Posts by i686-linux

Sorry, 3rd party. Last time I saw it, it came bundled with Norton System Works 2003. This link may be of help:
http://www.softwaredirections.com/ptree/
Though I can't remember if that is it for sure or not. Like I said, I haven't used it in 4 years. There is a 3rd party tool out there somewhere called "depends." and you can use it to check what files a .exe or .dll file requires to run. I saw it at a client I work for, but have no clue of it's origin. That is kind of useless information I guess, but maybe you can hunt it down. :-/

I haven't tried using the "Desktop Sharing" feature that I have seen lately, but I beleive that it is KDE-specific. Are you running KDE as your desktop environment, or are you trying to run this under Gnome/Fluxbox/XFCE/WindowMaker/etc...? KDE programs often have issues when run outside of the KDE environment.

Can you specify 'modprobe -r bttv' or just 'modprobe' though in the sudoers file? If you can have any user in a 'tvusers' group to be able to 'modprobe -r bttv' using sudo, that would be your safest bet. (I think.) I'm sure you wouldn't want to have everyone be able to run 'modprobe <any module>'. For obvious reasons. :) Even if you are the only user of the machine, it just isn't good practice.

Buying a cheap sound card might be the best solution. Especially since you have seemed to have had lots of trouble with these drivers from the very beginning!

There was a tool that I used about 3 or 4 years ago with Windows 98 called something like "Process Tree." However, it only worked for running processes. IE: "processX.exe is a child of processY.exe" as I recall.

I'm stuck with hand-me-down OEM boards from Packard-Bell, and Micron. No recommendation here. :sad:

Which process are you considering to be "pesky?" I would just disable those process for now, and see how your machine runs. If it is still running slow/unstable, then consider turning off more. Things that are not needed are things like Quicktime tray, Winamp agent, Netscape agent, Real Player tray, etc. Those, when all running at once, use up a fair ammount of resources and they are not needed at all. Copy a list of some of the things that are running here. Take a screen shot if you can.

Pebbles -> Cereal (MMmmmm..!)

<<you mean the Justice League?>>

Nope, Metallica album. :)

I use this on Windows, and it is the perfect little tool. Nothing beats `uptime` though. ;-)

http://www.rundegren.com/software/windowsuptime/

Like I said, I wish I had money for a Supra or MKII-MR2. I had an MKI, but ironically, I have more fun with my Civic.

...And Justice for All

Yeah, I was hoping someone would catch on to it's referrence. Oh well. :)

Bah, I swear it used to be somewhere under the options. :) Just checked out that version, and I can't seem to find it. Sorry, I don't use the AOL IM client. I use other software to use the AIM service.

Liberty -> ...And Justice for All

ocean -> freedom

All I have to say, is "wow." I know that there have been projects in the past to implement 3d effects to different environments, but this seems to be pretty well advanced, and pretty well developed so far.

http://wwws.sun.com/software/looking_glass/demo.html

Which version of AIM are you using?

What about Sparc? ;-)

Old Band -> New Wave

I would like to see someone powerslide or drift though in a truck... without tipping over that is. :-P

One is cluttered, the other is clean so you can get a feel for everything involved with my desktop. I didn't include anything kde-based... oh well. :)

Hrmm. I was recently looking into this same phone except with software under linux. I have heard of gnokii, but it doesn't appear to be compatiable with my phone. Has anyone seen any software for this, or similar model phones that can be run under linux?

Yup. Cars and computers are my biggest thing in life. (on the un-living side of things). I guess friends and family for the living. :-P I was going to get a Greddy exhaust for my Civic, but went with a Tsudo instead. Wish I had big money for a nice Supra, or MR2. :)

I think that many others here will agree. Windows Me is next to worthless. I would recommend upgrading to Windows XP (if you can afford it). An upgrade to Internet Explorer 6.0 may help fix your issues with the script errors. Some pages are written in a way that only certain browsers (Internet Explorer, Netscape, Mozilla, others...) can see the page properly. Sometimes having an older version of Internet Explorer (as shipped wtih Me) can cause the page to give you errors because it doesn't know how to interpret the page properly, so it thinks there is an error with the page. Windows Me is notorious for causing all kinds of issues and crashes quite frequently. An upgrade to XP will likely fix many issues, some that you may not have even realized you had. I don't know where you can find a used copy, or a cheap one of Windows XP online. Maybe someone here can point you in the right direction. And remember, keep it legal! No warez posts allowed! :)

I've used slackware for 4 years and never once have I been disappointed. http://www.slackware.com

I agree. Hands down, favorite distro. I have used Debian, Redhat, Mandrake, (and those based upon those mentioned), and a few other "niche" distros, and by far, I must say taht Slackware is my favorite. I love the BSD-style init scripts, low overhead installer/configuration tools, and security, out of the box. Patches are as simple as '/sbin/upgradepkg' and the slackware "package tools" provide for easy package management. Each distro has their strong point(s), but IMHO slackware has the most.

I usually use a shoe horn, some baby oil, and a really big mallet. :p

But do you prefer a crowbar or a chisel for decompression?:cheesy:

Charles -> Snoopy

I actually made a perl robot myself.

And by "myself" he means with my help. ;-)

I think this thread is dead. Anyone agree? This is the person's only post since October (when they signed up)

If you are going to be needing a Java IDE, I would highly recommend NetBeans. It is cross-platform, and runs pretty smoothely on both Windows and Linux. It also runs on Solaris (both Sparc and x86), OpenVMS, and MacOSX. I am not a huge Java programmer, so there may be better tools out there.

Many credible resources exist online.

http://tldp.org comes to mind. Some of it may be a bit dated, but lots of help is also available on IRC and various newsgroups.

Perl is an excellent language for doing shell work, log parsing, website backends, the list goes on. I wrote a site backend once that updated image galleries, video galleries, news headlines, archives, etc, all using Perl on the backend. Perl fits in so well with databases, apache, Windows, Unix. Perl is an awesome language to know. You may not use it everyday, but wow can it come in handy.

Is the mouse that you are using on the machine a USB mouse? Often times with 3rd party format/partition/image tools such as Norton Ghost don't have support for certain types of mice. In this event, either attach a PS/2 mouse temporarily or use the keyboard to navigate around. Use keys like "Tab" to switch fields or buttons, up and down, "Space bar" to select items, and "Enter/Return" to click a button. Hope this helps.

I apologize greatly, it had been a long day. :-/

Does the floppy drive show up in the BIOS, or can you see the drive when the machines POSTs?

This topic is a very valid topic, and there aren't any issues with the topic itself, but in the future try to keep threads in a related parent forum. This really doesn't belong in a "Hardware" forum. No big issue, but it helps others in the future if they have a smiliar question to find things easier.

Once you put in your service tag on their site, it gives you a list of certain software that came with the computer. Mostly drivers, but also BIOS utilities, and other MISC things, quite possibly including the software that you are talking about. It doesn't include things like your Norton Antivirus trial, or whatever else, but it does include Dell branded utilities. The tool that you are talking about is probably a part of that "Dell branded utility" category.

Usually a Microsoft product won't complain about the product key being invalid unless it is some type of pirated software. I am not making any acusations though, as we all know that software can be faulty at times. :) Whether it is or isn't pirated software is your personal business, but if it is pirated, then don't expect too much out of it. :-/

If the software came OEM from Dell, than you can go their support site http://support.dell.com and enter your service tag for a list of software that is appropriate for your system. If you do not know your service tag, but are using Internet Explorer, then it is possible to let the Dell website find your service tag for you. The instructions for doing so are on their website.

This depends greatly on what version of Windows you are talking about.

If TallCool1's suggestion doesn't help any. (although it should...) then it is very possible that it is in fact the screen. I have an Inspiron 8200 myself, which is the same chassis style, and have had other such issues with my screen. (Mostly in the hinge sensor for open/close) I have read numerous times about people having issues with the I8x00 series screens on varioues news groups, and even heard it from Dell. I have not pursued getting a replacement screen for mine, as it isn't that troublesome... yet, but I beleive they are somewhere in ballpark of $400-$500. Someone please correct me if I am wrong.

Which operating system would be the host, and which would be the client? A lot of this makes a big difference. If you are concerned about cross compatability, then I would recommend VNC, because to my knowledge it has the best support across Windows/Mac/Unices, and you can even port it to other things using the source code.

The method that I used when limited to floppy disks was setting up an NFS server at home, and using the Slackware Linux boot floppy to load the software packages from the NFS server. This requires having a supported NIC. A good recommendation is the Linksys PCM100. (NOT the PCM200) If you don't have the resources to setup an NFS server (a bit of overkill if you'd only use it for this one process) then there are methods of installing Slackware linux over FTP, though this is a bit of a "hack." The main ones for Slackware that I know of are called SuckSlack and SlackFTP. If *BSD interests you more, lots of documentation is available on http://www.freebsd.org for installing a system via either NFS or FTP. (their installer provides native FTP installation support, no hack jobs! ;-)) Here is a quick link, but you may want to do more background reading before you jump right in. http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/install-diff-media.html

I am sure there are many other possible ways to do it, and we all know how well linux and bsd runs on older hardware. You could even run X on this with a very low resource window manager like blackbox, or twm, but I would recommend keeping it to the CLI as much as you can. I have seen Windows 95 run very smoothely on these older laptops, but to to your limited installation method, this seems to me like the best …

(/device/harddriveapartition1 is an easy way to remember it)

"a" does not mean partition

It's more like:

Primary Master: hda
Primary Slave: hdb
Secondary Master: hdc
Secondary Slave: hdd
Tertiary Master: hde
Tertiary Slave: hdf

and so on...

... and also how do I start in the command mode....I've tried changing the runlevel to all the runlevels possible but but keeps on booting in the graphical environment

What did you use to try to change the runlevel before?

There is a config file '/etc/inittab' that contains the default runlevel setting. A default inittab usually has enough comments to help you understand it. there is probably a line similar to:

id:4:initdefault:

To enable the default console-based multiuser mode, change the line to:

id:3:initdefault:

Just in case your inittab doesn't have the comments, here are the runlevels:

# 0 = halt
# 1 = single user mode
# 2 = unused (but configured the same as runlevel 3)
# 3 = multiuser mode (default Slackware runlevel)
# 4 = X11 with KDM/GDM/XDM (session managers)
# 5 = unused (but configured the same as runlevel 3)
# 6 = reboot

For the sake of everyone involved, be VERY careful when editing this file! :)

Every distro is a bit different, but the problem with doing a chmod -x on gdm, is that somewhere in your rc scripts it may rollover to xdm, or kdm if gdm is not found/executable.

Which is better, dunno, what is it you are trying to do? Why don't you try them, and find out which works best for you. I could tell you which one is the clear winner, but that won't help you. My needs will probably be differant than your needs. Try them both along with any other app that interests you, only you will know the clear winner.

While I personally am leaning more towards OpenOffice, I would definitely have to agree with this statement. Try them both and see what works for you. If you are just looking for something personal, to type of homework, and other documents and spreadsheets, then KOffice should more than suffice. If you need stronger portability to/from Microsoft office documents, and a stronger application, then try Open Office.

Just my two cents.

I really need to pick up on Mandrake, so I may be wrong, but on every other distro I have used, the proper file to edit is the XF86Config, not XF86Config-4. /etc/X11/XF86Config for example. Try that one, and tell how it works

I love hot chicks as much as the next guy, but in all fairness, let's not make this too gender specific. :) Otherwise, that sounds like a great idea.

Is the purpose of having the dialup modem to be used as a main internet connection, or to provide some kind of dial-in service, or just for extreme-backup redundancy? :) If it is for your main internet connection, then by the time bandwidth gets to the other machines on the network, your downstream is going to be painfuly limited. So slow that even a telnet session will give you a headache. I think other people would agree that an upgrade to Cable/DSL would be best, but please explain the topology that you wish to have in the end.

Well, you can directly connect two computers using a parallel to parallel, or serial to parallel cable ...

I was under the impression that serial to parallel cable would not work. (At least not with the Windows Direct Connection software) Correct me if I am wrong. :)