having some problems

[mindwave_21]

Man, oh, man... I just found out how little I actually know about Linux. I tried installing SuSE 8.1, and now I have a few problems.

1. The monitor I have (17" LCD) and SuSE didn't coincide too well (when I tried to test config during YaST setup, I could move the screen, but would bug out when I tried to resize), but like an idiot, I finalized anyways. After that, the setup was looking for a printer and froze up on me. I got to disk 2/3 when this happened, so I have no idea what's on the (SuSE 8.1 personal) third disk.

2. When I restarted after the freeze, Linux functioned. However, my mouse wasn't detected as a scrolling wheel mouse, and my G4 Ti4200 apparently had "no support for 3d acceleration." My rig is currently offline, but I hope to get online and update drivers ASAP.

3. I think this is just me, but when I try to play an audio CD (xmms, etc.), I can't get the CD player to recognize WAV files (actually, I don't know where to look to find them). I also have to manually open the CD player (where's autoplay and autoread for CD function?). Oh, and I have a DVD player and a burner, but only the DVD is recognized and named on the desktop.

4. The gnome_cd player crashes 100% ("fatal crash, contact gnome, blahblahblah") time I try to use it. I also don't know how to uninstall and reinstall it. How do you kill a program, BTW?

Should I do a fresh install? If so, how do I format my HD and start over?
Argh!
I'm so angry I haven't figured this out yet!!!

[Floppyman]

Hi,

What are the exact specs of your system? What type of soundcard do you have? If there's no autoplay, go to the console (shell) and type: mount /mnt/cdromX (if you have more than one cdrom you'll probably have just a cdrom and then perhaps a cdrom1 for the second drive, just type in the one you want to use), that should mount the cdrom and you should have access to it. Same with the floppy. Type (at the shell): mount /mnt/floppy and you should gain access to your floppy. As for your videocard, you might want to check whether the latest version of Xfree86 (www.xfree86.org) has support for your card, and if it does, check whether you are using that latest version on your system already or not. Suse uses Xfree86 right? As for your mouse, what type is it? For your monitor, write down all the specs of your monitor (resolution...refresh rates etc.) and then when you configure it during setup (if you plan on reinstalling) you might have to choose "custom monitor"(or something along those lines) and enter that information manually, if it's not natively supported by Suse 8.1.

If you do plan on reinstalling, just launch the setup again, and leave your partitions as is (unless you want to change them), but make sure you format them (it should format them during the setup, and might prompt you whether it should format them), and you should be good to go.

[mindwave_21]

Got online and solved the video card problems by downloading correct drivers from nVidia and my sound card was detected automatically (SB audigy). However, still have the mouse problem with no wheel, and can't get gnome-cd to work (it says fatal crash and doesn't open). Is there a way to autoplay CD's?
Thanks Floppyman!
mindwave

[Floppyman]

What type of mouse do you have? Also is the gnome cd player the only one that crashes? I'm not quite sure on the autoplay. HTH

[mindwave_21]

I have a MS intellimouse optical with 5 buttons (2 regular, scroll wheel, forward and back). And yes, the gnome-CD is the only one with the crashing problem (so far). Other programs, such as KsCD, do weird things also, like saying the drive is ejected when it really isn't.

[OOPS!]

Hi,

To get your wheel working you are going to need to edit a file, /etc/X11/XF86Config-4. Check out this link, I think it is what you are looking for there linuxnewbie.org/nhf/Hardware/Configuring_the_Intellimouse_Explorer_in_XFree86.html
That should get your mouse working.

Your winmodem is going to be tougher. Try linmodems.org for help. Linux really prefers hard modems, but soft modems are useable in many cases. I don't have personal expirience with them though.

HTH,
OOPS!

[Floppyman]

Be careful when editing that file. If you accidentally set something wrong or mess up somewhere, and then try to restart X (you'll have to for the changes to take in effect) it may not start again(i.e. you'll have no GUI then). That happened to me while I tried to get my mouse wheel to work. I set something wrong in the config and and X would not restart. I ended up having to edit the config file from the command line to get the X to start again and get the GUI back. If you're careful though, you shouldn't have any problems. HTH

[mindwave_21]

Thanks guys! I'll get to work on that. Arghh... this Wav file thing is still driving me off the wall!!!

[Computer Hobbyist]

I try to save a copy someplace else before before I edit a file. Saved my bacon several times.

CH