3 questions about Mandrake 9.1

[Blue_Gundam2002]

1- How do I resize the KDE desktop, its not the same size as my computer screen. Its an inch to small on one side and a half an inch on the other.
2- How do I change lilo so that it loads to windows if I don't select mandrake before time runs out.
3-How can I access my other partitions from linux?

[kilgoretrout]

1.Use the adjustments on your monitor to resize the image to fit the screen. It's probably just rendering a bit different than windows.

2.From the start menu, go to Applications>Mandrake Control Center(mcc). Enter your root password when prompted. This will bring up mcc. Tick Boot>DrakBoot which will bring up a new screen. Tick the Configure button and then tick OK on the popup window. This will bring up another popup window with all your lilo entries listed. Select the windows entry and then tick the Modify button on the right. Another popup window comes up for the windows entry; tick the Default box on the bottom and then OK. Continue ticking OK through the other popup windows. Windows will be your default entry in lilo and will boot first.

3.By other partitions, I assume you mean your windows partitions. Open konqueror and navigate to /mnt. There should be subdirectories in /mnt like "floppy","cdrom", and one for each of your windows partitions; the first one is usually called win_c. If you click on /mnt/win_c, you will see all the files in your windows C partition.

[Blue_Gundam2002]

Originally posted by kilgoretrout 2.From the start menu, go to Applications>Mandrake Control Center(mcc). Enter your root password when prompted. This will bring up mcc. Tick Boot>DrakBoot which will bring up a new screen. Tick the Configure button and then tick OK on the popup window. This will bring up another popup window with all your lilo entries listed. Select the windows entry and then tick the Modify button on the right. Another popup window comes up for the windows entry; tick the Default box on the bottom and then OK. Continue ticking OK through the other popup windows. Windows will be your default entry in lilo and will boot first.

I did it exactly the way you said, but when I restarted my computer it still went to linux. I checked lilo and windows was set as default. Anyone know whats wrong?

[kilgoretrout]

Post this file:

/etc/lilo.conf

This is the lilo configuration file. It's plain text and can be easily edited. Actually, once you understand it, it's easier than using the gui. Post back, and I'll show you how to edit it.

[Blue_Gundam2002]

I didn't know what application to use to read the file but I opened lilo and went to the expert tab and copied the info that was there, i think its what you wanted. If its not just tell me what to use to open the file.


boot="/dev/hda"
map=/boot/map
default="windows"
keytable=/boot/us.klt
nowarn
message=/boot/message
menu-scheme=wb:bw:wb:bw
timeout="0"

image="/boot/vmlinuz"
label="linux"
root="/dev/hda5"
initrd="/boot/initrd.img"
append="quiet devfs=mount hdc=ide-scsi acpi=off"
vga=788
read-only

image="/boot/vmlinuz"
label="linux-nonfb"
root="/dev/hda5"
initrd="/boot/initrd.img"
append="devfs=mount hdc=ide-scsi acpi=off"
read-only

image="/boot/vmlinuz"
label="failsafe"
root="/dev/hda5"
initrd="/boot/initrd.img"
append="failsafe devfs=nomount hdc=ide-scsi acpi=off"
read-only

image="/dev/hda1"
label=""
root="/dev/hda5"
initrd="/boot/initrd.img"
append="quiet devfs=mount hdc=ide-scsi acpi=off"
read-only

other=/dev/fd0
label="floppy"
unsafe
image="/dev/fd0"
root="/dev/hda5"
initrd="/boot/initrd.img"
append="quiet devfs=mount hdc=ide-scsi acpi=off"

image="/dev/fd0"
root="/dev/hda5"
initrd="/boot/initrd.img"
append="quiet devfs=mount hdc=ide-scsi acpi=off"

other=/dev/hda1
label="windows"
table=/dev/hda

image="/dev/hda1"
root="/dev/hda5"
initrd="/boot/initrd.img"
append="quiet devfs=mount hdc=ide-scsi acpi=off"

[kilgoretrout]

Ok. This part right at the beginning needs to be edited:

boot="/dev/hda"
map=/boot/map
default="windows"
keytable=/boot/us.klt
nowarn
message=/boot/message
menu-scheme=wb:bw:wb:bw
timeout="0"

It should look like this:

boot="/dev/hda"
map=/boot/map
default="windows"
keytable=/boot/us.klt
prompt
nowarn
message=/boot/message
menu-scheme=wb:bw:wb:bw
timeout="100"

Your just adding "prompt" before "nowarn" and changing "timeout" from 0 to 100(that's in tenths of a second so 100=10 seconds).
I don't know how this happened, but you have two erroneous entries referencing your windows partition and an erroneous reference to your floppy drive in here that should be deleted. Delete this text:

image="/dev/hda1"
label=""
root="/dev/hda5"
initrd="/boot/initrd.img"
append="quiet devfs=mount hdc=ide-scsi acpi=off"
read-only

and:

image="/dev/hda1"
root="/dev/hda5"
initrd="/boot/initrd.img"
append="quiet devfs=mount hdc=ide-scsi acpi=off"

and:

image="/dev/fd0"
root="/dev/hda5"
initrd="/boot/initrd.img"
append="quiet devfs=mount hdc=ide-scsi acpi=off"


That's the editing that needs to be done. Now how to go about it. You have to be root to do so. Where going to us a utility that opens your file browser, konqueror, with root privileges. From the start menu got to Applications>File Tools> File Manager-Super User Mode. Enter your root password in the popup window when prompted and konqueror will open. Hit the F9 key to get the navigation panel on the left. Navigate to your /etc directory and double click on lilo.conf. This will open up a text editor, kedit, with lilo.conf displayed. Carefully make the above changes and save them.
Not done yet. In order for the changes to take effect, you have to run lilo in a terminal. Open a console and run the following:

$ su
[enter root password]
# lilo -v

Note if any error messages come up. If you get any error messages, don't try to reboot and post back. If the lilo.conf is screwed up it could render your system unbootable!!!

This is what lilo.conf should look like when your done:

boot="/dev/hda"
map=/boot/map
default="windows"
keytable=/boot/us.klt
prompt
nowarn
message=/boot/message
menu-scheme=wb:bw:wb:bw
timeout="100"

image="/boot/vmlinuz"
label="linux"
root="/dev/hda5"
initrd="/boot/initrd.img"
append="quiet devfs=mount hdc=ide-scsi acpi=off"
vga=788
read-only

image="/boot/vmlinuz"
label="linux-nonfb"
root="/dev/hda5"
initrd="/boot/initrd.img"
append="devfs=mount hdc=ide-scsi acpi=off"
read-only

image="/boot/vmlinuz"
label="failsafe"
root="/dev/hda5"
initrd="/boot/initrd.img"
append="failsafe devfs=nomount hdc=ide-scsi acpi=off"
read-only

other=/dev/fd0
label="floppy"
unsafe
image="/dev/fd0"
root="/dev/hda5"
initrd="/boot/initrd.img"
append="quiet devfs=mount hdc=ide-scsi acpi=off"

other=/dev/hda1
label="windows"
table=/dev/hda

Edit: Before doing any of the above, make sure you have a win98 start up disk. If lilo gets screwed up, you will need it to restore your windows boot loader so you can boot into windows. Your lilo.conf is incredibly screwed up which makes me kind of nervous. It's either do to bugs in mcc or something you did in mcc or both. I know there are bug fixes for mcc in the updates.

[Blue_Gundam2002]

How do I boot to windows useing a floopy? I want to know before I change the file because I don't have a modem that works with linux yet.

[kilgoretrout]

Insert your win98 starup disk and reboot. The system will boot into DOS off the floppy and you'll eventually get to a command prompt. Run this command at the prompt:

fdisk /mbr

and hit the Enter button. This will overwrite lilo on the mbr with the windows boot loader. If you reboot, the familiar win98 screen will appear but you will not be able to access your linux installation.

Edit: Looking at this again, I'm fairly certain that lilo is not using the lilo.conf you posted. If your getting your normal lilo menu when you boot up, it certainly isn't; Probably using your previous lilo.conf. If lilo sees errors like these, it will refuse to write to the mbr and will continue using the old lilo.conf. Navigate to /etc in konqueror and find lilo.conf an double click it. Post back if it's different than what you previously posted.

[Blue_Gundam2002]

Its still the same as before but when I booted linux to check I noticed somethings that I think I should post also.

First- When LILO first comes up, the screen were you choose which OS to boot to, there is a 10 second count down, which there shouldn’t be according to file I posted. Which conferms what you posted.

Second- When mandrake gets to the screen were its loading and goes through a list of things and puts yes or fail next to them. There is one thing I noticed that always has fail next to it. This was all I was able to get down ,after a couple of reboots, before the screen goes away.
ACPI Daemon and something like proc/acpi/event no such file exists.

[kilgoretrout]

ACPI is the kernel module that communicates with the system BIOS for shutdown, suspend, hibernate and it's primarily useful for notebooks. In lilo.conf you have it set to "off" so it shouldn't be trying to load. MCC automatically edits lilo.conf and then runs lilo like I told you to do in a console. This causes lilo to write the new lilo.conf entries to the mbr. lilo obviously saw the errors in the new lilo.conf and refused to write to the mbr so the old lilo.conf entries are what's there. If you edit lilo.conf like I told you and run lilo in a console the new lilo.conf entries will be written to the mbr and you should be alright.
If you have to fdisk /mbr, don't worry. What you do to get your linux install back is rerun the mandrake install but choose the "Upgrade" option at the beginning. Don't choose any packages for installation and you'll eventually get to the part where it will reinstall lilo for you.

[Blue_Gundam2002]

I saved the changes that I need to make in lilo as a txt file on one of my partitions, and then booted to linux. But when I clicked on the icon I made for the partiion on the KDE desktop, a message came up saying something like only root can acess hda/(don't remember what was here) mnt/win_d.
I tried all the other hard disk's that I had placed on the desktop, same message. So then I tried going through the root directory, mnt, win_d, something like that, and opened it in file manager but its all blank. So then I rebooted to windows and put the stuff on a floopy. When I got back to mandrake and clicked on the floopy icon, it opened in filemanager but I showed no files on the floopy.

Should I just wipe out my linux partition and re-install mandrake?

[kilgoretrout]

I would avoid making text configuration files in windows and using them in linux. The windows text editors code the returns differently than linux and other unix based systems and this could cause a problem. Do a reinstall if your not comfortable editng lilo.conf with all the changes that are needed, but what I gave you should work. After the reinstall, you should only need to change one line in lilo.conf; in the first section change the default line to:

default="windows"

Save the change and run lilo -v as root per my above post.