[Abarbarian]

I know some folks are interested in Linux and came across this very thorough walkthrough with pictures on how to install and set up a Mandriva One 2009.1 operating system with a Gnome desktop. It is the 32 Bit version, as stated in the article if you use the "FREE" version you will have to add some extra steps.

I'm going to do a walkthrough on the FREE 64 Bit soon but I doubt it will be as good as this one.

http://www.howtoforge.com/the-perfec...9.1-with-gnome



http://www.tuxdistro.com/torrents-details.php?id=1564

Above is a link where you can download the 64 BIT version I am going to use. You can also get a download from the official Mandriva web site.

http://www.mandriva.com/en/download/free

I always use a Bit Torrent client to download Linux OS's as I think it is the best way to distribute stuff also I feel that it helps to build up a community spirit. It is also a good way to demonstrate that torrents are not always illegal and evil.

Well I finally got around to installing Mandy. The FREE 64 Bit version is not a Live DVD so your only option is to install straight to disk. I'm a bit tired so this will be brief. As there are plenty of walkthroughs on the net I'm not going to give screenshots for the install. The author of my first link has done a sterling job and I feel that there is no need to duplicate the install information. He does do a 32 Bit install with Gnome wheras I will be doing a 64 Bit with KDE so there will be some slight changes depending on which and what flavour you decide to try. I will instead concentrate on any tips and tweaks as I come across them.

Here is a link to the 2008 install and set up walkthrough I did. Some of the information is still relevant and some not. There is a bomb proof way to set up Bionic if you are a cruncher.

http://www.pcreview.co.uk/forums/thread-3522034.php

The install went smoothly and all my hardware was found and seems to work ok. At least all the stuff needed for connecting to the net works. I'll post a detailed list of my computer specifications later. Compared to my last try at Mandy with the 2008 version this was very much plug and play. My monitor was detailed in the setup list and on re-boot I was suprised to find that my desktop was showing up in the correct setting 1900 x1200. Internet connection was set up in the install and after re-boot all I had to do to connect to the internet was click on the FireFox icon.

I opened up the Control Center from the icon on the start bar to add some extra media sources in particular the NON_FREE mirrors. Now I am going to run the update application from the little red icon that has appeared on the start bar.Seems as though there are ten up dates for me, two of those are for foreign languages so if you are only using the UK install you would not need those. There were four updates for google gadgets so no need to download those as I won't be using Gnome or Google Gadgets. Well that was a real pain in the neck I had to wait a whole three minutes for the updates to download and install, not even enough time to make tea never mind drink it along with a biscuit.

Did someone mention tea and biscuits. Hmm I am a bit thirsty and peckish. It has taken me about one and a half hours to do the install and update. It would have taken less time but I have been busy setting up some add-ons for FF mainly FOXMARKS or as it is now XMARKS. That took three or four minutes but time well spent as I now have all my bookmarks transferred and sync'd with my other pc, it is nice to have all my bookmarks handy on a new install. Also I have been posting here so that has extended the time of the install but again I think it is time well spent as it is nice to give something back in return for this free OS.

Well that is it for now time for that luverly cup of tea and I think I have a chocolate biscuit or two to dunk. I think I will do a backup with Acronis as I am going to play with Mandy tomorrow and do not want to have to go through all of the above again if I goof which knowing me is very likely. I would use a Linux alternative but the last two times I tried backing up with Linux applications I got a bit confused and borked me os. I will however look into doing it the linux way later on.



Below are the various walkthroughs.


External USB Drives - Post 2

GKRELLM - monitor - Post 4

WIDGETS - pc funk - Post 5

.FLV Transcoding - Post 6

KDE Themes - a short how to mix and match - Post 7 (contributed by Urmas)

Okular -PDF Reader - Post 12 and Post 13

DOLPHIN - root bug - Post 14



Penguins preen perfectly they have to otherwise they would sink whilst swimming

[Abarbarian]

I was going to do a full walkthrough of the Mandriva 2009.1 Free 64 Bit. However I feel that a great deal of the installation process has been covered by quite a few folk so to do so would be a waste of time. In my firts post I give a link to an excellent guide for the 32 Bit ONE install and here is a link to the 2008 64 Bit install I did. There should be enough information in those to help most folk get a good install.

http://www.pcreview.co.uk/forums/thread-3522034-3.php

So here I am going to concentrate on how to do this that or the other. Starting with a small problem I had with using a external usb drive. It looks like a glitch in the latest version of Mandriva and I think that a bug report has been forwarded and the issue is being addressed.
I did some digging and solved the problem but as usual the info was a tad hard to find and possibly not suitable for total newwbies. What follows is my solution with pictures which I think most folk will be able to follow. I will not be showing each and every step involved so you will need to be a tiny bit pc literate.



This first shot shows the various partitions on my main drive which is dual booted with windows XP.




Here I have plugged in the usb drive and the partitions show up,Games, Music, Imp Doc and Memories.



As you can see they also show up in a konsole.



However if I try to access a partition on the usb drive I get this message. There is no way to mount the partition at this point from the Dolphin file manager. So we need another method of mounting the partitions.



We need to open up the Control Center from the Start bar and go to the Local Disc section.

[Abarbarian]

Once you are into the section you find a partition manager,. We are after the "sdb" drive.



Click on one og the partitions and you get extra information. Click on the "Mount Point" button.



Enter the information shown. Now I do belive that you could enter something else here so if someone has any extra information on this please do share.
Carry on and do the same thing with all the partitions changeing the endings of course.



Now your entries should look similar to this.



Now it is back to Dolphin and --- whats this ---------- the partitions are still unavailable ???????????



So it is back to the Control Center and this time remember to click on the "Mount" buitton.



Now your entries should look like this. You did remember to mount ALL the partitions didn't you.



Back in Dolphin we see that we are now able to access all the partitions. Thank goodness for that now I can watch The Monkey King without having to boot to XP.





I have a 8GB Giga Cube USB drive which when plugged in shows up as a new device and so do the various usb sticks I have. It is just my large usb drive that does not show automatically.



Here is the 8 GB drive showing in Dolphin.

The hassle with mounting my large drive is a tiny bit disapointing as mounting drives in the other Mandriva versions was so easy and one of the features that attracted me to the OS initially. Still it is only a small easily worked around bug that I am sure will soon be fixed.

Thats all for now folks. I have flu at the moment so my write up has not been as witty as usual. I'm of to re-charge with cream buns and lashings of hot coffee laced with Woods Navy Rum.

[Abarbarian]

http://www.pcreview.co.uk/forums/thread-3522034-2.php

The above walkthrough gives all the information you need to install. This is a very versitile piece of kit with lots of extra bits and bobs to customise as you wish. Loads of funky skins to fit in with any colour scheme and background. I especially like the Moon Phase as it reminds me when the full moon is about to happen, gives me time to stock up with extra razor blades

I'm sticking to a blue theme for a while as you can tell. There are six temps showing and I am trying to figure out which two are relevant to my AMD dual core's. Yes I know they are all relevant. I'm also trying to find out if "THRM" is the temp for the mobo. An I'd like to get the "hda" temp to show. Any help here would be great.

[Abarbarian]

You can funk up your desktop with Widgets. I normaly like to have just a picture on me desktop and have me start bar on auto-hide and with XP I have been using the excellent Rocket Dock as a side bar. I have briefly tried out the Widgets function on Mandriva and have not found out howw to lock them to just one desktop. You did know that there is a button on your start bar to swap between four desktops as standard on Mandy didn't you.



At the top LEFT of yuor screen you will find this after clicking on the grey bubble.




After clicking on the ADD WIDGETS a window will appear. Open up the drop down menu too choose widgets by type.



Here I am going for the weather widget.



Some folk may want t o see the weather in SA but not me.
By hovering the mouse over the widget you get a sidebar, click on the spanner to access the settings.




Lucky for me I know where I live. Highlight your choice and then click OK and the widget will resort itself.



Grey just will not fit in with my colour scheme so I'll try out the FUNKY look, neat , but I finnaly went for the plain BLUE.



Clicking on the two round symbols top right in the widget finds you a drop down sattelite weather map or a day by day forecast. Handy if you want to plan ahead.



As I have my start bar hidden it might be wise to have a clock somewhere. The digital version was quite neat but I'm old fashioned so have decided on the analogue version.



Now you can make any of the widgets as big as you like, fill up the desktop if your that shortsighted. Do this by dragging at the little squre on the widget sidebar.



Here is the finished result. Shame there was no choice of background colour for the clock. I bet you just need to change a line or two in a config file to do that, if anyone can give me pointers I may have a go.

So thats the widgets for Mandy. I.m sure that more and more will appear now that KDE4 is a bit more mature. Hunt around on the net for some or make your own to suit yourself.

I would just like to remind folk that all of the walkthroughs I have posted so far are done with stock applications. With onlythe Gkrellm application needing to be downloaded, it only took a couple clicks and a couple of minutes to download and install from the on board Software Management application. All done with a mouse and GUI view no complicated COMMAND LINE stuff at all. Mind you you could have done all of it with the command line if nyou had wanted to.

So you can see from this little introduction to customising Mandriva that not only do you have a free os but a highly individualisable one with useful functions aswell. By spending a little time searching on the net you can find all sorts of extra bits and bobs to really funk up your pc.

Time for more coffee and Navy Rum, shame I have run out of cream cakes and I'm too ill to get on me motorcycle to restock from the shop. Guess I'll just have to starve and drink meself better then.

[Abarbarian]

Downloaded some video clips from YouTube or similar site in .FLV format and want to burn them to a dvd. Even in Windows this can be a difficult job, finding free software to do it is quite a chore and some of the free offerings are not so newbiee friendly.
I found Media Coder which does take a bit of setting up as it has a heck of a lot of functions and I wanted to recode some .FLV files in Mandriva. Let me stress that the Totem player included with Mandy will play .FLV files it is just that I wanted to transcode(is that the right term?) some files to give to a mate so he could play them on his windows pc with the media player..
This being a rush job I did not have time to figure out how to use Avidemux which I belive is the linux tool to do the job. I'm not the brightest shilling on the block so it takes me a while to get to grips with new applications.
Well Media Coder is a windows application so to use it in linux you have to install WINE along with a few dependencies.




Took a couple of minutes to download and install Wine.



Then we needed Media Coder. I already had the file so I swapped it over from a windows partition and parked it in /home/download. Once there you simply double left click on the .exe file and it calls up wine in the background and installs, pretty much as you would do on a windows pc. Thats it easy peasy. I closed the program down to show you how to find the start icon via the main menu or should I say the Kicker Launcher.



To check if it installed follow the path.




It is a touch long winded.



But you get there in the end.




Phew we got there. Click on the icon to launch, once again if you are familiar with windows this is nothing new.



To make life easier Media Coder will put a icon on the desktop as part of the install if you give it permissino to do so.



After clicking on either of the icons we found the program loads. 18 minutes later I have a nicely transcoded set of about 650 mb files. The shot shows a file from a different job.

I am looking for a linux alternative for transcoding so if anyone has any pointers they would be a great help. Thas all for today folks.

[Urmas]

Originally Posted by Abarbarian

Shame there was no choice of background colour for the clock. I bet you just need to change a line or two in a config file to do that, if anyone can give me pointers I may have a go.

Why do I get this sneaking suspicion that this was directed towards me?

You can go and fiddle with config files if you are feeling geeky... but plasmoids follow themes, and when you have multiple themes installed, you can "mix and match".

This is how the analog clock looks like in my [unpimped] Kubuntu (default theme: Oxygen):



OK... let's play a bit... System Settings --> Advanced --> Desktop Theme Details:



There it is... Analog Clock. Problem is, there are no other themes installed (the Kubuntu .iso fits on a CD). So... click on "Get New Themes"... and...



... Houston, we have themes. I installed a couple themes, closed the "Add-on Installer" window, and...



... the new themes (Glassified and o3) were available in the dropdown menu. But we don't want to use a new theme, we just want a new look for the clock, right? So...



... in "Analog Clock's dropdown box", I changed the theme for the clock. But then I got the "info message" as per the above image. Gnomie that I am, I had to think a bit, but to access "the desktop Appearance Settings" is easy: right click on desktop, choose "Appearance Settings". And...



Oxygen is out, Customized rules... here's the clock now:




Sound conversion? Soundkonverter is good, but it doesn't "do" YouTube. Utube Ripper does:
http://maketecheasier.com/ubuntu-how...deo/2008/06/30

Only problem is that I don't see a 64bit Mandy package... so if that's what you're using, you're going to have to wait a bit:
http://sourceforge.net/project/showf...roup_id=222532

[Abarbarian]

yous the man Urmas.

Will try later as me flu is worse today.

Was converting .flv video files not just the audio. Almost sure that Mandy is set up to take advantage of 32 bit stuff if 64 bit is not available.

[Urmas]

Originally Posted by Abarbarian

Will try later as me flu is worse today.

Plenty of bed rest and lots of fluids.

[Abarbarian]

Add Strong Java and cream cakes thats what the local druid told me