9.3 weird behaviour ?????
 

A mate gave me a copy and as mandriva 2005LE was annoying me a bit, I thought I'd "give it a whirl".

I think I've got the install right.

It's taken me a while to get some music playing (can't remember what format - FLAC/mp3/ogg etc etc) but I think it was something to do with installing the multimedia packs.

there was a couple of packages that didn't want to play from the install discs, I can't work out how to list them either, as you might be able to tell me if I need em or not.

I've also installed the latest Opera, Thunderbird and Firefox (plus Mozilla installed by default during install), but I can run them all from root, but not user - I really haven't any idea whats going on.

Maybe someone could point me in the right direction or maybe someone knows of a link on how to use Yast thats written in a straight forward way and doesn't expect loads of prior knowledge (ha! I wouldn't be asking this if I had any idea of what I was doing).

Oh, and in repect of my question about stuff running from root and not user, the apps seem to be "owned" by me and in the users group, but from previous distros, I've sometimes had to put "exec" in the /etc/fstab options. I've looked and it shows acl, users_xattr for my root and boot partitions, and just defaults for my home partition, and I can't work out what thats all about.

Any advice is much appreciated.

regards

John

Yast is pretty much straight forward. I can't see how or where you are going wrong. It's like "control panel" for that other OS. You won't need to add anything more to your /etc/fstab.

Please tell me how you installed these apps.

Mozilla was from the install discs, thunderbird and firefox from their site (no rpm available - well I couldn't find one) as tar.gz, which was untarred and then just run the installer, and opera from their site (though it was a "9.2" rpm apparently).

Opera seems to have cured itself, inasfaras, I installed the version that was listed in yast (7.54) and that seemed to open. So I just went back and using yast did the uninstall, but then with filemanager as superuser, deleted the hidden files, and then redownloaded the 8.01 rpm from opera.com and as I did this with konqueror, it offered me the option of "installing with yast", which seems to have done the job.

So it looks like I'll have to do the same with thunderbird, firefox and mozilla (I'm a greedy bastard who likes plenty of browser choice :D ).

regards

John

p.s. I'll post back to say how I'm doing. I've come to the conclusion that it's either because I didn't change anything in my /home directory (tried to keep the data i.e. email address book, customisations etc) or something to do with the way SuSE works with permissions and the ACL "thing" that SuSE seems to use by default (well appears to, though whether thats because I've had to tell "it" that it's a networked workstation, because I have a small net that encompasses my network printer and samba for linking my partners W98SE laptop).

Ok.

OK, so when I checked about uninstalling the mozilla/firefox/thunderbird with YAST I also made sure I did the dependency check, and the only one that seemed to be a problem was mozilla, apparently my sys is saying that mozilla is a dependency of some 22 other packages, so I opted to not touch that for the moment.

I uninstalled the firefox and thunderbird, then with file manager (as superuser) I binned all the other hidden files, in /home and /root then fire up yast and told it to install firefox (plus firefox translations) and thunderbird (my system is now showing the latest versions as a mate of mine explained how to change the sources etc).

As far as I can see, the 3 packages installed OK (via YAST). Though when I click them they still indicate that they are starting as normal, but then they just stop.

So as I finish this, I'll try and restart the system and see if that does anything.

I'll post back on that. In the meantime, I've got to go out for an hour :( (what hoping to get this sorted today) as my partner has ripped her skirt at work and is currently "showing her arse to world + dog" :D.

thanks for assist thus far, if you have any further suggestions, they'd be very much appreciated.

regards

John

I keep hearing this "file manager as super user" stuff. Maybe stop playing around with that, because I have a feelling that you're messing up the permissions. If you want to admin your box do it via the command line. Also, try running these apps as a normal user through a terminal and see if there are any verbose messages, might give us a clue.

Till then, goodluck to you and your partnet with a torn skirt!

Yeah, I hear what you're saying equinox, my problem has always been a lack of knowledge when it comes to CLI. I do appreciate that "it" is considerably more powerful, but even after 3 years of using linux (various distros), I still have so much windows baggage drifting around my head, I automatically go for graphic solutions.

I'm too much of a dummy, and unless someone shows me a nice instruction list of exactly what commands too use, I'm usually screwed.

When I got back from delivering a pair of trousers for Clare, I continued meddling until I'd screwed my system completely.

So, since then, I've just taken the "n00b way out" and re-installed a base system, though I made sure that I double checked the selections during the partitioning phase, and de-selected the ACL options for all my partitions.

Also, just in case my problems are some sort of legacy issue from not formatting my /home partition last time and that theres some sort of permissions problem being caused, I re-formatted that as well (dumping about a gigs worth of mp3's, though a properly working system is more important).

So, as I type this (on Clares laptop), I've changed/added the various media sources and am doing the updates. I have simplified the install considerably, as I just opted to do a basic graphic install with KDE (but not the "all of KDE" option). It's gonna take a while I suspect.

Then I'll be able too see if it was indeed something to do with either ACL or possibly problems from my previously formatted /home.

regards

John

Well, as I proceeded with the re-install, I spotted the default check box which puts the ACL facility in the various partitions, so I un-checked them.

Plus I set the partitioning facility to format the partitions as well i.e. all of them, rather than just the /boot and /root partitions.

I also, just did a straight install of base system + KDE (not the "all of kde" option though), and rather than doing the updates at install time, I left them until I'd changed the media sources.

Which has resulted in me being able to install thunderbird and firefox as normal (presumably). Opera was a little different inasfaras, I had to download the SuSE rpm from the opera site, then click the "use directory as YAST source" option, followed by the "install with YAST" option.

This seems to have installed opera properly.

I can now open all 3 apps as user without any problems (I didn't bother installing "proper" mozilla). So it would appear that my guess of not having formatted the /home originally when I started and/or the ACL facility, probably caused some sort of permissions problem - though it's a little frustrating not to have found the exact problem.

Ah well, never mind at least my systems working.

ta for the assistance equinox.

regards

John

I think I see what your problem is/was...

You mentioned you had kept your /home also from a previous installation, so obviously the permissions and acl's mest things up! Anyone else want to confirm this for me?

Out of curiousity, why would you need 4 different web browsers?

Cheers.

Oh right, well if I write a web page or two, I tend to "kick the arse out of" compatibility testing. I also shove them through the compatibility tester for standards compliance at W3C.

Only 4 browsers? bugger, that means I haven't got round to getting the latest crossover office from codeweavers. Then I can also install MS Office 2k and IE6! It amuses me no end, to run ms apps on a linux system :D :D :D

regards

John