Hello, I just got my Mandriva x64 install working, and there's much which I like of it over Ubuntu, but Dolphin isn't helping me much so far compared to Nautilus GNOME, and I hope someone can help me customize this in order to make it do what I need it to.

Under the "Places" tab, there are listed three partitions with exactly the same name! Well, I do happen to have three other ext3 partitions on my drive, some which I still use, or aren't yet ready to remove, and at least Nautilus didn't give them all the same name (not unless they were exactly the same size, size being what they are named for by Nautilus). Obviously, it's better for anybody using a file browser for partition name extensions to be based on something more variable, the exact size being more so than the partition format, but this is how Dolphin has named my other ext3 partitions, and I need to change this behavior. Please help if you can.

Oh, one more thing - I really would like to use Dolphin (if that's the GUI I'll be using in Mandriva) to access other ext3 partitions, just like it will go and access any NTFS partition for me, the logged in user who owns those partitions. Currently, it doesn't just give me a login hassle when I want to browse other ext3 partitions, it won't cooperate at all - and there's just simply no justifying this degree of Big Brother nonsense! Please tell me that it can be corrected in the GUI, and how it can.

Thanks.

There's nothing "big brother" about it. It's simply that Policy Kit has not been fully implemented in KDE yet. You can have the partitions mounted on boot and access them through their mount points. (Those mount points can easily be added to dolphin's Places panel if you wish.) Configure your computer/Local disks/Manage Partitions provides a GUI for making the necessary changes to fstab. Or you can have a read of this:

http://www.happyassassin.net/2009/01...avit-and-more/

Jim

Sorry, some of us Americans still have a thing about trading freedom for security Thanks, and I did manage to get access to my Ubuntu drive (with files) through this utility. But I still have little idea how this works, nor how I could really control access this way, or even where to look. I'm actually security-minded enough to see no need for mounting that drive at the root, but that's all that it will do (whether I punch in the mount point as /media/disk or /media/disk/home/me, I'm still mounted in at the root). Am I approaching this wrong, or is this still an unfixed bug? Also, I don't want to see three ext3 drives with the name "var ext3", and wondered if the Label thread (under same partition editor tab, -> expert mode) would be the place to fix it without actually changing anything on that partition?

Post your /etc/fstab file and, if you know, state the device files for any partitions that you want to be able to mount as an ordinary user. fstab controls mounting and editing that file will get you what you need. I think it's simpler to see what's going on by directly editing fstab rather than having mandriva's gui tool do it indirectly.

As far Dolphin designating all partitions as "Volume <filesystem type>", that drives me nuts too. Apart from using fixed mount points as suggested above, the only other current solution is to use partition labels which is available on most linux filesystems, and certainly on ext3. When the partition is labeled, dolphin will designate the partition by its label name.Be careful labeling the root partitions of another distro, however. Some distros use the partition label in their fstab and grub configuration and changing the label of the another distro's root partition can render them unbootable.

This is how Linux works & is not a security issue. When u click on the partition in dolphin, it still does the same thing anyway.

In your case, I would say labeling the filesystem on each of the partitions would be the best option. If you don't boot the other distros anymore, changing the labels should not matter.
Even if you do boot them, most modern distros use UUIDs to mount partitions in fstab & grub. So changing the label should have no effect. (Unless u run a distro > 2 yrs old)

You can change the label of any ext3 partition with the command e2label.
i.e. # e2label /dev/sdc1 UbuntuRoot

If you prefer a graphical alternative, you can install and use Gparted - an OpenSource PartitionMagic work-alike. Gparted is a graphical partition manager that goes beyond PartitionMagic with support for nearly all the Open Source file systems. It can set partition flags, non-destructively resize partitions, and of course create, delete, and label partitions.

I strongly suggest you run Gparted from a Live CD. I use the System Rescue CD which you download as an .iso image file to be burnt to a CD using the option to burn an image file (create a disk from an image). In addition to Gparted, the System Rescue CD includes a wide array of utilities you will find indispensable when disaster strikes. See the information on the WEB page linked above for details. I am in no way connected with the System Rescue CD project other than being a long time grateful user.

HTH,