I apologize for ever

On Tuesday 25 July 2006 06:02, Les Walton stood up and spoke the following words to the mbuttes incomp.os.linux.misc...:

Okay, now buttuming that you're not trolling, I first of all wonder why you've sought technical buttistance in an advocacy group, when there are so many other newsgroups that specifically deal with technical matters.

Secondly, the people you claim to have supported you - again, buttuming that you are not one of them in disguise - are known trolls. I myself have been subscribed tocomp.os.linux.advocacyand I left there because of the trolls and because of the fact that most of the debating had more to do with Windows than with GNU-Linux.

This all said, I'm willing to take the bait and give you my advice where I can. Do however bear in mind that I have no experience with PCLinuxOS, but if I'm not mistaking, then it's based upon Mandrake-Mandriva, and that is something I do have experience with.

I may not have all the answers, but I've read your post through before I hit "Reply" and there certainly are questions or problems I do have the answers for.

Well, okay. But you've probably needed far longer than that when you first sat at a machine with Windows. You just had to, because you weren't aware of any alternatives, right?

So what if you need a little longer this time as well? If you really are committed to seeing this through, then what's a few more weeks?

I'm afraid that's a knife that cuts both ways...

It is not "typical", no. It's even hard to say what is, given the vast number of different distributions. Also please bear in mind that what defines "the premier desktop operating system" is as much - if not more - a matter of who the user is and what they are willing or unwilling to do.

It is my experience that people are generally lazy and superficial.

GNU-Linux is far less obtuse than Windows is. It may be "more technical", but this is just the nature of the beast. GNU-Linux is a tools you need to do sometimes very technical jobs.

Basically, Windows is a toy car, and GNU-Linux is a genuine F1. It takes some discipline to drive at 300 km-h. ;-)

An accurate report on error messages and the likes is as good as someone standing and looking over your shoulder. The more accurate you are about what you've done and what the errors are, the better we can help you.

Not familiar with Broadcoms, but they should be supported and the fact that it worked - even if only for a short while - confirms this.

I cannot tell you why the "Control Center" - I presume this is a PCLinuxOS-specific tool? - didn't save your settings; it should normally do that, and if PCLinuxOS offers periodic package updates, you should check whether there isn't one for this Control Center as well. If not, I would file a bug report if I were you.

Do however bear in mind that systemwide settings can only be altered by the superuser, so if that is all that it required, it works as designed.

It is quite common in a number of distributions for the output volume of the soundcard to have a default setting of zero - don't ask me why, I just know that it often happens.

Youshouldhowever be able to store the settings with...

alsactl store

... in a root console window. As with other systemwide settings, you need to be root do do that.

This can be a matter of many things. I have had similar experiences with some soundcards, while others had no problems playing more than one sound at the time. A lot also depends on what drivers you are using.

On the other hand, it could also be something as plain and simple as yet another slider that defaults to zero...

I'm going to address both of these complaints with one solution. It seems obvious to me that you've forgotten to set up one component, i.e. filesystems on a Windows machine, it needs to run theSambaclient.

Sambacomes in both a client and a server version. The former to do what you wanted to do, the latter to have the Windows machines in the network access a printer or a shared filesystem - or eventually a home directory - on the UNIX machine.

Not every DVD player can play home-made DVD's, you know... ;-)

I'm not sure on the exact procedure as I've never done that, but it was described not too long ago in another newsgroup, so there should be a record of it on Google.

The part that I'm not sure about is how to proceed from an.mpgto a DVD image. It is possible that your particular distribution does not come with the necessary plugins for doing that, so you may need to download some extra tools or codecs, and - of course - install them as root.

Burning the image to a DVD disk itself is trivial withK3b-.

Sorry, can't help you out on this one. Maybe you should askflatfish,because if I recall correctly, he mentioned having bought or at least having had the intention to buy it. ;-)

You might be missing the correct plugins... Have you tried another browser and did that have the same effects?

What is easy to you are things you are used to. You're not used to GNU-Linux, so it seems daunting to you. It's natural. Just give it enough time. You'll soon find that GNU-Linux is far more logically organized and better maintainable than Windows, not to mention safer and more stable.

Kubuntu more. It's based on KDE and the screenshots I've seen had a bluish hue.

Nah, you should be able to do that in just under 48 hours. Just kidding as well... ;-)

-- With kind regards,

*Aragorn* (Registered GNU-Linux user #223157)