A couple of Mandriva questions

[Eggdog]

Hi,These are hardly gaping cracks in the Mandriva edifice, but, rather, questions that range from niggling to philosophical. The version is Mandriva One 2010, Gnome edition. I haven't done much customizing, and in fact still have the "lotus flower" wallpaper in place, I'm so boring.1. OpenOffice 3.2 is out. It hasn't hit the 2010 repos yet and I'm guessing it probably won't. There are some things about OOo 3.2 I'd like to try out, e.g. support for OpenType. Is downloading and installing this from openoffice.org plausible, or is it a Real Bad Idea? If the former, or if the truth is somewhere in between, are there any special considerations I should keep in account? (If I can learn anything about dependency checking or any philosophical issues having to do with bypassing the main-traveled roads of installation, so much the better. I've never really been forced to deal with it.)2. Today I'm getting nagged to update X11-driver-video-ati. I don't have any ATI video cards, and after various experiences last fall that left me bereft of all pride and all self-confidence, indeed, naught but a seething mass of neuroses, I'm dead set against "updating" anything X11-related.a. I assume this driver won't be used, since I don't have an ATI card. Is that correct? So will whatever I do with this driver affect anything else? That is, can I go ahead and say "Okay, okay," and get on with my life? Or is it safe to remove the driver that's already in there? I presume that will make the nags go away, if there's nothing to update.b. Or is there a way of telling RPM, "don't ask me about this one again"? I know there's a way to do this in Archlinux, and IIRC Ubuntu/Aptitude had that, but I can't find it in RPMdrake, and it wasn't in the RPMdrake book either, at least not that I saw.3. I'm pretty sure that I have X11 server 1.6.5 on here. How can I verify that? I know about the --version command, but don't know what to look for a version for. (Gaa, what a hideous sentence!)Thanks,Eddie

[BarryB]

Hey EddieIf you go into MCC, add/remove programs, search xorg..look for X11-xorg-server, to the right of that will tell you what version is install (if it's checked)The ATI driver will not harm your system(even if you update it) it will just sit there doing not much of anything, you could probably remove it, but I would just let it be.As far as Open office goes, you can add the testing repos( they are probably in your media list list.and see if it's in testing .I know 3.2 is in cooker but it's only up to alpha 2 so I wouldn't put it on a daily user box.You can install the old fashion way, not sure how that would work out. You may end up with 2 versions, keep in mind though it will not be updated from Mandriva.My real advise would be if you have the space, and just want to play with Open office, would be carve some space and give cooker a play area.(also play with the newer Gnome and kde 4.4)

[V.T. Eric Layton]

I'm downloading Mandriva right now, Eddie. Give me about a year to become proficient with it and I'll answer your questions. Of course, if you're in a bit more of a hurry, Barry will be here in a bit. ;)EDIT: See! He's so quick he posted to you before I was even able to warn you about him.

[Eggdog]

Hey EddieIf you go into MCC, add/remove programs, search xorg..look for X11-xorg-server, to the right of that will tell you what version is install (if it's checked)

Got it, thanks! It is 1.6.5.

The ATI driver will not harm your system(even if you update it) it will just sit there doing not much of anything, you could probably remove it, but I would just let it be.

Cool! I sometimes worry about things like that, probably from too many Windows iexplore.exe crashes and losing a lot of sleep because I kept having nightmares about being trapped in gaseous swamps where .dll's go to die.

As far as Open office goes, you can add the testing repos( they are probably in your media list list.and see if it's in testing .I know 3.2 is in cooker but it's only up to alpha 2 so I wouldn't put it on a daily user box.

I enabled the testing repos and found some new versions of OOo 3.1.1, but not 3.2. What is cooker? I read the Wiki but still wasn't totally clear if whether cooker is the same thing as "Mandriva 2010.1 Alpha 2".I'd assume that cooker has xorg-server 1.7.x, which I think is the culprit behind some distros failing on my computers. I might be on Mandriva 2010 for a long, long time, unless I become real smart (anything's possible) and figure out how to add support for moldy old Intel video cards into modern-style distros.Anyway, thanks for all the info -- helps a lot!

./ \.

I'm downloading Mandriva right now, Eddie. Give me about a year to become proficient with it

What I'm thinking is that you'll catch on fast because you'll want to spend a lot of time there

[V.T. Eric Layton]

Heh! I'm not a total Mandriva dummy. I've had it on my system before. It'll be more like a review, rather than learning something new. The d-load is finito. Install... some time this weekend, maybe.I'm off to d-load CentOS x86_64 now. My current CentOS installation is 32 bit. Need to upgrade.

[BarryB]

Cooker is Mandriva's development build, currently it's 2010.1(Spring)alpha 2. After 2010.1 releases it will move to 2011, then 2011.1 and so on. I always keep at least two machines running cooker(one 32bit /one 64 bit)..it's a fun (in a warped painful sort of way)to watch the next version of Mandriva come to life. I'm not sure how/if the older intel chipsets will be addressed, though I'm hoping they realize that there are still plenty around, I'm curious if PCLinuxOS (based on Manfriva) will retain that capability when the new version comes out.

[Eggdog]

Thanks for that, Barry. Warped and painful, eh? Guess I'll wait for the beta :)Your mention of KDE4 made me think of another question that I left out of the first post. I have three installations on my various computers here, each from the same live CD. On none of them do I log in. I can turn on the computer in the morning, wander off to get my tea, and come back and Mandriva is there waiting for me to fire up Emacs. There's only one user (eddie) on each one, and there aren't any customizations, that is, I have Gnome installed, and no other desktop environments or window managers.I don't remember being asked if I wanted to bypass the login. It's possible, but I would have had to answer "yes" for each installation, and I think I would remember if I'd done that. I hope so, anyway!1. I know I can install another environment (say XFCE) or window manager (like IceWM) alongside of my Gnome. And I know (or at least I think) that I can switch between them at login. If I were to install XFCE, would I all of a sudden have a login screen? Or if I were to install IceWM, would I have a login screen then?2. Is there a way to get Mandriva to force me to log in? I might want that on my "work" computer.Thanks,Eddie

[BarryB]

In MCC under boot, there is the auto login, I assume it (Yeah I know) went to auto login because you only have one WM and but yes you can add other WM, in add/remove package there the drop down menu in the upper left conner will have all/update/meta packages..the quickest way is select metea, then below in the desktops select kde, lxde..etc and install the meta package for that WM, turn off autologin and at the linux boot screen you will have two icons at the bottom..the one on the left is sessions and it will allow you to boot into whatever WM you want.. turning off auto login will force you to login regardless of if you add another wm or not.

[SueD]

Nevermind...cross posted with Barry.

Edited February 27, 2010 by SueD

[Eggdog]

In MCC under boot, there is the auto login, I assume it (Yeah I know) went to auto login because you only have one WM

I found MCC > boot and turned off autologin. I didn't know it was there, so thanks. When I rebooted, I had the chance to choose last session, Xinit script, Gnome, IceWM, and Drak3d. So IceWM had been there. I guess in this version of Mandriva, they have changed the way autologin works.I had a scare, too. I know my passwords and where they are upper and lower cases, but I couldn't log in to save my life. Finally I turned off the Numlock key, out of desperation, and then I could log in. Earlier today I had plugged in a USB keyboard that my wife had on her Windows XP "Netflix" computer and asked me to take off because it was hurting her hands. I plugged that keyboard into my "work" computer, which is the same make and model as her Netflix computer. I had been going along OK but after I finally logged in I discovered that it had chosen that moment to start treating certain keys differently; for instance, "icewm" came up as "5cew8". So I might have found a keyboard that doesn't like penguins. It worked fine for my wife, except that it did have a lot of rebound. (She's got nerve damage and is on a constant quest for keyboards that aren't too "squishy" like a lot of the ones that come with new systems, but at the other extreme don't have too much resistance, or rebound or "back-pressure", on the keys.) It is now in the Eggdog Family Penitentiary while a panel of experts determines its final fate.