on Tuesday 10 July 2007 16:34
in the Usenet newsgroup alt.os.linux.mandriva
Doug Laidlaw wrote:

> I am running Mandriva Spring on a Gigabyte motherboard

Which one?

> with NVidia sound and a separate NVidia video card. The mobo was
> so new that even Mandriva 2007.0 didn't run on it. It has a SATA
> main drive on /dev/sda1,

The drive will be sda, the first partition will be sda1.

> and my old IDE drive running second to the DVD burner as /dev/hdb2.

Drive hdb, partitions hdb1, hdb2, etc.

> The onboard sound works with the "multimedia" kernel, but not with
> the standard one.
>
> Since then, I have been having a lot of small niggly problems (the
> latest is that logging out seems to freeze the desktop for about
> 30 seconds,) and although I don't get them when I run PClinuxOS on
> the IDE drive, I doubt whether that OS is really better. I recently
> saved its /home and formatted the whole drive. I suspect that the
> situation on the SATA may be the result of many reinstalls, and
> perhaps installing and uninstalling software that has left config
> files in my home directory.

If you have reliable backups of everything from the SATA drive you
can format it to your hearts content. You can even run badblocks
with the destructive option set.

> With a standard reinstall, I delete only the root partition
> (which includes /boot and /etc) and the /usr partition. Is it
> perhaps time to format the lot and start completely afresh,
> backing up only the data and a couple of irreplaceable
> settings in /home, and as little as possible in /var, rather than
> keeping these two partitions intact?

Personally, I don't keep /var. If you create a test user with
no history you can see how it behaves.

> Intuitively, I can't see what difference it would make, but I am
> not really qualified to say. Ubuntu insists that I format /var
> to avoid any interaction, but I have had nothing but Mandriva
> on the SATA drive.

If you stick to the same version it shouldn't make a difference
with old configuration files, but once you format things the
history should be gone.


--
sig goes here...
Peter D.

Doug Laidlaw wrote:

> I am running Mandriva Spring on a Gigabyte motherboard with NVidia sound
> and
> a separate NVidia video card. The mobo was so new that even Mandriva
> 2007.0 didn't run on it. It has a SATA main drive on /dev/sda1, and my
> old
> IDE drive running second to the DVD burner as /dev/hdb2. The onboard
> sound works with the "multimedia" kernel, but not with the standard one.
>
> Since then, I have been having a lot of small niggly problems (the latest
> is that logging out seems to freeze the desktop for about 30 seconds,) and
> although I don't get them when I run PClinuxOS on the IDE drive, I doubt
> whether that OS is really better. I recently saved its /home and
> formatted
> the whole drive. I suspect that the situation on the SATA may be the
> result of many reinstalls, and perhaps installing and uninstalling
> software
> that has left config files in my home directory. With a standard
> reinstall, I delete only the root partition (which includes /boot and
> /etc)
> and the /usr partition. Is it perhaps time to format the lot and start
> completely afresh, backing up only the data and a couple of irreplaceable
> settings in /home, and as little as possible in /var, rather than keeping
> these two partitions intact? Intuitively, I can't see what difference it
> would make, but I am not really qualified to say. Ubuntu insists that I
> format /var to avoid any interaction, but I have had nothing but Mandriva
> on the SATA drive.
>
> Doug.
And while I'm about it, how do I get rid of the default UTF-8 character set?

Doug.
--
We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.
- Winston Churchill.

Peter D. wrote:

> on Tuesday 10 July 2007 16:34
> in the Usenet newsgroup alt.os.linux.mandriva
> Doug Laidlaw wrote:
>
>> I am running Mandriva Spring on a Gigabyte motherboard
>
> Which one?
>
>> with NVidia sound and a separate NVidia video card. The mobo was
>> so new that even Mandriva 2007.0 didn't run on it. It has a SATA
>> main drive on /dev/sda1,
>
> The drive will be sda, the first partition will be sda1.
>
>> and my old IDE drive running second to the DVD burner as /dev/hdb2.
>
> Drive hdb, partitions hdb1, hdb2, etc.
>
>> The onboard sound works with the "multimedia" kernel, but not with
>> the standard one.
>>
>> Since then, I have been having a lot of small niggly problems (the
>> latest is that logging out seems to freeze the desktop for about
>> 30 seconds,) and although I don't get them when I run PClinuxOS on
>> the IDE drive, I doubt whether that OS is really better. I recently
>> saved its /home and formatted the whole drive. I suspect that the
>> situation on the SATA may be the result of many reinstalls, and
>> perhaps installing and uninstalling software that has left config
>> files in my home directory.
>
> If you have reliable backups of everything from the SATA drive you
> can format it to your hearts content. You can even run badblocks
> with the destructive option set.
>
>> With a standard reinstall, I delete only the root partition
>> (which includes /boot and /etc) and the /usr partition. Is it
>> perhaps time to format the lot and start completely afresh,
>> backing up only the data and a couple of irreplaceable
>> settings in /home, and as little as possible in /var, rather than
>> keeping these two partitions intact?
>
> Personally, I don't keep /var. If you create a test user with
> no history you can see how it behaves.
>
>> Intuitively, I can't see what difference it would make, but I am
>> not really qualified to say. Ubuntu insists that I format /var
>> to avoid any interaction, but I have had nothing but Mandriva
>> on the SATA drive.
>
> If you stick to the same version it shouldn't make a difference
> with old configuration files, but once you format things the
> history should be gone.
>
>
Yes, you are right about the drives:

SATA is sda
Flash drive is sdb (usually sdb1, but Zip drives were always sd?4.)
CD-writer is hda
IDE drive is hdb.

I wasn't thinking straight. The /dev/sdb1 put me off.

The mobo is a S-series M61VME-S2.

Doug.
--
Ugliness is only skin deep.
- W.G.P.

On 2007-07-10, Doug Laidlaw wrote:
> Doug Laidlaw wrote:
>
>> I am running Mandriva Spring on a Gigabyte motherboard with NVidia sound
>> and
>> a separate NVidia video card. The mobo was so new that even Mandriva
>> 2007.0 didn't run on it. It has a SATA main drive on /dev/sda1, and my
>> old
>> IDE drive running second to the DVD burner as /dev/hdb2. The onboard
>> sound works with the "multimedia" kernel, but not with the standard one.
>>
>> Since then, I have been having a lot of small niggly problems (the latest
>> is that logging out seems to freeze the desktop for about 30 seconds,) and
>> although I don't get them when I run PClinuxOS on the IDE drive, I doubt
>> whether that OS is really better. I recently saved its /home and
>> formatted
>> the whole drive. I suspect that the situation on the SATA may be the
>> result of many reinstalls, and perhaps installing and uninstalling
>> software
>> that has left config files in my home directory. With a standard
>> reinstall, I delete only the root partition (which includes /boot and
>> /etc)
>> and the /usr partition. Is it perhaps time to format the lot and start
>> completely afresh, backing up only the data and a couple of irreplaceable
>> settings in /home, and as little as possible in /var, rather than keeping
>> these two partitions intact? Intuitively, I can't see what difference it
>> would make, but I am not really qualified to say. Ubuntu insists that I
>> format /var to avoid any interaction, but I have had nothing but Mandriva
>> on the SATA drive.
>>
>> Doug.

I've taken to keeping only data between upgrades or alternative distros;
each one has its own /home directory and thus its own user config files
etc - so I can start a new installation 'fresh' and then try copying old
config files into /home one at a time so that it's easier to sort out what
needs to be changed. I replace Mandriva's default data directories in
/home with links to the actual 'permanent' data in a seperate partition.

> And while I'm about it, how do I get rid of the default UTF-8 character set?

MCC

System

Select the language and the country or region of the system

Advanced

and select 'Old compatibility (non-UTF-8) encoding'.

--
-- ^^^^^^^^^^
-- Whiskers
-- ~~~~~~~~~~

On Tue, 10 Jul 2007 16:34:59 +1000, Doug Laidlaw wrote:
> I am running Mandriva Spring on a Gigabyte motherboard with NVidia sound and

I do not have your hardware. But.

> a separate NVidia video card. The mobo was so new that even Mandriva
> 2007.0 didn't run on it. It has a SATA main drive on /dev/sda1, and my old

Yeah, 2007.0 Official did not even boot with my sata drive.
Release Candidate 3 worked fine.

> Since then, I have been having a lot of small niggly problems (the latest is
> that logging out seems to freeze the desktop for about 30 seconds,)

You might try creating another accout, say junk, log in/out of junk
several times to verify it is a system wide problem, not a user problem.

> and although I don't get them when I run PClinuxOS on the IDE drive,
> I doubt whether that OS is really better.

I am guessing we are seeing some subtle bugs still in 2007.*
My neighbor and I have the same hardware and 2007.0 will lockup just
after logout at runlevel 5 once in awhile.
System will not run Flight Simulator and other intense video games.

My runlevel is 3 and my 2007.1 has the problem with the mouse being
offset half the screen depth from pointer on login. My solution is to keep the
mouse moving during login. Then the mouse is centered on screen during startx.

Intense games do not lock up on 2007.1
I am hoping October's release will catch both problems.

> With a standard reinstall, I delete only the root partition (which
> includes /boot and /etc) and the /usr partition. Is it perhaps time
> to format the lot and start completely afresh, backing up only the
> data and a couple of irreplaceable settings in /home,

I'll recommend not even saving those "couple of irreplaceable settings"

Do the clean install; including /home. Use the desktop control center to
set those "couple of irreplaceable settings".
I have a separate /accounts partition which I link to, after install, for my
$USER common stuff.

> and as little as possible in /var, rather than keeping
> these two partitions intact?

I recommend not mixing /var even on same distributions and version.

> Intuitively, I can't see what difference it would make, but I am not
> really qualified to say. Ubuntu insists that I format /var to avoid
> any interaction, but I have had nothing but Mandriva on the SATA drive.

Your desktop manager may have files in /var which may dinkup other
desktop manager in other distro/release.

I know urpmi has stuff in /var/lib/urpmi/ which you do not want to
mix between releases of Mandriva.

As to your utf8 question. I suggest not screwing with it.
I noticed compatibility messages on boot for the system scripts I have
modified that I just copied back in after install.

So I put the originals back, pulled up kwrite, and cut/pasted my changes
back in and the messages quit showing up.

I do not notice the utf8 stuff except once in a while when I cat some
KDE config file.

Bit Twister wrote:

> On Tue, 10 Jul 2007 16:34:59 +1000, Doug Laidlaw wrote:
>> I am running Mandriva Spring on a Gigabyte motherboard with NVidia sound
>> and
>
> I do not have your hardware. But.
>
>> a separate NVidia video card. The mobo was so new that even Mandriva
>> 2007.0 didn't run on it. It has a SATA main drive on /dev/sda1, and my
>> old
>
> Yeah, 2007.0 Official did not even boot with my sata drive.
> Release Candidate 3 worked fine.
>
>> Since then, I have been having a lot of small niggly problems (the latest
>> is that logging out seems to freeze the desktop for about 30 seconds,)
>
> You might try creating another accout, say junk, log in/out of junk
> several times to verify it is a system wide problem, not a user problem.
>
>> and although I don't get them when I run PClinuxOS on the IDE drive,
>> I doubt whether that OS is really better.
>
> I am guessing we are seeing some subtle bugs still in 2007.*
> My neighbor and I have the same hardware and 2007.0 will lockup just
> after logout at runlevel 5 once in awhile.
> System will not run Flight Simulator and other intense video games.
>
> My runlevel is 3 and my 2007.1 has the problem with the mouse being
> offset half the screen depth from pointer on login. My solution is to keep
> the mouse moving during login. Then the mouse is centered on screen during
> startx.
>
> Intense games do not lock up on 2007.1
> I am hoping October's release will catch both problems.
>
>> With a standard reinstall, I delete only the root partition (which
>> includes /boot and /etc) and the /usr partition. Is it perhaps time
>> to format the lot and start completely afresh, backing up only the
>> data and a couple of irreplaceable settings in /home,
>
> I'll recommend not even saving those "couple of irreplaceable settings"
>
> Do the clean install; including /home. Use the desktop control center to
> set those "couple of irreplaceable settings".
> I have a separate /accounts partition which I link to, after install, for
> my $USER common stuff.
>
>> and as little as possible in /var, rather than keeping
>> these two partitions intact?
>
> I recommend not mixing /var even on same distributions and version.
>
>> Intuitively, I can't see what difference it would make, but I am not
>> really qualified to say. Ubuntu insists that I format /var to avoid
>> any interaction, but I have had nothing but Mandriva on the SATA drive.
>
> Your desktop manager may have files in /var which may dinkup other
> desktop manager in other distro/release.
>
> I know urpmi has stuff in /var/lib/urpmi/ which you do not want to
> mix between releases of Mandriva.
>
> As to your utf8 question. I suggest not screwing with it.
> I noticed compatibility messages on boot for the system scripts I have
> modified that I just copied back in after install.
>
> So I put the originals back, pulled up kwrite, and cut/pasted my changes
> back in and the messages quit showing up.
>
> I do not notice the utf8 stuff except once in a while when I cat some
> KDE config file.

Thanks. Just a couple of things:

(a) I forgot to mention that in Gnucash, some transactions, mostly ones
imported from Quicken on Windows XP, can't be deleted, yet everything is
contained in one XML file. The Gnucash team don't believe it, and I find
it hard to believe, myself. Just another of those "little things".

(b) I am beginning to wonder how different PClinux is, except for using
Synaptic. It is an RPM system, and even has a tick speed of 250, or server
speed, on a desktop, and UTF-8. It is more like a duplicate of Mandriva.

(c) The reason I want a reasonable character set is for interoperability
with Windows. I don't run Windows much, but I boot into XP daily. Even
RPMdrake says it has invalid UTF-8 characters. I do watch my end-of-line,
although it doesn't seem to matter that much, these days, but seeing some
of the attempts to render UTF-8 is almost worth a good laugh.

Doug.
--
Be wisely worldly, be not worldly wise.
- Francis Quarles.

On Wed, 11 Jul 2007 01:22:13 +1000, Doug Laidlaw wrote:
>
> Thanks. Just a couple of things:
>
> (a) I forgot to mention that in Gnucash, some transactions, mostly ones
> imported from Quicken on Windows XP, can't be deleted, yet everything is
> contained in one XML file.

If you were to send them the xac file maybe they could see what is wrong.

> The Gnucash team don't believe it, and I find
> it hard to believe, myself. Just another of those "little things".

Ok, I use Gnucash, but have not imported anything.

> (b) I am beginning to wonder how different PClinux is, except for using
> Synaptic. It is an RPM system, and even has a tick speed of 250, or server
> speed, on a desktop, and UTF-8. It is more like a duplicate of Mandriva.

It started out as a branch from Mandriava. No idea how close they are
trying to stay with Mandriva's "features".

> (c) The reason I want a reasonable character set is for interoperability
> with Windows.

Maybe Redhat's release of their new font package will clear that up
pretty soon.

> I don't run Windows much, but I boot into XP daily.

Window/XP same difference to me. No interoperability with linux.
And I refuse to limp because Micro$not's leg is broke.

> Even RPMdrake says it has invalid UTF-8 characters.

Yes, Mandriva Quality Assurance does need to at least run apps from a
console to see if there are any error messages.

Whiskers wrote:

> On 2007-07-10, Doug Laidlaw wrote:
>> Doug Laidlaw wrote:
>>
>>> I am running Mandriva Spring on a Gigabyte motherboard with NVidia sound
>>> and
>>> a separate NVidia video card. The mobo was so new that even Mandriva
>>> 2007.0 didn't run on it. It has a SATA main drive on /dev/sda1, and my
>>> old
>>> IDE drive running second to the DVD burner as /dev/hdb2. The onboard
>>> sound works with the "multimedia" kernel, but not with the standard one.
>>>
>>> Since then, I have been having a lot of small niggly problems (the
>>> latest is that logging out seems to freeze the desktop for about 30
>>> seconds,) and although I don't get them when I run PClinuxOS on the IDE
>>> drive, I doubt
>>> whether that OS is really better. I recently saved its /home and
>>> formatted
>>> the whole drive. I suspect that the situation on the SATA may be the
>>> result of many reinstalls, and perhaps installing and uninstalling
>>> software
>>> that has left config files in my home directory. With a standard
>>> reinstall, I delete only the root partition (which includes /boot and
>>> /etc)
>>> and the /usr partition. Is it perhaps time to format the lot and start
>>> completely afresh, backing up only the data and a couple of
>>> irreplaceable settings in /home, and as little as possible in /var,
>>> rather than keeping
>>> these two partitions intact? Intuitively, I can't see what difference
>>> it
>>> would make, but I am not really qualified to say. Ubuntu insists that I
>>> format /var to avoid any interaction, but I have had nothing but
>>> Mandriva on the SATA drive.
>>>
>>> Doug.
>
> I've taken to keeping only data between upgrades or alternative distros;
> each one has its own /home directory and thus its own user config files
> etc - so I can start a new installation 'fresh' and then try copying old
> config files into /home one at a time so that it's easier to sort out what
> needs to be changed. I replace Mandriva's default data directories in
> /home with links to the actual 'permanent' data in a seperate partition.
>
>> And while I'm about it, how do I get rid of the default UTF-8 character
>> set?
>
> MCC
>
> System
>
> Select the language and the country or region of the system
>
> Advanced
>
> and select 'Old compatibility (non-UTF-8) encoding'.
>
Thanks everybody. I backed up /home and /var then instructed the installer
to format every partition. Now I am copying my old settings across as I find the need. Looks good.

Doug.
--
Science is organized knowledge. Wisdom is organized life.
- Immanuel Kant