Mandrake Questions
 

How do I change the default Desktop from gnome to KDE? Anything else a newbie should know?

Do you have the default display manager (login screen) or do you remember changing it. Assuming you've installed KDE as well, you should have a menu option to choose the window manager to be used in the session you're logging in for.

depends on what display manager u are using. w/mandy its probably kdm, which should be configurable through the KDE Control Center under the "System" node i believe. i think if u are setting it manually (terminal/config file) the contents of the ~/.xsession file are executed as the default window manager. if u are a noob, (first of all good choice for picking mandy) then most of the KDE configuration options are under that program, and some system options are accessable from there as well. Drakeconf is the major mandrake configuration tool.

um i just noticed ur "soon to be debian" in ur profile and u may not be ready for debian yet. personally, i use debian and love it, but I used mandy first and that is what i reccommend to beginners because it is incredibly user-freindly with the cost of some stability (still more stable than windows tho). If u are going to switch to debian, u should probably wait until Sarge is out, because i've heard its due out soon. or u can sacrifice some stability and go for the "testing" edition which really isn't testing at all in terms of other distro's standards (debian's are just more strict)

In Mandrake, open the /etc/sysconfig/desktop file. In there for example:
DESKTOP=KDE
DISPLAYMANAGER=GDM

will set GDM as the display manager, and KDE as the default desktop.

Yves.

Master Pi, I've been using mandrake, I have a friend sending me the Sarge CD's. So i'll use mandrake until I feel confortable enough. Thanks everyone.

That's the best way I've found to learn Linux =) Good Luck! (Hey maybe ur freind could send me sarge 2 since i have a 56k modem - jk)

Pi, yeah probably not but that's why he's sending them to me, I have a dialup modem and no access to high speed or I'd do the netinstall, thanks again.