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���� �����, 16 �������� 2002, 15:04, Shachar Shemesh ��� �� 'A mandrake and a
KDE 3 question + general impressions':
> After a recent partition table oops, I had to reinstall my entire HD
Sorry for your loss..
> :-(. I chose mandrake, partly to see what all the fuss is about, and
Good choice ;-)
> .. autodetected (except for the fact that my mouse has a wheel, for some
> strange reason).
That's weird - I have never had any trouble with mouse autodetection with my
MS mice.
> The switch back to the RPM system is a bit traumatic for me. I MISS
> APT-GET!!!!! I managed to find a tool that will let me install a package
> by name if it's on the Mandrake CDs, and that's fine as far as it gets.
Like my esteemed colleges have already mentioned, the Mandrake urpmi system is
mostly a good apt-get replacement (it does not _yet_ compile packages from
sources), and it also have a nice graphical interface: using the Mandrake
Control Center, go to "Package Management" and choose "Manage software
sources". here you can add "package repositories" from local disk, removable
media or remote HTTP or FTP sites. then with rpmdrake that can also be run
from the Mandrake Control Center ('install software') you can install and
upgrade packages from those repositories. rpmdrake 1.x used to be more
feature rich then the current 2.0, and it was dumbed down for Mandrake to aim
closer to the linux newbie market, but its still quite usable.
> I also didn't like the fact that it turned on autologin. Maybe it's
> becase I only defined one user during install. In any case, the install
> didn't ask me about doing so, and I had to look quite a bit in order to
> turn that off.
It actually did ask you, but its easy to miss it in all the "next, next,
finish" type of install that DrakX now does - after you click "done" in the
user creation part it presents you with a dialog with two buttons : 'OK' and
'cancel'. 9 out of 10 users will simply click 'OK' without reading the text
of the dialog, which in not so clear wording ask you to click 'OK' to enable
autologin or 'cancel' not to.
> On the down side, it is not exactly not my cup of tea. As an advanced
> user, some of the things there a slightly annoying. It configured a FW
> with three options "standard", "server", and "ultra secure".
The firewall configuration takes after RedHat and leaves much to be desired.
but you can install KNetfilter which comes on the installation disk and build
your own rules or install NAAT, which is Mandrake's web front end to their
appliance class commercial distribution, and has very detailed fire wall
wizards.
> Now, the questions:
> 1. KDE 3 supports Hebrew. In KDE 2, however, I had the choice of
> defining the codepage to support Hebrew, while the user interface was
> english. I cannot seem to locate that option any more. It seems that the
> only way I'll be able to get Hebrew characters is if the user interface
> is Hebrew as well. Is that really the case? Am I missing something?
Yes. just run KControl and go to 'peripherals' and then 'keyboard'. enable
keyboard layout and check the "Israeli" keyboard. you can also set some
options for xkb - I usually set it to remember the keyboard setting for
window class, allow to switch layouts with ALT-SHIFT and turn on the
scroll-lock led to indicate alternate layout. I'm not sure if you need the
kde-i18n-he package to do that or only if you want Hebrew interface, but I
kind of like the Hebrew interface and I'm using it all the time at home. most
people think I'm weird.
> 2. The package maintaner software for Mandrake has an option of using an
> external site for updates. Is there a repository that contains the CD
> files as well (in case I don't want to CDs handy, and I have a fast
> internet connection)? Is there a place where I can find extra packages
> not shipped on the CDs?
You can add more software repositories to the Mandrake software sources
manager discussed earlier. it used to have an autoloading list of mirrors for
repositories, but now it only offers that for the "security updates" type of
source. but no matter - simply travel to Mandrake's site
(www.mandrake-linux.com, not the commercial site) go over to the mirrors
section and add choose one of the mirrors listed. you can also check out a
cooker mirror to get bleeding edge (read: crashable) software or a contrib
directory (found in a mirror, either release or cooker, near you) to get
packages that didn't make it into the distribution. to add such a repository,
browse the ftp site and locate the RPMS directory whose URL you need to type
into the repository manager and then the relative path to the hdlist.cz file
(which contains dependency lists) which is usually located one directory down
and in a dir called 'base'. if you don't mind going down to the console (and
I'm sure you don't as you are a Debian user), then you can use the
urpmi.addmedia command mentioned which can pick up both the release or cooker
repository and its nearby contrib repository in a single bound by using
urpmi.addmedia --distrib <repository name> <URL>
where <name> is something you just made up, and <URL> it the path to the base
of the CD tree, and which usually ends in 'i586/'
Mandrake Club members also have access to other repositories with commercial
software RPMed and ready to install. also there are several free repositories
on the net, one which I like to recommend is PLF - Penguin Liberation Front
at http://plf.zarb.org which contains lots of packages that cannot be put
into the official distribution for various reasons (mostly legislative). for
example - it has a full featured DVD player plugin for Xine with menu
support, sub titles and everything you'd like, which is called d5d. also
don't miss the win32-codecs package and its plugin packages which lets you
play windows-only video and audio files in a variety of players w/o any fuss
whatsoever.
- --
Oded
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