/index.html.gz (Rute)

Thanks, Chris. Need all the help I can get. :)

Although you can use the KDE control centre etc, it's usually better to use YaST (it's off the System menu) to configure stuff as that's the SuSE admin tool. From there Hardware .. Graphics card and monitor will launch the tool (SaX2) that allows you to change monitor/resolution etc. It's quite possible to get a non-working graphics setup here which is why it asks you to test it before accepting. If the screen becomes unreadable then Ctrl-Alt-Backspace will kill the SaX2 window and get you back where you started. If you can find the SuSE documentation on your system that's very good, otherwise if you have a look at the opensuse.org site they have some pretty good articles there.

Thanks for the useful tips, Andrew. Very helpful.
Chris. Those links were very informative. Thanks again.
0rinoco.

When I used SuSe, I had problems with updates, especially when Novell moved to Zen. Now back to Slack, and manual updates, and end of problems!

You're welcome, they're prob 2 of the best for beginners to read, a comparison and then a 'this is how you do it'.
Of course this is just imho.. ;)