vote on my poll and PLZ answer some questions of mine
 

how do u connect to the internet through MD 8.2? i set it up when i installed but i dont know how to connect.

also how do i change desktop modes between KDD (or what ever it is, u know what i mean) and GNOME?

thanks,
-Alex

Well first off, the poll you have is asked all the time, either poll or just a thread.
Second, how are you connected to the net or attempting to? Cable/DSL/Dialup ??

Usually to switch desktops, you can sometimes use the switchdesktop command... or set your .xinitrc file to point to the desktop of your choice. This by the way is asked all the time too, a search would probably bring up tons of results. :)

well i figured out how to swith destop themes. ehen u logon it gives u a selection, i just dont know which 1 is best.

i am trying to use a dial up. how do i connect and how do i open up the config, 4 it?

If your modem is supported and installed properly it doesn't require much of a brain to configure dial-up espacially with Mandy, you can instantiate an instance of kppp by calling it from a command line, you'll be asked for root password, or you can go to K->Networking->Remote Access->Internet to launch dial-up configuration and setup screen, make sure your modem is recognized and configured properly (if you have a winmodem - ditch it for something that a real thing - an external serial modem or an old ISA hardware modem, there are also PCI hardware modems available mostly from U.S.Robatics/3Com)

thats what we have, a 3com modem.

that poll is just pointless really :). the search facuility is great, try it. As trickykid said it's been asked so many times before. and of course KDE always wins anyway, because so many people have never even tried anything except for KDE. There is certainly no "best" either. just like there is no "best" flavour of ice cream. oh and my current pet hate... useful thread titles please!! thanks :)

ya, but i still need to know how to connect to the net, i didnt understand what neo said.
(i am very new at linux, i just installed it yesterday...)

You're running Mandy which makes things nice and easy, presuming your hardware is configured properly.

There should be an icon on your desktop called Mandrake Control Center - click it...if it doesn't work then open up a terminal session (the thing that looks like an old DOS box, text prompt thing) and run drakconf (this runs 'Mandrake Control Center' aswell). It will pop up a little box asking for your root (read: superuser) password - enter it. Once MCC has loaded, then you need to go to the Hardware section, then click on Harddrake. This takes a minute to load, and should display all your hardware in a window that looks like quite like Windows's hardware thingy. Check to see that it has found your modem. If it has, then we can proceed.

There are 2 thing you can do from here.

1:
Close down Harddrake, but leave MCC open. Go to the Networking section and click on Internet Connection (or something - should be fairly obvious). Now, you need to tell it some details about your internet connection. It should be fairly straight forward, you need to enter the name of your ISP, their phone number, whether you intend on using PAP or CHAP (probably be PAP), which device to use (you can get this bit of info from Harddrake, above), etc. When it's all done, you should close down MCC and try to connect to the internet from the icon on your desktop.

2:
Keeping the terminal (text prompt) open, run kppp. You might need to do this as root, so hopefully a little box will appear asking for root's password. If not, then you'll need to type su root, and then root's password, in the text prompt before running kppp. The kppp dialog should pop up, and you'll need to enter some details about your ISP (as above). You can then click the Connect (or is it Dial?) button and key presto! You're on the internet (should it all have gone OK).

Now, being connected to the internet is not the same things as browsing. Unlike Internet Exploder, if you simply run Konqueror (or Mozilla, Nutscrape, etc) without actually being connected, it won't present a dial-up box. You will need to connect to the internet first, then run Konq/Moz/Nut/Whatever.

Hope this helps.

Oh, and most of it should be in the 'Mandrake Documentation' that is on your 1st CD.

Good luck.

That's not neccesarily enough to know if your modem will work under Linux. 3com makes some winmodems too, in fact USR (3COM) was the inventor of them. Their "Performance Pro" model however is probably the most popular PCI internal hardware modem. Another tip, *any* external modem that I know of will work; it might be better for you to get that if you have a winmodem that needs replacing as USR Performance Pro is pricey and doesn't have some advantages that external modems have. (Like blinking lights. ;-) )

As for the poll question, it really has too few choices. There's not only the popular GNOME and KDE desktops, there's also many window managers such as Windowmaker, Blackbox, Enlightenment, and others that have their devoted followings. Some of these also use up less resources than GNOME and KDE, and therefore are better for older computers. I use an up to date computer in terms of hardware now so I usually run KDE; but that's just my personal preference because it's like a certain other operating system that gave me bad habits. :-) (Though I use the Liquid theme to make it look a little like *another* certain operating system from a company named after a fruit. :-) Customizability seems to be one of KDE's strong points, though I don't have much experience customizing the rest.)