All,

I have a few newbie questions and I hope this is the right place. If not let me know and I'll request it be redirected.

1) I have installed Slackware 12.0 on my HP 5700 series laptop. Its 2.8ghz with 768M memory. In short, I'm having issue with KDE 3.5. It seems to see my Linux drive (hda2 on an XP dual boot. Oh with LILO 22.?) but when I click on it I get a Cant receive from messanger (HAL) message. The only way I can access the drive is to use MC or from the prompt. I've looked at the fstab and its at no auto and owner. Everytime I try to mount the drive from the command line, it tells me "already mounted" I also have the same issue with the CD drive. So in short,is there something I can do to get KDE to access my CDRom and Linux drive (hda2)?

2) Is there a "device manager" type program for KDE or from the command prompt? I tried Mint and it used gnome and mirrored windows. KDE hasn't proven as "Windows habits" compatable.

I'm sure I have more questions, but this will be a good start.

Thanks in advance for any responses

Ace

Oh a couple of simple questions I forgot

1) How can I get the XTerm in KDE to show file names in color. I can't tell whats EXE and whats a directory.

2) Is there a common file placement sceme? If so is there a FAQ i can read up on it in. For example, In my old DOS days (last time I used a command prompt) All system files were located in \DOS. most programs had there own directories and would install to the root directory. In those directories, the EXE and supporting files were located. Because of my inexperience, Linux files seemed to be all over the place and sometimes seem to have multiple copies of the same files (under var and under usr or bin) This may have something to do with links. Anyways, I am rambling. I just wondered if there was a common practice of where files are and should go.

Thanks Again
Ace

Filesystem explanation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filesys...archy_Standard

Nice tutorial: http://rute.2038bug.com/index.html.gz

Summary of MS v Linux differences in approach/design: http://linux.oneandoneis2.org/LNW.htm

I took the liberty to split your questions out of the unrelated
thread. Thread-hijacking is frowned upon....


Cheers,
Tink

You'll probably want to read the first post in this thread, but the upshot is that HAL doesn't work right unless you've added yourself to the plugdev and cdrom groups, and I'd strongly suggest adding yourself to the audio, video and power groups as well.

Hey thanks all for the information. It answered most of my questions. I was able to get KDE to allow me to access my drives by updating /etc/group.

But I still need to know if KDE has a "device manager" type interface or if there are command line programs that will give me an inventory of my device drivers. Currently I can't get my wireless to work or my sound. I can't tell if they have been installed or whether I just don't have them configured properly. Any help you can give would be appreciated. And thanks again for the info on the first questions.

Ace

lspci
will tell you which physical devices the kernel picked up.
lsmod
will tell you which device drivers it loaded (not necessarily
with names that mean much to you).

Post the output of both statements here.


Cheers,
Tink

Here is some sound advice: install Ubuntu 8.04 when it is out on April 24, your problems will have desappeared instantly and you get THE BEST(easy configure, easy operate, best support) distribution in linux world to date. Ubuntu recognises and configures automatically all your hardware, so no hassle for you

Sez you.


For sound - Have you run alsaconf yet?

For wireless - If you know what chipset your wireless card is using we can point you in a useful direction. Follow Tinkster's instructions and hopefully it will show up in the lspci output.

Sure, and it milks the cows and looks after the farm while
you're on holiday. Plus it lays eggs, and when it dies you
get nice ham ...



Cheers,
Tink

I appreciate the advice Ranser. I'm sure it does a great job. Actually I had Linux Mint installed and it was killer. Nice visual and very intuitive for those of us familiar with Windows. But It was a little sluggish when taxed and over all it was a little too easy.

I wanted to learn about Linux and the best way I've found to learn is through adversity. So I chose slackware knowing it was supposed to be fast and stable but also user configured. I figured if I can get my system running with slackware, I'll know more than with a "hands off" setup.

However, if its working well for you. Congratulations and happy Linuxing.

Ace

I think we're all 'a little sluggish when taxed'

Excellent attitude, and a good call to back it ;}


Enjoy the ride!


Cheers,
Tink

All,

Here is my lspci read out.

00:00.0 Host bridge: ATI Technologies Inc RS200/RS200M AGP Bridge [IGP 340M] (rev 02)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: ATI Technologies Inc PCI Bridge [IGP 340M]
00:06.0 Multimedia audio controller: ALi Corporation M5451 PCI AC-Link Controller Audio Device (rev 02)
00:07.0 ISA bridge: ALi Corporation M1533/M1535 PCI to ISA Bridge [Aladdin IV/V/V+]
00:08.0 Modem: ALi Corporation M5457 AC'97 Modem Controller
00:09.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4306 802.11b/g Wireless LAN Controller (rev 02)
00:0a.0 CardBus bridge: O2 Micro, Inc. OZ601/6912/711E0 CardBus/SmartCardBus Controller
00:0b.0 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82xxxxx UHCI USB 1.1 Controller (rev 50)
00:0b.1 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82xxxxx UHCI USB 1.1 Controller (rev 50)
00:0b.2 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. USB 2.0 (rev 51)
00:0c.0 FireWire (IEEE 1394): Texas Instruments TSB43AB21 IEEE-1394a-2000 Controller (PHY/Link)
00:10.0 IDE interface: ALi Corporation M5229 IDE (rev c4)
00:11.0 Bridge: ALi Corporation M7101 Power Management Controller [PMU]
00:12.0 Ethernet controller: National Semiconductor Corporation DP83815 (MacPhyter) Ethernet Controller
01:05.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc Radeon IGP 330M/340M/350M

Here is the lsmod read out.

Module Size Used by
snd_seq_dummy 6788 0
snd_seq_oss 32896 0
snd_seq_midi_event 10112 1 snd_seq_oss
snd_seq 50640 5 snd_seq_dummy,snd_seq_oss,snd_seq_midi_event
snd_seq_device 10508 3 snd_seq_dummy,snd_seq_oss,snd_seq
snd_pcm_oss 42784 0
snd_mixer_oss 18048 1 snd_pcm_oss
ipv6 254496 10
capability 7304 0
commoncap 9344 1 capability
lp 13736 0
parport_pc 27812 1
parport 34760 2 lp,parport_pc
pcspkr 6528 0
psmouse 39048 0
pcmcia 34988 0
ata_generic 9220 0
serio_raw 9220 0
natsemi 29024 0
pata_ali 12296 0
snd_ali5451 22668 0
snd_ac97_codec 98980 1 snd_ali5451
bcm43xx 428064 0
ac97_bus 6016 1 snd_ac97_codec
yenta_socket 27148 1
snd_pcm 72068 3 snd_pcm_oss,snd_ali5451,snd_ac97_codec
snd_timer 22532 2 snd_seq,snd_pcm
snd 47204 9 snd_seq_oss,snd_seq,snd_seq_device,snd_pcm_oss,snd_mixer_oss,snd_ali5451,snd_ac97_codec,snd_pcm,snd_ timer
rsrc_nonstatic 14848 1 yenta_socket
ieee80211softmac 30464 1 bcm43xx
soundcore 9824 1 snd
pcmcia_core 36500 3 pcmcia,yenta_socket,rsrc_nonstatic
ieee80211 34248 2 bcm43xx,ieee80211softmac
evdev 11904 1
snd_page_alloc 11528 1 snd_pcm
ieee80211_crypt 8576 1 ieee80211
i2c_ali15x3 10500 0
i2c_ali1535 9860 0
ati_agp 10892 1
shpchp 33172 0
agpgart 31432 1 ati_agp


Also too if it helps, I keep getting a SIOCSIFFLAG error during boot up.

It looks like my sound card and wireless network card is being seen. Maybe I just don't have it configured correctly.

Thanks in advance for any insight you might have.

Ace

Well that looks like both the sound and the wifi have been picked up
by the kernel and their drivers were successfully loaded.

As for the SIOCSIFFLAG - can you check the output of dmesg for this and post the results?
Maybe +/- 5 lines around the error ...