I am new to linux and have just installed mandriva 10.1 on my PC alongside Windows 98 (which I hope to completely replace with linux instead of upgrading to Windows XP!!). I have expierienced a few problems since installing it, to the point where I am now considering cutting my loses and handing over my hard earned cash to Mr. Gates!! Can anyone help with the following probs: -

1)Rosegarden will not open. The splash screen comes up and just hangs there. It is R4 v 0.9.9

2)K3b - Can I record an audio cd from my cd-rom drive directly to a CD-R in my CDRW drive without having to first copy it to the hard-drive? I have tried this using the cd copier and all that happens is it reads my audio cd and crashes out at the point of starting to write to my cd-r.

3)Mandrakelinux update - rpmdrake displays the message "Can't find any suitable mirrors..." then advises that I should try "Software Media Manager" and then add a "security updates" medium, then restart Mandrakeupdate. However when I open Software Media Manager, then choose 'Add Medium' and check the 'Security Updates' box, then click 'Choose Mirror', rpmdrake informs me that it is ?downloading mirror addresses from the Mandrakesoft website" then displays the same message as before "Can't find any suitable mirrors..." and that the most common cause of this is "your processor is not supported by Mandrakelinux Official updates"
4)When I plug my JVC GR-D50EK digital camcorder in via usb the operating system won't boot up. I was hoping that plugging it in at boot up would help linux recognise it as a digital camera that I would be able to take images and videos off.

The hardware I am using is -
Amd 800 duron
gigabyte 71xe4 motherboard
Soundblaster live drive ir soundcard
Creative 52x cd-rom
LG cd-rw ced-8080b
NV11 Geforce2 MX/MX 400 video card

Can anyone save me from an Windows XP future?

About k3b - it makes an image file of the copied CD first, then it writes it to a new CD. That is OK and it is the way it works. And it works great!

To set sources for upgrading and installing software visit Easy urpmi and follow instructions.

Videocameras usualy have two ways of connecting to USB - ptp and normal. Try to change that. Install usbview to see if it is recognized. If nothing else helps, mount it as sda in Mandrake control center.

And why on earth don't you install Mandriva LE 2005? it is the current stable version.

i agree LE2005 might be alittle more to your liking. dont get flustered and give in. try to work through it and feel free to ask questions. after you get the hang of it you will be alot happier.

requires a PC that is at LEAST 800MHz, plus I am sure plenty of RAM (It does the same thing on my P][ 266). I am looking forward very much to having a chance to work with this on a newer machine

If you cannot get the urpmi site to work (I could not from where I am at), you might check my response to Josh´s question about kernel sources...

Thanks for the help so far.

I've made a bit of progress. I have set up the mirror site using easyrpm and have downloaded all the packages and updates available. This has given me another problem which I would be grateful to anyone who could explain to me where I am going wrong in the following process :-

Having downloaded the packages I am now wanting to install firefox via rpm. I am typing the following into the console -
su -
urpmi firefox

But I get the message "no package named firefox". I thought by setting up the mirror site and downloading everything this would be all I had to do to install firefox. I take it there's more to it than this then??

Firefox is officially packaged as mozilla-firefox by Mandriva, so you should try "urpmi mozilla-firefox", if you still get package not found, make sure, you select all the sources during easy urpmi.

Edit: URPMI is intelligent enough to install moilla-firefox, even if you type just firefox(as it is a substring), so i think you have to setup more sources.

"Edit: URPMI is intelligent enough to install moilla-firefox, even if you type just firefox(as it is a substring), so i think you have to setup more sources."

How do I set up more sources? I have a source set up for each of the following: -
contrib
plf-nonfree
updates
main
plf-free
Installtion cd 1,2,3


Do I have to somehow set up more mirror sites and check these for updtaes too? If so can you suggest some sites?

mozilla-firefox is available in contrib. The package seems to be pretty old, there could be an update for it though(there was one for LE 2005).

Another reason to consider 2005LE - firefox is in the main repos (ie. it comes on the CDs and installs by default) and is updated automatically whenever you run the updates program (don't be fooled by the fact the version number stays at 1.0.2 - Mandrake backports all the important bugfixes and security updates from 1.0.6 or whatever the latest is).

Alot of you are telling me to upgrade to Mandriva LE. Can you check if my understanding of how to do this is right: -

I just have to go to one of the repositorie sites such as http://www.linuxfordummies.org/addmedia/. Then instead of choosing 10.1 as my version I would choose LE and then pick the appropriate sites for main, updates, contrib etc and this would upgrade my system from 10.1 to LE? Or have I completely got this wrong (as I suspect!). Any advice would be appreciated !

Hmm.. that might work. However I'd recommend downloading the 3CDs for 2005LE, booting off the CDs and choosing upgrade. You're probably not going to have to download all that much more data than if you do it directly from the mirrors, and if you ever need to reinstall you'll have the 10.2 CDs there ready.

Come to think of it I'd actually recommend doing a clean install off the CDs- just backup your home dir and maybe /etc or /var if you have anything in there you want to keep. As with most Linux distros clean installs are still less likely to cause problems than upgrades.

Thanks again for your help - I'm definately beginning to turn the corner with my understanding of rpm's and using urpmi and all that jazz! The only thing I still have to do is decide whether to install all the security updates for 10.1 (400+ MB) over my 56K modem or buy the LE disks and hope there's not so many security updates to install. Any thoughts would be welcome.

Thanks again

I upgraded from 10.1 to 10.2, and the change isn't terribly drastic. It is nice to have the latest software and kernel version though. If you want, email me at doctorstrangelove@comcast.net and I'd be happy to send you a full DVD copy of LE.

By the way, if you go to www.getfirefox.com and download the install package, all you have to do is unpack it and click on "firefox-installer" to run the install script. Easy as cake.

Unfortunately there are just as many security updates for 2005LE You can always pick and choose which are most important for you though

Once you upgrade to 10.2 you don't need to get firefox from mozilla.org - you can just get the latest through the security updates like everything else (don't be fooled by the 1.0.2 version number).