I have 10.1 official installed on my hd.This is the only os on it.During installation I chose to install kde,gnome,and the others.I also chose not to start x automatically.When my system boots I type startx at the root prompt and kde starts.How can I choose to start the other desktops so I can try them without re-installing or have I not found the command on the kde desktop? Thanks for the help.
Jeff

1. login as root
2. #dm
3. You'll see a nice and cute download manager (kdm or mdkkdm) there you can choose any wm you like
if dm does not work try this
root#init 5
this will start dm
why did you choose NOT to start X automatically???
you still can change it in /etc/inittab or in drakconf &^)

I chose not to start x because i thought it would give me a better opportunity to try the other desktops.(I'm a newbie to linux).
When i get the konsole up (star/system/terminals/konsole)I log in as root and tried dm it says command not found.When i type init 5 it just drops another root command prompt below the first and nothing happens?Is there something i need to update or install for this to work?Thanks for the help.
Jeff

You mean display manager

You can enable graphical login either in the Mandrake Control Centre->Boot->Login Mode (or Autologin) and checking 'Launch the Graphical Environment...'. You could aso do it by editing /etc/inittab and setting the initdefault line like this:

I have re-installed the os(tales my system 12 mins)and chose to start Xorg and I chose the gnome desktop as it is what i'm more familiar with at the time.Back to my original ? when i log in as root and type dm it says command not found,when i try init 5 it creates another root prompt and nothing happens?How do i switch from gnome,kde,icewm etc so I can try them without re-installing?I have 10.1 official.
Thanks.

Did you read my last post? you didn't need to reinstall to get graphical login working.

AFAICT there is no dm program installed anywhere by default with Mandrake, there is however a service called 'dm' which runs the display manager. Also the command to change runlevels is telinit (eg. telinit 5). However if you have it re-installed with graphical login then you don't need to worry about any of this.

Anyway so I'm assuming you've got graphical login working? You should now be able to select the session type and choose between GNOME or KDE or IceWM or whatever you have installed. If that doesn't work post back here.

I got it! The last install i chose not to have a root password or create a user account.I got tired of typing passwords everytime i tried to do something while i am learning therefore when i logged off i had no choice of user or desktop.I'm a loooong time windows user .My first was win 3.1.1.It was new then.My first computer was a sinclair w/stackable mem modules.Man am i telling my age .I'm so glad a friend referred me to the linux os.Thanks for all the help,
Jeff
pS Where can i get more destops to try?

Ahh that explains it - I'd never have thought of that being the problem. It really is a good idea to create a user account and work from that using su, sudo, kdesu etc. But its your computer, you can use it how you want.

Goto http://easyurpmi.zarb.org (google for 'easyuprmi mirrors' if its down) and setup access to the repositories. Now you can install what you want either through the Mandrake Control Centre or using the urpmi command. Google around for 'window managers' and stuff like that and see what you can find - but instead of downloading it from the website try installing it through the Control Centre/urpmi first.

urpmi fluxbox windowmaker icewm xpde enlightenment badwm openbox FVWM2 XFCE

I got a couple of new desktops!They appear at the choose user screen in a dropdown menu .I finally got connected to easy urpmi and set up all the repos.The only one I didnt enter in my package manager was the one that said non-free.Was this ok?

I do have a few questions.
1.Some of the desktop packages said they couldnt be installed.ie sawfish-1.3-4mdk.i586 (due to missing librep-0.17-3mdk.i586) and sawfish-themes-0.2-12mdk.noarch (due to missing librep-0.17-3mdk.i586) .Do I need to search for these missing pkgs manually and install?

2.when installing some of the other desktops the installer said it need to uninstall a list of various files.Will this disable some other programs?

3.I have installed wine.I would really like to use my quicksite builder program for winders(i'm from the south)to edit my homestead website.I would also like to use the swishmax program.I cant find the wine start button anywhere?Do have to start it manually or do not all win.programs work with wine?

Thanks for all the help.I'm starting to love linux.I'm just sorry I wasted all those years fighting winblows.
Jeff

It won't cause any problems - it just means you won't have access to the non-free software (non-free as in speech, not as in beer - its all free of charge from PLF) stuff from PLF. A good example would be the win32codecs which you might find very, very useful when you want to play DIvx, quicktime, wmv, asf etc. videos. You can easily go back to easyurpmi and get it though.

Both these packages are in the contrib repo. Did you setup contrib? If so try doing it again with a different mirror as I've noticed that some so called 'mirrors' don't have the full contrib repo sometimes. If you open the ftp URL in konqueror before you put it in urpmi you should be able to see over 6000 packages - its a good way to check if that mirror has everything you need.

Possibly - if you post the messages you got here we might be able to tell you more about it. Maybe have a look in /var/log/urpmi and see if those messages were recorded there too.

Not all Win programs work with WINE. But try something like

If you mean entering the mirror command(?) that easyurpmi generated for my system when logged in the konsole as root ,yes.I also entered the non free site also.After I did this I went to the rpmdrake console and updated media and also the contrib file.

I've not seen near that many listed anywhere.Is the ftp url a url I type in the konquerer browser bar for easy urpmi?Sorry for all the newbie questions,I really appreciate the help.
Jeff

If you go though the easyurpmi site and get stuff for contrib it makes a few commands which you copy and paste into your terminal. If you look closely at that command you'll see there's a URL in there, copy and paste the URL into a browser like konqueror and try and see how many files appear.

No worries, its probably not even your fault if its a dodgy contrib mirror.

I swear I posted a reply early this am??Oh well cyber gremlins i guess.

Thats what it was.I Switched my contrib mirror and updated.Sawfish Installed just fine after that.Not that theres anything exciting about sawfish.Empty blue screen with no left or right mouse click options.At least I know how to address a similar problem in the future.And yes when I went to the mirrors url I saw a BUNCH of packages.

I'm not sure how to do another thing.I have 2 hds in my box.I bought the newest one just for my linux os.The other has winxp home on it.Both are seagate 80gb.I was manually switching the ide cable from hd to hd as I was learning to install various linux distros.If i designate the win hd as slave and plug both in will the default bootloader for mand10.1(grub i think) see this as another os and ask which one to start?I remember putting the boot loader in the mbr during install.

I also downloaded the mand10.2 isos.Is there a big diff from 10.1 to 10.2?I feel that I'm not totally lost with 10.1 anymore.Does the package manager and basic functions work the same in 10.2?

One more thing.Where in the world is the option on the kde desktop to change the mouse to single click.Double clicking kind of irks me. Thanks a bunch.
Jeff

Yeah Mandrake really has to get their act together on these mirrors.

I think Mandrake 10.1 actually uses lilo. If it doesn't already have an entry for Windows you can easily create one by following these instructions: http://doc.mandrivalinux.com/Mandriv.../drakboot.html

Good luck

Everything's pretty much the same except everything's newer and shinier - ie. updated packages

Menu->System->Configuration->Config. your desktop->Peripherals->Mouse