Linux Mandrake

[Eriksson]

Hi there
I got bored last night and installed Linux Mandrake 8.0 on my box.

Why on earth is all the text in "mandrake" apps and docks so small and ugly?

I tried several www browsers "netscape" "Konqeror" Mozilla" and more and it refreshed my memory why I never liked using Linux for web browsing. Perhaps I am just addidect to M$, but IE is simply the only brower I can apreaciate.

I tried irc too, yes mandrake had three irc clients, but in each case there was some learning curve involved. I ended up with Xchat, and it seems to me like I have to play around with it for several hours before I can accept the font and colors!

What I do not understand is why there seems to be at least three ways to do everything in Mandrake.. Instead of one good browser I get 4 I hate? Instead of one easy and plain IRC client I get three 'strange' clients!

Blabla.. I guess I am still bored, rant mode OFF

[Super]

It took me a few days to adjust to mandrake too! For the browser, I used Conquer (thats what its called I think). All you do is go to preferences and change the font there.
Btw, whats your video card?

[Eriksson]

My vid card is GF2 MX 64m cant remember wich brand at the mo.
No problems there so far..

Internal DSL modem (pci) is another story, I had to create a gateway by moving the dsl modem to old P200 box I had laying around. Used win2k and shared the modem over my "lan"

So do you like "Conquer" , humm web sites with frames really look strange in this thing IMO. (I know M$ syndrome)

Have you tried the Opera browser in Linux?

[Super]

I've heard Opera is good, but didn't try it myslef.
When I had Linux running with a Voodoo 3, I had small problems with drivers and resolution. 800x600 looked perfect, and 1024x768 was so small, I could barely see anything. After I switched to GF 2 MX400 64mb, everything was just perfect. Right now my second computer is missing a cpu, but when I'll get it running, I'll install Linux again! Yay!

[Eriksson]

do you, or anyone know how??

[Super]

Originally posted by Eriksson
do you, or anyone know how??

I'm not sure how to, but I used Mandrake 8.1 and I've seen a cd burning program there, but never tried it...

Go to http://www.xcdroast.org/ . Their software might help you.

[SEiZe]

Originally posted by Eriksson

Have you tried the Opera browser in Linux?

I currently use Opera through my Linux box. The program is very slick and very small. Graphics look great and text is readable.

My box is:
Linux-Mandrake 8.0
900MHz Thunderbird
512MB
3Dfx Voodoo 3 3000 AGP
15" Samsung monitor

[Kaitain]

OK, the reason why the fonts are a pile of cr*p in Linux is that xfree86 comes supplies with Adobe Type 1 fonts by default. These are a pretty crude, antique font format, not a lot better than bitmap fonts of old. Windows normally uses Truetype fonts, which are true vector fonts that render nicely on your screen. That's the bad part.

The good part is that it's dead easy to mod linux to import your windoze truetype fonts. Here's how:

If you're using XFree86 v4 or above, then it already has facilities to take care of truetype fonts.

---------------
For v3 you need the following programs:

The freetype libraries from http://www.freetype.org/ (you'll have to compile them yourself - there's a howto on the site)

XFSFT from http://www.dcs.ed.ac.uk/home/jec/pregrams/xfsft/

and finally TTMFKFDIR from http://freshmeat.net/projects/ttmkfdir/

Install these and restart so they initialise.
---------------

For all versions of X:

Open a shell:

 ~ su root
# mkdir -p /usr/local/share/fonts/ttfonts

Copy your windows truetype fonts into this directory.

 # cp /mnt/win1/windows/fonts/*.ttf /usr/local/share/fonts/ttfonts/

Let everybody get access to them:

 # chmod 775 /usr/local/share/fonts/ttfonts/
# chmod 664 /usr/local/share/fonts/ttfonts/

Note, the font names all need to be in lower case - I've got a shell script somewhere I can post if you need.

OK, now do this:

# cd /usr/local/share/fonts/ttfonts/
# ttmkfdir -o fonts.scale
# mkfontdir

This should create the plaintext files fonts.dir and fonts.scale

Right, just as a precaution, disable your graphical login (Mandrake Control Centre or YaST depending on distro). Just in case it messes up, in which case you'll have issues logging in

If you installed XFSFT font server yourself, locate this file:
/usr/etc/xfsft.conf

Otherwise, it'll be /etc/X11/fs/config - you need to open this file with an editor and tell it the path you've just copied all those fonts to. It goes in a bit looking like:

 catalogue = /usr/local/share/fonts/ttfonts/,
/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/misc:unscaled
<lots more entries>

Next up, locate this file: XF86Config. It should be either
/etc/XF86Config or /etc/X11/XF86Config

Open it in an editor. Under the section "Files" add the line

FontPath "unix/:-1"

Finally, unless you're using Redhat, then you've only got one more thing to do:

 # xset +fp /usr/local/share/fonts/ttfonts

Now restart and see what happens

Oh yeah, a full set of howtos are at http://feenix.burgiss.net/ldp/fdu and at http://pegasus.rutgers.edu/~elflord/font_howto

Have fun

[Super]

Thanks Kaitain, I'll make sure I try that as soon as I install!

[Eriksson]

I updated my fonts, copyed all the true type fonts from my win2k box..


Actually I changed to RH 7.1 first :-D



I don't know how to thank you Kaitain for this trick.. My OS looks much better, and the only real problem I had with using linux is gone now. Thanks to you!!


I can read websites again

Reminds me why I keep coming here for help !

ohh and I am using opera now..kinda like it

[Kaitain]

From playing with this trick myself, it's actually been written w/ Mandrake in mind... it seems both RH7.1 and SuSE 7.3 have utilities embedded within KDE that'll handle the fonts for you. I don't have the details for the RH tool, but in SuSE this is what' you'll want to do:

Log into KDE as root
Go to the configuration utility
Look for the part marked "system" and expand its tree
Look for the bit marked "font installer". You'll see that actually, support for truetype fonts has already been set up, and that making the adjustments above is unnecessary at best, and liable to mess things up at worst.

Now mount your C: drive (it's done automatically on mine - I can't remember the command anymore )

In the "font installer" click "next" through all the initial setup stuff - it's all correct to start with. You'll be presented with a two-panel screen here: change the path at the top to /windows/C/windows/fonts/ and click "install". Then "finish" and it'll all work fine...

I need sleep!

[Eriksson]

Hi there all you mighty Linux wizards




since I have had way too much time on my hands I jumped from RH 7.1 to RH 7.2.




I repeted the ttfont installation as I did in 7.1..









made the /usr/local/share/fonts/ttfonts/ directory




copyed several ttfonts to ///ttfonts




used the chmod 775/664 commands




did the mkfont.dir ..etc









This went fine in 7.1 and I got the true type fonts up and running.




In 7.2 I can only see them as root




I guessed this was just a matter of access rules to the /usr/local/share/fonsts/ttfonts dir !?




I have played back and forth with access command "chmod" and I am sure everyone has access to this ttfonts directory now.. however only root access can use them.









any ideas?




also a link to "howto chmod" for genuine stupid dudes like me would be apreciated

[Superman]

Hmmm, just a wild guess, but trying doing this:

chown your_user_name /usr/local/share/fonts/ttfonts

Oh, it might be direcotry than user name. I don't know, I think it's what's in the code box though.

[fireball_87]

if you want anything close to ok browsing, you can dl netscape 6.2 for linux (:P) or just use wine and run ie :-D

[Kaitain]

Netscape 6.2 for linux!!! Argh! That came as a "free gift" with my distro... in much the same way as you get free alarm clocks with mail-order, that you put in a cupboard only to have going off at 3am every morning forevermore. It's terrible!

wine and run ie

defeats the object a bit

Recipe for using wine:

Make ritual sacrifice to the Great Penguin
Dance a ritual dance
Say the right incantation
Click on the wine icon
Pray to the Great Penguin
Wonder where the program went
Click on the wine icon again - consider buying a bottle or two of it (this is gonna be a long night)
See the config screen come up. Select all the right options, then pray once more to the Great Penguin
Drink some wine (nice vintage )
Now select a windows executable... wonder where it went
oh look! Up comes a screen, "configuration error".

Drink the wine...

[Superman]

Wine is a pain in the ass. But I haven't used X Windows in heaven knows how long, and so maybe it's better now.

[cloasters]

Am I the only person that Mandrake dislikes? Mandrake 5.3 worked pretty well for me. All the same, it had quirks. AFAIK, the whole concept of Linux includes the philosophy of "no quirks. No instabilities."

I've tried Mandrake 6(?), and 7.1 most recently. These distros flat out don't like me. They gave me a ~"wrong fonts" error which I couldn't fix. Believe me, I followed the correct methodology to put the right fonts where they were supposed to be and changed the "pointers" if necessary. No difference.

As SuSE 6.0, 6.1 and 7.0 never handed me this kinda crud and insist on being stable and free of cute(not) quirkiness, I don't plan on ever using Mandrake again.

Anyone else find that Mandrake simply doesn't like them?

[Kaitain]

I had a copy of Mandrake on a magazine cover a while ago (Mandrake 7.something) which did its level best to kill my computer. Never got a working kernel. RedHat 6.1 was OK, but it didn't like any of my hardware