I installed the Opera browser from an RPM and a menu item appeared under Networking > W3

Selecting this item under both KDE and Gnome initially launched Opera (but with microscopic GUI labels, another issue). Now Opera won't launch from menus at all.

Attempting to launch OpenOffice (as installed by Mandrake Installer) briefly shows an item on the task bar but this disappears and the app does not launch.

Both Opera and OpenOffice launch from terminal window. So what's going on?

By the way, how do you add menu items for apps installed from *.tar.gz archives? And if I eventually upgrade to Mandrake 9.2, will the menu settings be preserved?

okay here it is....in simple lame term

hit the K---configure---other---menudrake

a window will pop up

lets say you want to add openoffice!

1-highlight office in the navigation area by clicking on it

2-in the upper bar, click on "add application"

3-in the popup window, type in the title- "anything you want it to be named or "OpenOffice"

4-in the command line you type were you put the application. If you use the "soffice" command to initiate the program, then put "soffice" without parenthesis. but if you installed it in an odd place or something then you use something like my string here "/home/myusernamehere/Programs/OpenOffice.org1.1.0/soffice" without the parenthesis.

I would install office after java incase you want java support.

so far, i have konqueror working with flash 5(not 6 yet) and java. i can pretty much visit any website.

if you have any newbie questions, ask me...this newbie (me) can simplyfiy things for you and if you dont see me answering the boards, email me at cresho@earthlink.net.

so far, i can do everything i can on windows xp except video editing and dvd authoring along playing my favorite games. so hope my guide helps you.