[H-GEN] newbie help

[Joel Michael]

[ Humbug *General* list - semi-serious discussions about Humbug and ]
[ Unix-related topics.  Please observe the list's charter.          ]

----- Original Message -----
From: Sarah Hollings <sez at powerup.com.au>
To: General Humbug <general at lists.humbug.org.au>
Sent: Friday, March 31, 2000 8:52 AM
Subject: [H-GEN] newbie help


> [ Humbug *General* list - semi-serious discussions about Humbug and ]
> [ Unix-related topics.  Please observe the list's charter.          ]
>
> Howdy,
>
> Yes, yes, new to the list I am.  And having some "issues" with
> installing of Corel Linux.  It seemed like a gentle way to move from
the
> clutches of the MS.  The main problem is I'm not sure where to look
for
> the answers... any help would be greatly appreciated.
>
> 1: Sound.  Corel uses the kde desktop (on top of what is basically a
> debian distro) which they have apparently slightly modified.  The
> desktop "control centre"'s info tab reports that the oss drivers have
> successfully loaded (having used soundconf).  The CD player
application
> works just fine, however KDE's desktop sounds will not play, and the
> console "play" command won't work either.  One howto I found said to
> check "kwmsound" was in the startup script - it is.
>

just guessing here without knowing what the error from the console
'play' was - is something playing on the sound device, eg an mp3, esd,
licq, something else? try "fuser /dev/sound", "fuser /dev/audio" and
fuser "/dev/dsp" to check what's writing to the audio devices.  unless
you've got an SBLive which supports multiple writes, you can only have
one process at a time opening the audio devices.

either that, or the permissions on /dev/audio, /dev/dsp and /dev/sound
aren't right :)

> 2: System printing.  KDE's choose a printer thing says I have an HP
670C
> installed, but Netscape and other applications (including the console
> apps, ie redirect output to lpr) won't work, producing a few
unprintable
> squiggles.
>
probably a PostScript/GhostScript/printcap problem.  try cat'ing a text
file to the parallel port to see if everything is ok, then work with
GhostScript and your printcap and filters to make it go.  if that just
sounded like greek, try having a look at the printing howto.  it will
explain things better than i can.  i'm in "go to the pub" mode at the
moment :)

> 3: Periodic mouse problems.  Occasionally on boot-up, I have no mouse.
> I am *certain* the previous shutdown was OK, and can't fathom what's
> causing it.
>
hrm, a real strange one.  probably as good as my problem where i need a
reboot to make the mouse go again when i play an SVGAlib game (quake)
when X is running...  sorry, can't help ya with that one :)

> At least I got the pppd to talk to my ISP!!!  Otherwise I wouldn't
even
> be able to throw out this call for help!
>
hrm... we (the linux community) must be doing something right... that's
always been the one that stumps everyone first off :)
---
Joel Michael
System Administrator

Diggy Internet Services
90 Petrie Terrace
Brisbane Qld 4000
Australia

Ph: +61 7 3367 3555
Fax: +61 7 3367 3544
Mob: 0401 039 462



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