Hi all, I am using Mandrake 10 Official and I have some questions.

1.) First of all, when I shut down I have to hold down the power button and turn off my computer manually. Is there a way to make Mandrake do this for me?

2.) Where can I get all the latest Gnome and KDE versions, and what command do I use to install them? I want the absolute latest of both. I don't want to use URPMI unless I have to, I would like the packages so I can burn them to cd and archive them.

3.) I have an ATI TV Wonder VE tv card so I can watch tv. It does work, with TV Time, but every time I want to use it, I have to go the control center and scan for channels. If I don't, TV Time will not find a signal. I have to do this every time I boot. Is there a way out of this so I can just have TV Time work the first try every time?

4.) How can I set up shares with Samba? Any good sites that can explain the process? I want to share my Music folder on my mounted Windows partition, and also create a small share that is writable and viewable for ALL with no questions ever asked.

I have some other questions but that should be enough to start off. Thanks all!

1) There should be a logoff option on the start menu. That should give the option on shutting down depending on how you have the box set up - ie if you have it autologin to kde, otherwise it takes you back to the graphical login screen and you can shutdown from there. If not, say uh oh, and we'll work from there.

2) KDE 3.2 is recent enough for me and not much different from the last version I was using. I used to download the latest versions way back when you didn't get it with a distro, but these days I don't bother. They are big and usually require too meny dependencies, but they can be downloaded from source if you like I suppose Also RPM I immagine.

3) No idea.

4) Install samba and it's really just a matter of editting the /etc/samba/smb.conf file, which is fairly well commented. If you want to have a look at it I can probably talk you through the main points of basic shares. You mainly have to put in the workgroup name and details of the shares and whether you want domain master and all that crud... I think the main samba server on this network is the old p200mmx printer/mp3 server in the boys bedroom, but it's been a year since I checked that stuff I also share files from the mdk10 box I'm on now, and it took me like about 10 minutes to edit the config file after I installed MDK10...

From quick memory the main things to edit were things like:

workgroup = MYGROUP

and the files I wanted to share:

[public]
browseable = yes
comment = Shared Files
path = /mnt/g
public = yes
writable = no
guest only = no

[files]
browseable = yes
comment = Shared Files
path = /mnt/e
public = yes
writable = no
guest only = no

[images]
browseable = yes
comment = Images
path = /image-archive
public = yes
writable = no
guest only = no

There's probably some other stuff too, But I'd have to think about it. Once you read through the smb.conf file you will get an idea.

You may have to deal with the encrypted passwords option as well. On my net I have all the boxes with encrypted passwords set to off in the registry as we used to have 95 boxes in the network...

for #2 I just dl'd every package I could find off the KDE mirror site, then urpmi'd to the download directory. That took care of the dependencies. Other than some small issues with missing icons, it seems to be working just fine.

Another way to shutdown, if it's not listed in your menu, is to open a terminal, 'su' and enter your password to become root, then type 'halt' Alternatively, if you need to reboot then use 'reboot' instead of 'halt'

You must be a superuser/root in order for those to work, if you aren't you will receive a message telling you to become a superuser/root

Thanks guys, I really appreciate the help.

I think I must have mis-explained my shut down issue. After selecting shut down in, say Windows, it shuts down and then turns off my computer. With Mandrake, after halting the machine, it says "Power Down" and it stays there forever, and I have to manually turn my power switch off. I know how to shut it down, or halt it, it's just that Mandrake doesn't power down after its done halting it expects me to do that.

Samba should be easy based on what you posted, it doesn't even seem like I will need help if it's that easy. I remember a long time ago when I did this with Windows on one and Linux on the other, that Windows wouldn't see the "virtual drive" I had to remap it every time I booted up, anyone encounter that?

You guys rule! However, anyone know where the Gnome and KDE RPM's are?

Not sure about the shutdown issue. Maybe there's setting or it depends on how you have the booting set up or perhaps it depends on the hardware... I used to have to manually switch off, but now I hit shutdown and it actually powers the machine down like windows does...

Samba... It is fairly easy, but the config file is full of lots of entries you don't use, so you just browse through to the important ones. There may be a couple of other settings I forgot, but should be able to work those out when you start working on it...

I also have the same probalem with shutting down. I tell it to shut down and it basically reboots and brings me right back to where I was. I can only turn it off by holding the button.

Also after making those changes a simple reboot should put the MDK10 box on the network, but I can't see anything or make directories or basically do anything but connect to the box (open the machine directory under windows), any ideas what I might have missed?

I have the following set (besides the default home dir):
[media]
comment = Media dir
browseable = yes
path = /home/koopa/Media (that the path i actually have it mounted on or should it be /mnt/hdc?)
writable = yes
public = yes