So. I installed Slackware 11 today. I'm having some problems with it though, so maybe Massassi can help me out. In decreasing order of annoyance:

• My NTFS partitions can only be accessed by root. If I attempt to change permissions or change ownership on the /mnt/<name> I get an error stating the filesystem is read only. If I attempt to use -t and -o flags on mount (a solution I saw somewhere) I get an error message. It would be really nice if I didn't have to run XMMS as root. Any ideas?
• How do I kill processes? ps doesn't seem to have a "kill" switch, unless I missed it.
• How would I go about getting my tv tuner working in linux? I downloaded and built mplayer but I can't get it to display anything other than a solid green. I see no TV.
• My mousewheel doesn't work, and I can't find a KDE GUI setting to force it.
• Flash does not have sound although I have gotten sound working elsewhere. Ideas?
• Any way I can map Command Keys (IE: keyboard keys for mute, volume control, browser control, email control, etc) to actions? They don't seem to do anything by default, at least in KDE...
• I downloaded a neat-o Window Decoration (window border skin... oh language warning, too) but it only has a bunch of PNG files, how do I get it to work? I figured out where the files go, but I seem to be missing something... RaKris' instructions don't make sense, he refers to things that don't exist in my KDE.

I will post questions as I need to ask, but for now, bed... /_\

Well your first problem is that you chose slackware over a debian-based distro (ubuntu, debian, knoppix, etc.).

For the mouse wheel, on stupid distros like that, you typically have to edit your X config file (on my Debian it's /etc/X11/XF86Config) and put this in the InputDevice section:

Option "ZAxismapping" "4 5"

If you have x.org and not xfree, I don't know if there's a difference.

You can kill processes using the kill command. If it's being stubborn and won't die, you can kill -9 it. You need to pass the process id, which you can get either from top or from ps.

Key mapping is a window manager thing. I use IceWM and it's all handled by a config file. I don't know how KDE does it.

You really should try ubuntu first.

Yeah, ubuntus nice. I installed with absolutely no knowledge of linux whatsoever and it works perfectly and easily, just like any OS should.

Yeah...not to sound elitist, but anything not Debian or Gentoo based is completely worthless. Ubuntu is the only desktop distribution worth your time.

[QUOTE=The Mega-ZZTer]...My NTFS partitions can only be accessed by root. If I attempt to change permissions or change ownership on the /mnt/<name> I get an error stating the filesystem is read only. If I attempt to use -t and -o flags on mount (a solution I saw somewhere) I get an error message.[/quote]

Dont use the mount command directly. Edit fstab and add your mount directive with the "user" option (probably "noauto" too, so it wont automount on startup). Then, mount it as your user.

Also, depending on your kernel version (NTFS RW was only recently stabalized), you likely only have read-only access to NTFS. Which, in short, means you cant write to it.

[QUOTE=The Mega-ZZTer]...How do I kill processes? ps doesn't seem to have a "kill" switch, unless I missed it.[/quote]

So, SOO many ways to kill stuff...
If its a gui app: run "xkill" and click on the offending app.
If its a console app: use "killall NAME_OF_PROGRAM", "kill -9 PID" or use KDE's System Guard.

[QUOTE=The Mega-ZZTer]...Any way I can map Command Keys (IE: keyboard keys for mute, volume control, browser control, email control, etc) to actions? They don't seem to do anything by default, at least in KDE...[/quote]

You want EvRouter -- it will let you route *any* input to *any* function. It kicks ***.

[QUOTE=The Mega-ZZTer]...I downloaded a neat-o Window Decoration (window border skin... oh language warning, too) but it only has a bunch of PNG files, how do I get it to work? I figured out where the files go, but I seem to be missing something... RaKris' instructions don't make sense, he refers to things that don't exist in my KDE.[/quote]

My first thought; if you want your opterating system to look like Windows Vista, use Vista.

My second thought; he is referring to deKorator, which will need to be installed first.


My last thought; Slackware is *not* a user-friendly distro. You would be much better starting out with something Debian-based like Ubuntu, or even Debian itself (all I use is Debian).

I've done the config stuff for the mouse, we'll see if it works. [Edit: It didn't] I'm building deKorator now. [Edit: Yay deKorator is neat.]



mzzt@phoenix:/etc$ sudo umount /mnt/data
mzzt@phoenix:/etc$ mount /mnt/data
mzzt@phoenix:/etc$ cd /mnt/data
-bash: cd: /mnt/data: Permission denied

I'll reboot and see if it works.

<The_MAZZTer> yay
<The_MAZZTer> I'm going to switch to Ubuntu D:
<Max> nooooooooo
<The_MAZZTer> everyone says I'm an idiot for choosing Slackware over ubuntu D:
<torch> it depends
<Max> they are idiots ZZT
<torch> ubuntu is linux for windows users
<torch> slackware is linux for...linux users
<Max> say "Max said I should use Slackware"

I'm confused now.

OK NEW QUESTION

• Flash does not have sound although I have gotten sound working elsewhere. Ideas?

You need the option umask=0 to make it readable by everyone.



I thought the write access was limited to changing files without changing their length.



Or "pkill -9 NAME_OF_PROGRAM" if you want to send the signal 9 to a program by its name.



Wow, this program is great. I was looking for ages for something like this, that is also easy to configure.

Thanks, gbk's solution didn't work, I'll try that.

[Edit: It worked! Thank you! :D]

I still need help with the mouse problem, I still can't get the wheel to work. Buttons 4 + 5 don't seem to do anything either (Button 3 works).

[QUOTE=The Mega-ZZTer]<Max> they are idiots ZZT
<torch> ubuntu is linux for windows users
<torch> slackware is linux for...linux users
<Max> say "Max said I should use Slackware"[/QUOTE]
Slackware is Linux for.... people trapped in 1995.

Debian is Linux for people who know what they're doing and aren't just obsessed with the first distribution they used.

Ubuntu is Linux for people who don't want to spend 6 hours poring over config files just to get their extra mouse buttons working. Hint hint.

Say "Jon says Max has a touch of the :downs:"

You have to put:

in the input device section corresponding to your mouse. The capitalization matters as far as I know.

I did. Didn't do anything.

NEW QUESTION:

• How would I go about getting my tv tuner working in linux? I downloaded and built mplayer but I can't get it to display anything other than a solid green. I see no TV.

I'm so confused.

Oh, for flash to have sound, try disabling the sound daemon you are using. As soon as I stopped using artsd on my box, flash had sound.

[QUOTE=The Mega-ZZTer]I did. Didn't do anything.

NEW QUESTION:

• How would I go about getting my tv tuner working in linux? I downloaded and built mplayer but I can't get it to display anything other than a solid green. I see no TV.

[/QUOTE]

Depends on your tv tuner. Might wanna look into MythTV stuff, they have detailed info on installing tv tuners.

Well mine is a noname thing with a bt848 chip (I think).

I'm building MythTV now.

[Edit:

mzzt@phoenix:~/Desktop/mythtv-0.20$ mythtv
mythtv: error while loading shared libraries: libmythtv-0.20.so.0: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

OK I'm gonna go download ubuntu now...]

Screw Mythtv. You want Xawtv. Use mplayer(mencoder) when you want to record from your tuner.

I couldn't even ACCESS my tuner with mplayer. Although Flash seemed to find it fine (it found SOMETHING at least) and thought it was a webcam. Oh well.

I'm in XP at the moment, and I figured out why my drivers weren't working... they suck. They've worked before, and they WERE awesome, but all of a sudden now they're sucking up 100% CPU whenever a program tries to access them. I'll try installing the drivers that came with my card (I just found them, all I need now is to remember the model number....)

[QUOTE=The Mega-ZZTer]I couldn't even ACCESS my tuner with mplayer....[/QUOTE]
Actually, you did. The fact that mplayer ran and you saw the gui means mplayer found the card.

Not if it was using a dummy device. (Which it can and will do)

WTF, I'm beginning to think I should've stuck with Slackware. Ubuntu is too buggy.

First of all, I try to use gaim to connect to IRC, because there is no xchat or anything else with ubuntu... but it doesn't support SSL over IRC and my college sabotages IRC sockets.

So I try to use apt-get to install xchat. It claims there is no package called xchat. I update it. I check and make sure the package is indeed called xchat. I try again. Still no package called xchat. Ok.

So then I download it from here: http://packages.ubuntulinux.org/cgi-bin/download.pl?arch=i386&file=pool%2Funiverse%2Fx%2Fxchat%2Fxchat_2.6.6-0ubuntu3_i386.deb&md5sum=08087284df09f4bc5aaefe203d6f20b5&arch=i386&type=main

and this package manager tells me I'm missing a dependancy.

Which I download from here: http://packages.ubuntu.com/cgi-bin/download.pl?arch=i386&file=pool%2Fmain%2Fa%2Fatk1.0%2Flibatk1.0-0_1.11.4-0ubuntu1_i386.deb&md5sum=daabcca7cd9fa5bb9379315da73efe65&arch=i386&type=main

But when I go to install it it tells me IT'S ALREADY INSTALLED.

At least Slackware CAME with programs I could use. This doesn't even have a decent media player, the only one it has gives me random errors when trying to open files off my NTFS drives.

I suppose my mouse wheel working now is a plus. And the ability to access my NTFS drives. Which isn't all that useful when I can't run programs capable of USING said files.

The installer was nice, but it didn't give me nearly as much control as slackware did, which I can understand, but the first time I ran it it failed to install because I was messing with drive mounts in terminal... drive mounts it shouldn't have had to care about.

Help

[Edit: Oh, and Firefox is missing DOM Inspector and middle clicking doesn't let me scroll with the mouse...]

[QUOTE=The Mega-ZZTer]So I try to use apt-get to install xchat.[/QUOTE]Use Synaptic and search for xchat. Ubuntu has a special version of it that properly implements Gnome skinning support.

I already tried that version I think, read the rest of my post.

And how should I get this Synaptic? apt-get?

[Edit: Surprisingly apt-get tells me it's already installed.]

[Edit: WRAA, xchat package was called "xchat-gnome". wtf. :mad:]

Wow, this xchat has no nicklist, the /server command doesn't work... slackware's was better... wtf.

[QUOTE=The Mega-ZZTer]I already tried that version I think, read the rest of my post.

And how should I get this Synaptic? apt-get?

[Edit: Surprisingly apt-get tells me it's already installed.]

[Edit: WRAA, xchat package was called "xchat-gnome". wtf. :mad:][/QUOTE]...

Applications->Network Applications, IIRC.

Synaptic should be under the far right top menu, under Administration.

Interface. not. complex. :|

I didn't look under Administrations... for some reason I assumed it was something I had to get.

There's no Network Applications in my Applications. Unless you mean "Internet".

Also, I found xchat users. It's a MENU. What happened to the sidebar in slackware's xchat?!?!

[Edit: Excellent, I just installed XMMS, which is working fine. Now for tor so I can get IRC fully working...]

OK... I'm trying to install tor. First, the package I downloaded doesn't work, Debian Package complains I don' t have libc6 (which I do). Synaptic won't open .deb packages. So I try to build tor from source. Which, supposedly, was something I was supposed to hate about Slackware but I find myself doing it in Ubuntu. What's worse:



I'm not seeing the appeal of Ubuntu.

[Edit: apt-get install build-essential wheeee D:]

[Edit: Fixed firefox, some arsehat turned off general.autoScroll]

[Edit: Yay, tor works]

[Edit: xchat doesn't support proxies either. WTF? I know the Slackware one did]

[Edit: I am not alone. I am going to try building xchat from source.]

What's wrong with xchat-gnome? It works a-ok for me.

Your having alot of problems for something incredibly easy. If you stop trying to make it complicated, it wont be.

JG: ITS doesn't make it easy. it appears they purposefully kill IRC sockets based on content. Thus I need to use tor.

There, I rebuilt xchat. Much better.

I'm not making it complicated... I just want things they way I want, not the way my OS wants them. Specifically, I want things USABLE. I find XP much better for that... although I'm not sure why I was expecting this to be easier (I suppose Linux would be more popular if it was).

[Edit: Awesome, more broken things:

- Can't copy out of a terminal window, right click -> copy does nothing.
- sudo stopped working. "Timestamp too far in the future". Stupid ubuntu installer set my system clock four hours in the future. I fix it, and this pops up.
- su is now telling me my password is wrong, even though it was just working fine for sudo until I changed the clock.

Also how the hell do I get a java plugin for Firefox? I seem to have java installed.

Java...Plugin?

I've never needed a plugin for FF in both Windows and Linux. All I had to do was install the JVM.

well there's something installed already... I'd rather use that than install the whole JVM. Whatever. I don't really need Java I suppose.

Which installs the plugin for you.

Yeah. Oh well.

I compiled the latest wine. I'm feeling good. mIRC runs sorta iffy on it (wine has sucky MDI support... hey, I gave xchat a good try, I prefer mIRC) but it has all my scripts so...

Winamp didn't really do much though when I tried it. >.>

[QUOTE=The Mega-ZZTer]Yeah. Oh well.

I compiled the latest wine. I'm feeling good. mIRC runs sorta iffy on it (wine has sucky MDI support... hey, I gave xchat a good try, I prefer mIRC) but it has all my scripts so...

Winamp didn't really do much though when I tried it. >.>[/QUOTE]
Have you tried xmms? It is a pretty good alternative to Winamp. It also has support for all of the Winamp 2.x themes, which is nice. I personally use Amarok though.

[QUOTE=The Mega-ZZTer]- su is now telling me my password is wrong, even though it was just working fine for sudo until I changed the clock.[/QUOTE]umm.

Ubuntu doesn't have a root account. If you want a root prompt you need to use sudo -s.

Dont be silly, of course Ubuntu has a root account. The root password get set to a random value on install. (there was actually a bug in older versions that put the root password in the install log, which was world readable)

Hint: `sudo passwd root`

Hint: `Don't use the root account` :p

However, sudo with full privledges really isn't that much better than using su.

Agreed

hint: get vanilla debian and use the root account with caution

I don't see how that is an improvement over Ubuntu.

sudo is crappy and annoying