Hi - I recently installed Mandrake 10.1 downloaded version, and is my first time using linux.

I have noticed a very strange problem already - after I plug in my USB mp3 player, Konqueror then fails to load, I just get the egg timer which then disappears after about 30 seconds.

(A Konqueror task still remains in the ctrl-Esc window though)

However I CAN load konqueror as root by going into the 'run command' option and choosing to run as user root. The problem only seems to affect KDE (ver 3.2) and not Gnome.

Unplugging the mp3 player does not change anything, I have to reboot. Killing the konqueror process does not seem to help either.
Is there any diagnostic I can do to find out what is causing the problem?

Thanks

This happens when your system can not, for any reason, mount the usb stick.
Open a terminal, as root type "tail -f /var/log/messages", plug your mp3 in the usb port and look at the messages in terminal window. I bet you will see some I/O error. In this case, your usb stick is not mounted and so, konqueror has nothing to show.

Confirm this first. If I am wrong about this we need to look in other direction.

It must be mounting it OK as I can access the drive by other means e.g. from the command prompt by going to /mnt/removable or by using another browser.
I typed the command you gave and saw nothing to suggest an error had ocurred - it correctly identified the device and mounted it.

Konqueror will just not start at all, as user - but will as root.

Ok. Open the KDE Control Center. In the left panel, Peripherals and then, Storage Media. In the right panel, Medium types: choose Mounted Removable Medium. Click in Open in New Window and Toggle as Auto Action button. Apply.

Try to insert a usb stick now.

I don't seem to have the Peripherals section in my KDE control center.
I have: Boot, Hardware, Mount points, Network & Internet, Security, System, Software management and Online administration.
None of these contain a Storage Media option.

How exactly do I find this?

ops, I am lost now. Our KDE versions are very different.
Try to find a place in control center where you can associate a function to an event. In my case, there is an event "Monted removable media" and two possible actions "Do nothing" and "Open in New Window".

In the control center there is a search field. Try to find for "media", "removable" , "storage" or even "usb".

Right - it would seem there is an issue with the default KDE on the 10.1 OE of Mandrake. I read the following from the reviews section of this site:

So I will update the KDE and see what happens...