AIRPLANEIT at aol.com wrote:
> I'm having a heckuva time finding a good mirror for the new release 
of Mandrake... is it possible for someone to upload their ISO's to
Gladiator? Alternately, can someone suggest a reliable mirror?

ftp.mn-linux.org (which is gladiator) has a mirror, but it is currently 
still at 9.1 rc2. Maybe you already knew that, since you are asking for 
a *current* mirror of 9.1. But I was able to get my system up to 9.1 by 
installing rc2, then updating to Cooker, which by now is the same as 9.1 
Final.

> What nationality is Mandrakesoft? Is the company's home base in France 
or elsewhere?

French, based in France.

> How does Mandrake 8.2 start XFree? I had to manually edit 
XFree86-Config-4 and every time I run XFDrake it edits the file back to
its old settings. But at the end of configuring X with XFDrake, it asks
if I want the computer to boot into X. So right now the computer isn't
set to run X at boot. I have to log on as root, then run gdm. Is that
what Mandrake does, just starts gdm at boot? Should I just ad a script
to rc5.d to make starting gdm the last thing it does at boot? Thanks for
any help anyone can give...

If you manually edit XFree86-Config-4, and then use XFDrake, yes, you 
will lose your manual changes. This is because XFDrake keeps its own 
meta-copy of XFree85-Config-4, and it makes changes to the meta-copy 
before finally writing the actual file. When you edit the real file, the 
meta-copy is not changed, and XFDrake is unaware that it is blowing away 
your config. Basically, you either live with XFDrake for everything, or 
don't use it at all after the first config is done.

Well, in actuality the system starts X based on its runlevel, in 
/etc/inittab. Look for the line:
	id:5:initdefault:

The "5" indicates runlevel 5, which tells the system to start X 
automatically upon boot. Your system will have a 3, meaning you have a 
text-only boot, from which you can login and "startx". Change the 3 to a 
5, and the system will take care of starting X on boot.

Beyond this, yes, there is a display manager that runs first, to allow a 
graphical login. Mandrake defaults to kdm, the KDE display manager, but 
you can change it to use Gnome display manager (gdm) or even the basic 
xdm (for which gdm is really just a pretty front end, while kdm is its 
own program).

Check the /etc/X11/prefdm script to see how the display manager is launched.

Hope this helps.
-- 
Dave Sherman
MCSE, MCSA, CCNA
"If we wanted you to understand it, we wouldn't call it code."


_______________________________________________
TCLUG Mailing List - Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota
http://www.mn-linux.org tclug-list at mn-linux.org
https://mailman.real-time.com/mailman/listinfo/tclug-list