After two days of installing and re-installing I finally got my Linux to work.
It is a "TurboLinux 8.0" (never heard about that one, did you?). It is the default OS of my HP Pavilion PC.

I already learned a lot after two days of troubles. The most difficult part for me is the hardware support. It should be a lot more easy to add and remove hardware I think...

Some remaining issues:

1. Login manager
Altough I use KDE, when I boot the Gnome login is still shown. I did a Google on this and found some different advices on how to change this. Is there a failsave way to set this? The different answers to this question make me a bit scared to try them.

2. KDE help
I can not read any page in KDE help when I start it. I always need to change the encoding in the viewer to something else then "auto" to make it readable. Is there any place where I can set the default encoding that this help browser should use?

3. Installed packages and the KDE menu
Altough I installed hundreds of packages, the KDE menu only shows a handfull of programs. How can I get all these other things I installed? Surely I do not need to find the executables one by one and add them?

Furthermore I see a strange thing when I start the menu editor: there are several groups and programs listed there that do not show up in the KDE menu itself. I do not see a hide/unhide option. Saving the whole thing makes no difference: these items do not show in the actual menu, only in the menu editor.

Also: some menu items can not be started. They return an error saying that the file is "malformed".


4. Modem
My system uses a HSF modem (connexant soft modem). The packages to support this are installed but the devices where not created so there must be something wrong. When I run the modem configuration it tells me that my distribution is not supported and that I need to install the kernel source after which the configuration program will attempt to re-compile the required modules.... pfff... Is this save to do? I looked at linuxant.com and new drivers are available but you actually need to pay for them! Some family member from Bill working there?

In the mean time I try to figure out how I can get my Itel sound card and my HP inkjet to work on Linux...

1.-
No worries. It is really difficult to have something done which breaks your system on this matter:

From KDE menu - Configuration - KDE - System - Access Manager.
There you'll setup KDM as default Login Manager;

After a logout/login check and if everything is OK, you could erase (if you want, although it is a small program, so you shouldn't even bother) GDM (GnomeDisplayManager)

4.- Check linmodems.org, as Winmodems like you (and mine, shit!) are not always recognized.

The problem with the hardware support on linux comes from the manufacturers not publishing them specs. Almost half of the linux drivers are made by "guessing" the specs of the hardware !!!!
Apart, there are evil-examples such as winmodems, which use chips with hardcoded windows routines which prevent from using it outside windows.

The day MS falls to blackmail manufacturers and these begin total support for linux, that day the Total Linux World Domination will arrive :-)

Hi,

Thanks. In the mean time I did it the manual way: I edited some files and now KDE indeed is the login manager. The directions I read on the internet were not correct, but it was not so difficult to figure out myself how it worked.

The problems with the KDE help I solved by setting another codepage in the KDE config. It seems that the help browser just takes this value when it syas "auto". Not much automatic about that. I still have a lot of problems when opening local html pages however . Almost every time I need to fiddle around with the encoding.

The sound card also works now, but the audio support is far less then I expected.

The modem thing and the printer I will leave as it is. I will not bother using Linux so much for the moment. To work I use XP, and the time left I study Linux a bit.

Keep up the good work!