Hi well I am basically just finishing up on an install of Debian. I have been dipping into it on and off for the last few days now - and now I am keen to finish up. I know some of you guys may not like if I bunch too many issues together in one post - but since I don't have too many issues then hopefully you will forgive me if I put the few I do have here.

First, alsa isn't saving my volume settings for a user when I log off - as root it's fine but as a user it's no go. This means every time I log in I have to open alsamixer and reset my settings (particularly the tone and bass settings, as these are always reset to zero making it sound like the sound is comming out of a tin can).

I have tried doing 'alsactl store' both as a user and as su (while logged on to a user account) but this hasn't worked. So the question is how come I can't save my volume controls as a user but I can as root?

Next has to do with why I can't shut down my PC. Previously on other distributions when I clicked the logoff button, I was presented with a number of options, which were shutdowd, logoff, reboot, suspend to disk and so on.

Now however when I click ''logoff'' I am only presented with two options. One is to lock the computer, while the other is to log off.

There is no reboot or shutdown options presented any more. More anoyingly still in order to reboot I must open a terminal in KDE and login as su in order to issue the reboot command.

Even at the GDM window (I used GDM over KDM because it looks nicer) there is no shutdown option presented anywhere - just a reboot one - and again here I must enter my password in order to reboot. Even when logged in as root, there is no shutdown option presented anywhere. I guess too, that this is why my acpi enabled power button isn't working - because no one has been granted authority to shutdown the PC.

Next is memory right now I am registering about 280MB out of 512MB at idle - which seems a lot - given the realtively undemanding reputation Linux normally has.

Right now I'm simply running Linux as a desktop, mainly just for games, music movies, web, email and some office stuff. I supect that some services might be running for which I have no direct need - as I didn't have a lot of say in what my distro (Mepis) installed. How can I tell for sure what services are running and what I can safely remove? I DO NOT wish to endanger the stability of my system in any way, so I would be interested in only removing the stuff most average home users are unlikely to have any use for. (I do though want to keep samba running so I can connect to it and tranfer/share files with my XP laptop though). Have any of you guys got any suggestions how I might do this?

Any input at all would be very much appreciated.

Best regards,

GJ

1) the command to load alsa volume settings is alsactl restore. it should be called come time dureing bootup.. if not, add it yourself
2)are you suing KDM or GDM... in either case, get into the settings, and select the button that says "allow non root users to shut-down"
3)about the ram... strange its only suing half.. it should be using almost all of it... what good is ram if its not in use ? Linux will find a use for as much ram as possible, probabbly using most of it for disk cache.. speeding up the loading times of software or whatever.
4) have a look at what servies are being loaded at boot time... make sure you keep your system logger running,,, (and you may possibly need to keep XFS (x-font-server) running.. also things like iptables/security.. oooh,, and modules if your distro uses such scrinps