Hi,
I'm relatively new to linux, and I have been trying to use DIVA (DVD authoring software) which mainly for Gnome on KDE 3.5, but the following error comes up with all most gnome apps:

"Failed to contact configuration server; some possible causes are that you need to enable TCP/IP networking for ORBit, or you have stale NFS locks due to a system crash. See http://www.gnome.org/projects/gconf/ for information. (Details - 1: IOR file '/tmp/gconfd-zouzou/lock/ior' not opened successfully, no gconfd located: Permission denied 2: IOR file '/tmp/gconfd-zouzou/lock/ior' not opened successfully, no gconfd located: Permission denied)"

I tried to install gconfd but urpmi comes back with a message indicating that Gconfd is already installed. I also tried to go to Gnome and start the apps from there, but the desktop environment (Gnome) doesn't start properly and shows an error message as the one above.

Second, whenever I try to install a software directly from the TARball source, Konsole gives me an error message. So I have to look for the RPM to install it. But not all the softwares I need are converted to RPM. I tried converting some Tarballs into RPM but it's a bit complicated and time consuming and I can't afford losing anymore time.

Is there anyway I can deal with these two probs?
Thanx for your help in advance.

After you downloaded Mandriva CD'S or DVD, did you verify it's integrity by checking MD5 sum, because it sounds like a bad installation possibly from bad media (CD's or DVD)

No, I have not. But how do I go about doing that?
Thanx in advance

From a windows system you can use this utility found here:

http://www.toast442.org/md5/md5.exe

It does not require to be installed or anything like that, just click on it and it will start, if I remember right (as I'm not in windows right now), you want to produce a md5sum from the FILE menu, a browser window appears for you to navigate to the location of the ISO image you downloaded, and select it, wait a while as it does it's thing silently (may appear to be frozen but not so) and then a md5sum appears in the md5sum checker's window. Compare that long line of digits to the md5sum found at any download mirror for the distribution you downloaded. If they match, it is good, if there is a difference, it is bad. If you already deleted the ISO, I'm not sure if you can check the sum against the CD/DVD but one could try. Some CD burning application (more robust, expensive ones) can make a new ISO image from the CD/DVD if you cannot get a sum from it.

To the best of my knowledge I believe any Linux system has the ability to check md5sum without third party software via bash command, maybe even through a GUI for some, I kind of forgot how but I'm sure a quick query through Google will get an answer.

After re-reading your post, because of the "permission denied" part suggest you have no permission.
When you try working with tarballs are you in superuser mode in the terminal?
is there a ($) symbol or a (#) symbol at the prompt before you issue commands?

Everytime I try to install a tarball, I make sure i type "su" and then the password of root. I am not sure if this answers your question thought.
thanx for your help

Well, you need to issue commands as root to install apps from a tar source, and based on what you say , you are in root if you "su, root password". Which answers my question "yes".

PS: I'm under the influence right now, not a good time to be giving advice, will check this post when in better shape tommorow.
OK...
sorry, my apologies.