I am new in Mandrakelinux
Could anybody help me? Thanks
I just installed Mandrakelinux Ver 10 on my Emachine computer.
I need to know how to set an ISP account
When I put CD in my CD drive it plays CD but no sound comming from Speakers , How I could get sound?
Since I am very new I don't know how check my Hard Drive.
Where should I found information about my harddrive(Capacity)
Thanks
Moe

First of all very new computer user.

You ask too many questions at one time, and you give no details at all on your peripherals and systems.

I would suggest you do a little work by yourself by searching on the Internet before you post. Because in this community there are certain ways things are done and people are expected to do as much work to find a solution by themselves.

When you post, there is a way to it. You have to take one problem at a time, describe your hardware and also include everything you have done on your own to fix it.

To answer you people need as much details as possible. In the old days, and sometimes, sitll today a post like yours would get the good old RTFM (Read the Fu---ing manual) or at least the also well known STFW (Search The fu---ing internet).

So.... I feel reading from your post that not only are you new to Linux, but also to computers in general.

I will help you with at lest one of your problems. Ther is no sound in your speakers probably because like on many motherboards you need to connect the cd-rom to the soundcard with a little cable that usually comes with a cd-rom on purchase.

I can't believe the amount of patience I have as I get older.

seems to me like you don't have any patience left...you basically spent 7 paragraphs ripping the guy a new one for asking some questions...on a site called linuxQUESTIONS.org...go figure.

not everyone is a computer genius...and with linux especially, lots of people need help, especially when they're new. i know i did...and i read hundreds of posts from people just like me...so i know i'm not "special" in that. and of those posts...several of them actually ask more than one question....again...go figure.

my grandfather used to say "if you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem"...

i miss my grandfather at times like this...

About the sound. On quick thing to check is if you are in the 'audio' group. I mention this first because that was the cause of the same problem for me. It happened in both Mandrake and SuSE.

Open up a shell and type the command 'groups'.
If you are not a member of the 'audio' group, then you can run the command 'kdesu userdrake'. Select your user-name and click on edit. No in the groups tab you can locate the 'audio' group and check the box.

If sound still doesnt' work, you may need to run the '/usr/sbin/alsaconf' program as the root user.
At the end of the configuration, the program will play a sample.wav file.

Another problem I've had is when the kde sound system doesn't relinquish control. This can be fixed by going to the KDE Control Center. Look for Configure Your Desktop in menu.
( note: the actual program is called 'kcontrol' )

Select Sound & Multimedia -> Sound System. Check the 'Auto Suspend if Idle' box. Change the time to 1 or 2 seconds.

Hi, I've got a quick question on the groups thing, should I, as a standard user, be in the "users" group? Currently I'm only in the audio group and a group with the same name as my user name. Also, do I need to be in the "video" group to watch dvd/vcd's?

Cheers. And sorry to veer of the subject a bit.

1. Can anybody help me?
A: Lets find out, shall we?

2. I need to know how to set an ISP account .
A: We need a little more details. Is this a DIAL UP modem setup, broadband, or what?

3. When I put CD in my CD drive it plays CD but no sound comming from Speakers , How I could get sound?

Check your mixer settings. Its like clicking on the little speaker in windows, but in linux its just called a mixer. Check them. Chances are it had the main volume and the CD player volume off. You will need to set these appropriately.

3.Where should I found information about my harddrive(Capacity)?
Do you mean the whole drive or a particular partitions capacity?

Check out df and if you have the prograam midnight commander installed mc from a command line environement.

now THATS how to help somebody...you guys rock!!!

I would suggest adding your user account to these groups..

tty, video, cdrom, audio, users, wheel

You may need to be in other groups, but this shoudl start you off correctly.

Video is not for the video card, but rathe rather video devices like webcams or handycams, etc. IIRC.

I am not the monster you think I am , hahaha!

And for your information, from where I come from in the computer community my response does absolutely not qualify as " ripping a new one" to somebody.

"Ripping a new one" is quite something else, trust me.

Actually I am old school on this and if I did not care for the person who posted I would not have responded to it simply.

The fact that I did respond with a bit of guile only means I want people to understand that others will not do all the work for them and a bit of discipline is necessary in this gigantic world of "forum guidance" we created. Even if you are completely computer illiterate.

As you say this Website is called " Linuxquestions.org" , but please don't confuse that with a genie lamp that you only need to rub a bit.

If you would like to understand my philosophy you can go to this Web address : http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

Maybe then you will see things a bit trough my eyes, and if you just read a little of it you will find that the author is quite funny in the way he put's things in perspective.

Never the less, it's a free country and you can choose to not like the way I think. Me I helped a lot of people in the past and I will go on doing it the best I can.


As for the question of Moefarzan about drive capacity. A simple way of finding drive capacity is to open the filemanager (like windows explorer on Windows) and right clicking on the folder representing your drive partition.

For me on Mandrake 10 it's called Konqueror.

For example, one of my drive is used mainly for video editing and is called video_1. In Linux there are no letters assigned to hardrives or partitions, instead folders are used.

So on the folder video_1 witch like all other peripherals in Linux is usually located in /MNT, if I right click and choose "properties" (just like in windows) I will get a window with all the used and free capacity of this drive or parttiton.

Steel I think you scared him off

Maybe your right.

Next time maybe I will just let others take care of those kind of posts.

I am probably too picky and not as patient as I tought, hahahahahaha!

Mr. J
i kinda understand your philosophy, but i still don't totally agree with it, but thats ok.
you're right in that people need to do some of thier own research, but sometimes asking questions here is exactly what they're doing, right? researching, i mean.
it's kind of like asking the teacher how to spell a word, and the teacher tells you to look it up in the dictionary...but how do you do that if you don't know how it's spelled?
or, i'm totally off base and owe you an enormous apology...

actually, he double-posted and got some answers over in the newbie forum...

.we agree on some but not on others.

But at least we agree to disagree.