Johanna wrote: > Okay, this is my preliminary report on the new beta. I would appreciate > any kind of help on the issues mentioned below, because at some points > I'm really at a loss. This is my first experience with Linux, and I'm no > good at troubleshooting - I was kind of hoping for a system that would > more or less work at least with the basic things, but up to now Mandrake > only very partially does. > > I've installed Mandrake on my iBook 2 (600 Mhz, internal CD-RW). > Installation went quite smooth, though - from a newbie point of view - > some things aren't really self-explanatory. For example, I had the > choice between German keyboard with or without "death"/Tod keys - what > on earth ARE those? > > One thing that really impressed me was how quick and easy my > DSL-connection was established and is now established after every startup. > > Still, after having installed the whole thing, I'm less than happy with > it (I ought to add that I'm not the kind of person who goes and installs > an new kernel just like that). The main problem is the keyboard mapping. > All the available mappings are for PC. The alt key is not recognized, > and neither are the signs it normally produces - meaning I couldn't find > out how to type an @-sign. How can it be that a Linux distribution made > specifically for PPC doesn't know Mac keyboards? Anyway, I haven't found > out how to write an E-mail-Adress up to now :-( > > Another thing I couldn't find out was how to make my CD-RW drive open. > Normally, I use the F12 key to do that. Unfortunately, the drive doesn't > react to this. So, can't I read CDs or what? > > I tried to configure power management, but got the answer that apm > kernel drivers aren't installed. Hmmm... so what do I do? > > My wheel mouse was detected fine, and sound is working. > > Mozilla wouldn't start up. I used Konqueror, but found that it behaved > rather strangely sometimes (the cursor would always jump away from the > input line, even if I didn't touch the mouse at all). Anyway, it > basically worked. > > What about Lyx/Latex? Aren't they supposed to be installed? What package > do I have to chose in order to get them? I chose the scientific one, > office etc. but Lyx/Latex don't seem to have been installed.
> My printer (lexmark Z42) wasn't detected - I suppose I will have to get > a driver. > > That's all for now :-) All in all, I like Mandrake, but desperately need > to get this keyboard problem fixed in order to use it. > > Johanna > > > > ok, i can answer some of your questions, but not all. I also have an ibook (500,384MB, 10GB,CDRW) and am also pretty new (to linux, not macs). First of all i don't know anything about german keybored, but you should be able to get the @ sighn using the quotation mark key (with shift). i know there was talk of mac-keymapping, but i haven't had to use it myself. You can go into the KDE control panel and change the keybored. As for opening the CDROM try, i use the eject command in the terminal. At the promt do 'cd /mnt/cdrom' then 'eject' As for mozilla, i can only get it to start-up if i open mozilla mail, then open in up from there. It must be some bug in KDE, because it opens fine in gnome, but gnome is to buggy to use properly. As for those other apps you talk about, go into the software manager. There are 2 tabs there (amongst other things) that say 'installed' and 'instalable'. You should be able to work out there what you have installed and what you can install. My HP 840c deskjet printer works fine. It wasn't detected though and i had to manuly tell the 'control center' what printer i had and what interface it was using. If its a USB printer, it should be dev/usb/lp0. I use the USB plug thats next to the firewire port. The other has my USB Speed touch pro in it( this also works very well). As for power management, i can't get it working properly yet.(i can only get suspend) I am testing the latest pmud, but it needs some work. Don't worry about any referance to APM, thats for i386. Remember this is only a beta, most things should be fixed when the final comes out. You seem to be doing pretty well for a newbie though. I've found a lot of this is trial and error stuff. Its probley the best way to learn. good luck Colin
