Heyas,

I just finished installing Mandrake 9.2 and reinstalling a few programs with it and I have a few questions.

First, this is my setup:

ASUS A7N-266VM (nForce) motherboard with onboard LAN
Athlon XP 1900+
512MB RAM
GeForce FX 5200 ULTRA 128MB
Soundblaster Live! 5.1
Dualboot with Windows XP Pro

The LAN is this computer and a Win98 box connect via a LinkSys router, which connects to the internet through a Cable modem.

My first problem is anytime I do anything that requires the LAN, such as web browsing, using the Mandrake updater, and searching for Samba servers, I get choppy performance from anything running. For example, the mouse gets laggy and jumps across the screen, XMMS will start stuttering, and other programs are slow to respond when I try to restore them from a minimized state. I have narrowed this down to it being something to do with the ethernet card, because I did not have this problem when I dialed up to an ISP through a 56k modem. This also happened when I had Mandrake 9.1, so this leads to me think it could be a driver problem. To get the nForce drivers to work I had to recompile the RPM , I used a post I found on this forum to learn how to do that. So, does anyone have any ideas or tweaks I could try to get this problem fixed?

Next, everytime I restart my master sound is muted. I have to go into KMix(the mixer that was installed by default) and unmute it. How do I get this to stay unmuted and default that way, so I do not have to keep reseting it manually?

With Mandrake 9.2 I managed to get Samba to recognize the Win98 computer and set a mount point and clicked mount (In the Set Samba Mount Point section of the control panel). I let it save the changed to my /etc/fstab, but I stlil do not see an icon on my desktop for it. Even thought I have the Desktop Behavior set to show Samba shares. Is there something else I need to do to get it to show an icon?

Here is my /etc/fstab if it will help:

/dev/hdb1 / ext3 defaults 1 1
none /dev/pts devpts mode=0620 0 0
//zeus/ZEUS-C /mnt/ZEUS-C smbfs username=% 0 0
none /mnt/cdrom supermount dev=/dev/scd0,fs=udf:iso9660,ro,--,iocharset=iso8859-1 0 0
none /mnt/dvdrw supermount dev=/dev/scd1,fs=udf:iso9660,ro,--,iocharset=iso8859-1 0 0
none /mnt/floppy supermount dev=/dev/fd0,fs=ext2:vfat,--,codepage=850,umask=0,sync,iocharset=iso8859-1 0 0
/dev/hda1 /mnt/win_c vfat umask=0,codepage=850,iocharset=iso8859-1 0 0
/dev/hdb6 /mnt/win_d vfat umask=0,codepage=850,iocharset=iso8859-1 0 0
/dev/hda5 /mnt/win_e vfat umask=0,codepage=850,iocharset=iso8859-1 0 0
none /proc proc defaults 0 0
/dev/hdb5 swap swap defaults 0 0

And finally, I did not like where Mandrake initially mounted my DVD drive and other harddrive, so I changed the fstab to point to mount points that I wanted, however on my desktop the DVD drive's icon says /mnt/dvdrw, how can I get it to just say DVD-RW like how the CDROM drive just says CDROM under it? Also, is there a way to change the icon back to look like a CD? It got changed to look like a hard drive icon when I remounted it at the new location.

Thank you for your patience with my somewhat long post. I appreciate any help anyone can offer in answering my questions.

Thanks,
Chris

I can answer some of your questions.

"My first problem is anytime I do anything that requires the LAN, such as web browsing, using the Mandrake updater, and searching for Samba servers, I get choppy performance from anything running."

This thread may answer the problem:

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...hreadid=111666

"And finally, I did not like where Mandrake initially mounted my DVD drive and other harddrive, so I changed the fstab to point to mount points that I wanted, however on my desktop the DVD drive's icon says /mnt/dvdrw, how can I get it to just say DVD-RW like how the CDROM drive just says CDROM under it? Also, is there a way to change the icon back to look like a CD? It got changed to look like a hard drive icon when I remounted it at the new location."

Right click on an empty part of your desktop. Click on Create New -> CD/DVD Device. then fill out the form to create the DVD-RW icon the way that you want it. It will have to have a different name than the current DVD-RW icon. Once that works OK then delete the old icon and rename the new one if you wish. You can do these things by right clicking on the icon.


"With Mandrake 9.2 I managed to get Samba to recognize the Win98 computer and set a mount point and clicked mount (In the Set Samba Mount Point section of the control panel). I let it save the changed to my /etc/fstab, but I stlil do not see an icon on my desktop for it. Even thought I have the Desktop Behavior set to show Samba shares. Is there something else I need to do to get it to show an icon?"

You also need to right click on a blank spot on the desktop and create a desktop icon for Samba.

"Next, everytime I restart my master sound is muted. I have to go into KMix(the mixer that was installed by default) and unmute it. How do I get this to stay unmuted and default that way, so I do not have to keep reseting it manually?"

I am not certain how to fix this problem. I suggest that you start kcontrol (control center) and click on Sound & Multimedia -> Sound System and mess around in there.

___________________________________
Be prepared. Create a LifeBoat CD.
http://users.rcn.com/srstites/LifeBo...home.page.html

Steve Stites

jailbait, thanks for the reply. I got the network problem fixed. Aparently the nForce ethernet isn't well supported, but I happened to have a NetGear card lying around which I put in and it works wonderfully. The icon for my Samba mount works as well.

The DVD drive icon however, is still not working. I cannot unmount the drive from the desktop. So I went to the console and did umount /mnt/dvdrw as root, then remounted it and went to my desktop and createdthe icon pointing to /dev/scd1 (my DVD-RW drive). That icon works, until I reboot. Then the icon is there when I get back ot KDE, but it does not work and the icon looking like a mounted hard drive, labeled /mnt/dvdrw, is back. How do I go about getting the icon taht is labeled DVD-RW to stay and not having the other come back at all?

I am still stumped with the sound problem, I cannot find a way to keep it from muting the master sound anytime I reboot.

Thanks,
Chris

if your using alsa try as root from a terminal

alsactrl store

if not possibly a stick a script in /etc/rc.d/rc.local

When I try typing alsactrl store into the console, it tells me command not found. So I guess that means I am not using ALSA? In the preferences for XMMS, it says it is using the OGG Driver 1.2.7. So I think that is the sound driver I am using.

that's the driver xmms is using. if your not using alsa, your probably using oss. have you tried alsaconf at a command line? if not try it then run alsacrtl store. if niether of those work. look into downloading and installing alsa, here's a link

http://www.alsa-project.org/

btw what soundcard do you have? also if your having no problems w/sound right now other than the default volume levels, you may be better off not mucking around w/it, and, look into a script as in my previous post. take a thorough look at kmixer. i'm sure theres a way to unmute it by default.
good luck.

i took a look at my kmixer(haven't used it since i use alsa) try setting the volumes. then go to file > save current volumes as default. select that and see if fixes the prob.
good luck.

"The DVD drive icon however, is still not working. I cannot unmount the drive from the desktop. So I went to the console and did umount /mnt/dvdrw as root, then remounted it and went to my desktop and createdthe icon pointing to /dev/scd1 (my DVD-RW drive). That icon works, until I reboot. Then the icon is there when I get back ot KDE, but it does not work and the icon looking like a mounted hard drive, labeled /mnt/dvdrw, is back. How do I go about getting the icon taht is labeled DVD-RW to stay and not having the other come back at all?"

I am not sure. It sounds like KDE is not recording your changes properly in the desktop configuration file. In Fedora this file is /home/user/.kde/share/config/kdesktoprc. The relevant sections of the file labeled [Devices] and [KFileDialog Settings]. The icons that are shown are in [KFileDialog Settings] and the icons that are not shown are in [Devices]. Assuming that Mandrake sets the KDE desktop the same way as Fedora, take a look at /home/user/.kde/share/config/kdesktoprc and see if your desktop icons are described correctly.


___________________________________
Be prepared. Create a LifeBoat CD.
http://users.rcn.com/srstites/LifeBo...home.page.html

Steve Stites

I looked in /home/user/.kde/share/config/kdesktoprc, but I do not see anything refering to devices. This is what was in the file, maybe I just don't understand it correctly?

[Desktop Icons]
Preview=htmlthumbnail,imagethumbnail,pothumbnail,gsthumbnail,audio/,textthumbnail

[Desktop0]
UseWallpaper=false

[Desktop1]
UseWallpaper=false

[Desktop2]
UseWallpaper=false

[Desktop3]
UseWallpaper=false

[Desktop4]
UseWallpaper=false

[Desktop5]
UseWallpaper=false

[Desktop6]
UseWallpaper=false

[Desktop7]
UseWallpaper=false

[Devices]
enabled=true
exclude=

[FMSettings]
RenameIconDirectly=true
StandardFont=Sans,10,-1,5,50,0,0,0,0,0

[KFileDialog Settings]
Preview Size=60
Recent Files=/usr/local/netscape/icons/mozicon50.xpm
ShowPreviews=false
ViewMode=SmallColumns

[KFileDialog Speedbar]
Speedbar IconSize=32

[Mouse Buttons]
WheelSwitchesWorkspace=false

[Version]
KDEVersionMinor=1
KDEVersionRelease=3

edit:
I tried typing alsactrl store into the console, but it just says command not found. I even tried running kmix as both a user and then root and clicking save as default, but it still mutes the master sound when I reboot. How would I go about finding a script that would fix this on startup?

If you have the desktop set to displal your drives then it more than likely gets its info from the fstab file.
Reset the desktop to not automaticly display the drives and instead make a link on the desktop to the drive. It will do the same thing and you should be able to change the name to anything you like.

OK, I did what pzatch suggested. However, when I reboot and try using the icons I made on my desktop, I get this error:

" Could not mount device.

The report error was:

mount: according to mtab, none is already mounted
on /mnt/floppy

mount failed "

To get it to work I need to goto the console as root and type
umount /mnt/floppy
mount /dev/fd0 /mnt/floppy
and then the desktop icons work again.

I am not sure what the mtab file does, as I thought fstab handled the mounting of filesystems, but this is what mine looks like.

/etc/mtab:

/dev/ide/host0/bus0/target1/lun0/part1 / ext3 rw 0 0
none /proc proc rw 0 0
none /proc/bus/usb usbfs rw 0 0
none /dev devfs rw 0 0
none /dev/pts devpts rw,mode=0620 0 0
none /mnt/cdrom supermount ro,dev=/dev/scd0,fs=udf:iso9660,--,iocharset=iso8859-1 0 0
none /mnt/dvdrw supermount ro,dev=/dev/scd1,fs=udf:iso9660,--,iocharset=iso8859-1 0 0
none /mnt/floppy supermount rw,sync,dev=/dev/fd0,fs=ext2:vfat,--,codepage=850,umask=0,iocharset=iso8859-1 0 0
/dev/ide/host0/bus0/target0/lun0/part1 /mnt/win_c vfat rw,umask=0,codepage=850,iocharset=iso8859-1 0 0
/dev/ide/host0/bus0/target1/lun0/part6 /mnt/win_d vfat rw,umask=0,codepage=850,iocharset=iso8859-1 0 0
/dev/ide/host0/bus0/target0/lun0/part5 /mnt/win_e vfat rw,umask=0,codepage=850,iocharset=iso8859-1 0 0
//zeus/ZEUS-C /mnt/ZEUS-C smbfs 0 0

Thanks,
Chris