I am very happy...

I now have the time problem solved, and I plugged my Kodak c310 into my computer under Mandriva, and it was recognized. The pictures I had taken were transferred successfully...

That means that I am one step closer to switch to Linux permanently.

Users of similar cameras take note: The camera must be in the Auto picture taking mode, in order to be recognized by the digicam application. The camera will not function as a drive/storage device, however. (That is the way it works in windows)

Fixed Windows clock update...

It turns out that ZoneAlarm was blocking the incoming transmissions from the server. Once I added the server to the trusted zone, the clock could update. I also edited the registry so that the clock will sync every 5 minutes. Now all I have to do is boot into Mandriva and set it up for internet time sync. Hopefully I will no longer be ripping my hair out in frustration...

Frustration, yet again

Well my clock problem reared its ugly head again. Switching off GMT apparently did not work in Linux. I would just use internet time servers in each OS, but, for reasons I have not yet discovered, the clock in Windows cannot sync with the time server.

On the hardware side, I am also having no luck with my Kodak digital, as far as official drivers go. I have not tried just plugging it in yet, however. There are also no official drivers for my hauppauge card, though there is a project going that has unofficial alpha drivers available. Hopefully that will pan out in the future.

And... No Success

I just did a quick search for drivers that will run my Visioneer 4400 USB scanner, and by all accounts I have read so far, it is not supported. Another instance of a hardware company that does not care about Linux users. They are out for a quick profit, and Windows is the easiest OS to profit on... Linux has too small of a market share.

Ok, success...

I managed to get my Brother HL-240 cheapo, old laser printer working under Mandriva. Every time I tried to use the "Set up printer" wizard, it would report that CUPS could not be installed. After trying many things, I found Brother's driver page for Linux, and downloaded everything they have. Then I turned the printer on, and ran the wizard again. It worked. Why couldn't the error message have said "hey idiot, you have no drivers." I was under the impression that it was a problem with the CUPS program itself, since it would not install.

One piece of hardware down, 4 to go... I think my scanner can be fixed in the same manner, so that's next.

I wish I could dump Windows...

I really like Linux, and it has defiantly come along way. I would love to transfer my files over, and format the rest of my drives to EXT3 Partitions, but I cannot do that just yet.

I enjoy watching some internet content, such as free network TV shows, and such on my 52 inch TV through the TV out. Unfortunately, the TV out on my ATI will not work correctly, and so far, I have not been able to get it working. I think the only solution is to set the monitor to a 640*480 resolution, and that will just not work for me.

Then, my Hauppauge TV card will not work. I do not do a lot of TV watching on it, but I do like to record the occasional program, and I would like to be able to use it's remote control functions in a Media Center-type application.

Also, my USB printer and scanner are not working, though that is likely an easy fix. I have not bothered with them yet. I also have yet to try my Kodak digi cam in Linux.

I really wish the hardware vendors would try to help us out, at least. Hauppauge, for example, is flat-out refusing to write Linux drivers. How lame is that? And the drivers that are out there tend to be very buggy. That is because they are written by 3rd party programmers, and thank god that someone is devoting their free time to that. Some of the software, as well, is quite buggy, but at least there are many different applications available out there.

So please hardware vendors, get your stuff in order... I want to see no more windows, without having to spend more money on hardware!!!

Clock Issue-Next attempt

Well, I did a little more research, and found that the problem should be as easy as setting Linux to use local time. I must have answered the question wrong when KDE asked me if the hardware clock uses GMT or not. I set that, and I will see if it works over the next few boots into Windows and Linux. Seeing as it takes almost 5 minutes to boot into Windows, I really do not feel like doing that right now...

Dual Booting and Clock Issues

I had an interesting issue with the time on my computer. When I would boot into windows, the time would be 4 hours off. I would reset the clock, then boot into Linux. The Linux time would then be 4 hours off.

After a while of setting the clock every time i booted into the other operating system, I started getting really annoyed. It turns out that Windows and Linux use and store the time differently, and they change the computer clock every time they boot.

I managed to find this page, which shows detailed steps to fix the problem in windows. So far, it seems to be working...

Update: No, it is not working, darn.

I am a moron...

I have been playing around with a few other distributions besides Mandriva over the last couple of weeks. Except for the bootloader changing when another distribution was installed, Mandriva was running fine. Then I decided to play with Fedora. When it's boot loader was installed, it was not nice enough to leave entries for mandriva, however. No big deal, I could just edit the settings for Grub.

Before I did that, however, I decided to try the proprietary ATI driver for my video cards in Fedora, since only one of my monitors was working. Well, of course, when I rebooted, Fedora would no longer boot.

No problem, I thought. I would run the live version of Mandriva, and use it to reinstall the Madriva Grub bootloader so that I could run Mandriva again. Well here is where I became a moron.

I successfully installed the Mandriva bootloader, but I put it on the disk that Mandriva was installed on. The problem, however, was that the bootloader needed to be installed on another disk, the one set up in the BIOS as the boot disk. Duh!!!

Unfortunately, I did not realize this stupid mistake until after I had reformatted the Mandriva partition and reinstalled it. (I don't know enough about Linux yet to do much else.) So, I had to go through and reconfigure everything to my liking again and reinstall the programs I use. All because I selected the wrong drive when installing the bootloader.

Well, I guess I won't make that mistake again, lol.

linux vs. windows

More and more often, I find myself using Linux over windows. I have not timed it, but it takes about 15 seconds for linux to boot. With windows, it takes 2 minutes or more, when it boots correctly. Right now, windows is having an issue with my choice of anti-virus, and the program manages to crash drwatson. So i have to end drwatson forcibly, before the boot will finish. Linux just boots, and I don't have to wait. Then, the programs rarely crash in linux, where as a program crashes in windows at least once a day.

On the other hand, all of my hardware works correctly in windows. While in linux, I still have issues with some hardware and its 3rd party drivers. Sometimes, I just have to boot to windows. With luck, some of the programmers out there will engineer drivers that work better some time. Most of the malfunctioning hardware is not necessary, but handy to have working. We'll see how it goes...