Hi, there!

This forum does seem to be really helpful, and even though I've used search, I'll post all of my questions here. I recently installed Mandrake (I work under KDE) but I'm not a newbie in computers in general, so u can talk tech here. Thanks. So.

1) About my USB mouse. I've read that other people are having trouble too but mine seems to be a little odd. During installation my USB mouse wasn't recognized even with USB legacy support in BIOS. So I took the USB>PS/2 adapter that Microsoft (Thank heavens! something useful at last) has included with my regular Optical wheel mouse.
It worked fine, and after installation of Mandrake 10.0 Official I just connected the mouse back to USB. As I suspected it works fine now, BUT. Every time I run the Mandrake Control Center (I forgot the name.. that's what it used to be called when I had version 8.1, at least ) the cursor freezes as if someone unplugged the mouse. After a reboot everything's fine but each time I wanna change some system settings I have to reboot cause using just the keyboard is great but not for web serfing.

Anyhow,

2) When I log in as root there's no sound. XMMS says that I check my drivers but under a user acoount everything works fine. I think it's meant to be so but I'd really appreciate having some music while compiling and typing in Konsole.

3) I guess I'll figure it out sooner or later, but .. How do I assing icons to BIN files? I mean.. I install Mozilla Firefox, and the only way I can run it is by clicking on the shell script. What I want though is: a) To make a shortcut where so I can change its icon (I've tried - I can't change the icon of shortcut of that shell script), and b) how do I sort of "register" firefox so I can type "firefox" in console and it'll open? I install it in my home folder but I suspect there's a way to sort of stick it somewhere so system knows about it.
Oh, and I want to make Firefox my default browser. I think it has to do with MIME types, so after assigning .html files to Firefox it shall become the default

4) - Apache server. I've installed the latest one (dont' remember the version) and configured it (I used Apache for Windows for a long time so configuring it wasn't a problem). when I type localhost it shows the default page. However when I type my IP it doesn't show it.
It struck me now that I might've messed up with my router. In Windows I manually assigned an IP to my computer, and configured the router to forward Web, FTP and other server ports to this machine. However, Mandrake probably got a new IP from router's DHCP server.. Aah.. Most likely.
See, I like forums! In 65% of cases I find the solution while typing

Thanks!

1) There are problems with certain USB mice and keyboards under Mandrake. I suggest that you resort to PS2 since you have a USB to PS2 adapter. I had similar experiences on Mandrake 9.1 and 9.2 so I ended up resorting back to PS2. The funny thing is that the same mouse, worked fine on Slackware and Fedora Core.

2) Ideally you should not log into a GUI as root to compile software or make system changes. You can do that as a normal user and then switch to root to install the software. For example, if when I am installing software, I run ./configure and make as a user and then run su -c "make install" so that I can run the "make install" command as root, but I'm only root for the duration of the software installation. This is just safe practice coz if you fully log in as root (particularly in a GUI), you can damage your system or people from the outside can compromise your system.

3) In the case of firefox, you can make a symlink similar to the following,
ln -s /usr/lib/firefox /usr/bin/firefox (or ln -s /usr/lib/firefox /usr/bin/.)
substitute the path names with the right ones for your system and typing "firefox" at the command line should work. You can then create a desktop shortcut, by right clicking and selecting create new file and selecting the create desktop shortcut option. A menu will appear where you need to fill in the name of the shortcut and the path to the program you want the shortcut to execute (just firefox in this case). There is also an option to select an icon for your shortcut. (most icons are located in /usr/share/icons or ~/.kde/share/icons)

4) you are probably right about the router thingy, I have done it myself several times.

Thanks a bunch! I'll try it all out.

Phew.. Finally got to the "reply" button (I was using the keyboard to find the topic - gosh ).

So, I came to say that nothing changes when I plug the mouse through the PS/2 adapter - when I star the Control Center the mouse gets "unplugged", and reconfiguring it doesn't help. It also takes a looong time for the Control Center to load and react when I click "Mouse" in the mouse section. Looks like I'll just stay away from the Control Center for a while . Until 10.1 Official at least.
I'm some of Mandrake guys read the message board on a regular basis, so they can imrpove Mandrake accordingly.

Also - ICAN'T run shell script for some reason now.. I click on a shell script and nothing happens. Should there be a default application for opening shell scripts? In Properties it says "KWrite".

Adds: Yeah, that's it. I've enabled the sound, configured apache but the mouse issue + scripts not executing are the two problems I have right now.

+ Another question:

Is there a "proper" directory to install apps to? Or I can just create a directory structure in my home directory and that'll be fine?

Another one - sometimes when I'm logged as a regular user and I start Installing or Removing software utitlities, it shows that they're loading, loading, and then they just disappear from the "taskbar". Usually they ask for root password and the load but sometimes they just don't load. How's that?

But, anyhow, I already want to thank this forum, Mandrake Team and Linus for the Linux . this is my 3rd attempt to get used to using Linux, and I think it's more succeful than others. Still loading Linux is a bit of a challenge for me, but, come on, this is the 2nd day I actually configure and use it . It's certainly not Mac OS X (in a way that it's not so extremely user-friendly) but it's great to have some obstacles, i guess, on the way of knowing more about OS's and computers in general.

Thanks.

Oh, and another one - is there a way to turn HDD off via some console command? I have my windows on another HDD, andif I could turn it off (like via Stand By windows command), that'd reduce the noise.
Thanks

some shell scripts will work when you click on them and others won't because they may need invoking from the command like. You run most shell scripts by making them executable "chmod +x shellscript" and then run "sh shellscript" or "./shellscript".

Most software is installed in /usr or /usr/local (some distros use /opt). In mandrake it's mainly /usr. historically /usr/local is/was used to install software that you compiled on your own. to compile something into /usr you'd do something tlike "./configure --prefix=/usr". You can run some programs from your home directory as well. The best way to find out such things is to read the Readme files that come with the software.

Weird.. The Mozilla script worked by double-clicking on it. Then it didn't, then I reinstalled Firefox and it does again now.

What about HDDs and those odds of Mandrake RPM?

Now I have problems with Wine, and I decided to post them here because it seems like I do everything according to the manual and what people on #WineHQ said but it doesn't work.

So, I log in. The "top" and "ps" utilities work as usually.
I install and configure Wine (just copy the example config file and use the folder with Windows files wine provides me with), run it, and gives no errors, so it's configured properly.
I then try to run "wine notepad.exe" in the Konsole, but it does nothing. It takes control over console, so even if I type, I can't enter commands (the line is empty, there's no root@localhost in front). Now when I run top or ps - they do the same, don't react.

What is going on? Help!

Okay.. Not much help. I'm switching to RedHat.