Linux

[Padma]

Hmmm. I don't know about Complete. I do know the option to monitor CD ejecting is on by default, so it should be seeing the 2nd CD okay, I owuld think. (Drive F: is okay. Cedega numbers (letters?) the drives based on some internal order, and the external drives, like a CD, come at the end of the list. My CD drive is H:. )

Does your copy of Complete install okay on a Win machine?

 

[bgast1]

Yes, it installs just fine on windows. Cedega it says it can't find the cabs. I am getting frustrated, looks like I will have to just play my games on Windows. Better yet, perhaps you can walk me through how to actually install in Cedega. What I have been doing is when they ask for the path after the CD mounts, I have been going to setup.exe and clicking there. Autorun doesn't seem to work, unless I am just being too impatient.

My club membership runs out in 5 days. If I lose access to the club and mandriva proprietary stuff. At least I have gone to the easy urpmi site and (downloaded ?) the stuff you suggested, but then it's not acutally downloaded, it just provides access, is that correct?

 

[Padma]

Windows autorun files don't really work in Linux.

However, I *have* noticed that sometimes I will get a popup dialog, telling me the disc has an autorun, and asking if I want to run it. That *may* be hiding behind your cedega window, and be waiting for a reply. (I seem to remember that problem installing Civ4. )

And yes, what you download from EasyUrpmi is actually the *lists* of what is available on those servers. These lists can be easily updated using the rpmdrake utility in the Mandriva Control Center, either by selecting the "Update" option (which asks if it is okay to refresh the lists, so it knows what is new), or by selecting the "Manage" button, and choosing to updat e/refresh your lists from that screen.

 

[EzInKy]

I know this thread is getting old but if you really want to learn Linux from the ground up and have some time I recommend building a Linux from scratch at least once. The experience is invaluable as it demonstrates the true power of open source software.

 

[bgast1]

What do you mean from the ground up? Yes, I really want to learn Linux, but right now, I am having problems getting the few games I want to play to run in Cedega. I still can't get Civ III Complete to install completely. The first disk installs fine. The second will not.

 

[bgast1]

I purchased a magazine the other day and it had a copy of SimplyMepis 3.4 with it. I installed this on my computer and I actually like it a lot. The experience was much easier than even Mandriva.

I have installed Cedega, but it won't pass the copy protection test. Apparently I do not have rx permissions for my dvd rw. I don't know if this is a problem with SimplyMephis or if I can add the permissions myself.

Padma or anyone else, can you help?

Also, (I feel really stupid asking this) but can someone walk me through this in a little plainer english.

To play protected DVDs you must install the libdvdcss2 package. This package is not included on the MEPIS CD or in the regular sources for legal reasons. It's available at: apt-get.org

After installing the package, you can insert a DVD, open Xine and click on the DVD control button. The DVD should begin to play.

 

[Chairman Meow]

I have installed Cedega, but it won't pass the copy protection test. Apparently I do not have rx permissions for my dvd rw. I don't know if this is a problem with SimplyMephis or if I can add the permissions myself.

If I understand you correctly, what you need to do to fix that problem is to open Konsole, switch to root, and type:
chmod a+rx /dev/hdc (or whatever device name your dvd drive has)
or
chown yourname /dev/hdc

To play protected DVDs you must install the libdvdcss2 package. This package is not included on the MEPIS CD or in the regular sources for legal reasons. It's available at: apt-get.org

After installing the package, you can insert a DVD, open Xine and click on the DVD control button. The DVD should begin to play.

You'll need to add a line to the file /etc/apt/sources.list to install libdvdcss:
Open the file by running the command

kdesu kedit /etc/apt/sources.list

and at the end of the file, add the line:
deb ftp://ftp.nerim.net/debian-marillat/ testing main

Save the file, then run the command
apt-get update

and then open the program you normally use for installing packages such as Synaptic, and install libdvdcss2.

 

[Padma]

What Chairman Meow said.

Because DVDs are removeable, you *might* need to tweak your /etc/fstab file so that the permissions are correct whenever you insert a DVD-RW. I don't have the exact info at hand, since I'm at work.

The apt-get stuff is simply Mepis' equivalent of Mandriva's urpmi system. (Different package managers, but the concept is the same. ) Follow CM's steps and you should get it just fine.

 

[bgast1]

Chairman Meow -- I tried the command you gave me to give me rx priviledges, it didn't work. Here is what the information section of Cedega says:

A problem was detected with your CD/DVD-ROM devices. Some or all copy protected games
may not work correctly with your drives. Check the permissions on your CD/DVD-ROM device (in /dev). The device can be found in the /etc/fstab file.

In a terminal perform:

ls -la /dev/CDROM (where CDROM is the device for your system)

Make sure that all users have rx permissions. If users do not have rx permissions then add the permissions by running

The device may be a symbolic link to a second device, for example:

lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 3 Mar 23 05:50 /dev/cdrom -> hdc

Here we can see that /dev/cdrom is a link to /dev/hdc. Be sure to check permissions on the symbolically linked devices as well.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Follows is the output of the first command line. I do not understand the next bit of information, and it appears to me that there should be more information after the work "running", but there isn't I just copied and pasted the information directly from Cedega.

Bob@1[~]$ ls -la /dev/hda
brwxrwxr-x 1 root cdrom 3, 0 2006-05-31 09:05 /dev/hda
Bob@1[~]$

 

[bgast1]

When I open Synaptic I get the following warning (But then again I still know absolutely nothing about Linux yet and am still trying to learn)

W: Couldn't stat source package list ftp://ftp.us.debian.org etch/main Packages (/var/lib/apt/lists/ftp.us.debian.org_debian_dists_etch_main_binary-i386_Packages) - stat (2 No such file or directory)
W: Couldn't stat source package list ftp://ftp.us.debian.org etch/contrib Packages (/var/lib/apt/lists/ftp.us.debian.org_debian_dists_etch_contrib_binary-i386_Packages) - stat (2 No such file or directory)
W: Couldn't stat source package list ftp://ftp.us.debian.org etch/non-free Packages (/var/lib/apt/lists/ftp.us.debian.org_debian_dists_etch_non-free_binary-i386_Packages) - stat (2 No such file or directory)

 

[Chairman Meow]

Are you sure your dvd drive is hda? hda is usually the first hard drive. Try doing:
ls -la /dev/cdrom

/dev/cdrom should be a link to the device name of your dvd drive.

Also, it appears one of the Debian repository files isn't loading, which is causing the errors you're seeing in Synaptic. As long as the main repositories load, you should be fine.

edit - did you run apt-get update?

 

[bgast1]

Chairman Meow--Yeah-- hda is my dvd drive. For some reason, when I installed my second hard drive I got the cables mixed up. It still works so I left it that way. Color mine for emphasis

Bob@1[~]$ ls -la /dev/cdrom
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 3 2006-05-31 09:05 /dev/cdrom -> hda
Bob@1[~]$


This is my first experience with Synaptic. It is possible I did not run apt-get update properly. I will try again, it wasn't as simple as Mandriva was.

The output of trying to issue the command to apt-get update is as follows:

Bob@2[~]$ kdesu kedit /etc/apt/sourceslist deb ftp://nerim.net/debian-marillat/ testing main
xauth: creating new authority file /home/Bob/.Xauthority
kdesu: WARNING: No X authentication info set for display :0.0
xauth: creating new authority file /home/Bob/.Xauthority
kdesu: WARNING: No X authentication info set for display :0.0
xauth: creating new authority file /home/Bob/.Xauthority
kdesu: WARNING: No X authentication info set for display :0.0

 

[Chairman Meow]

Where are you running the kdesu command from? From inside X or from a virtual terminal? The reason I had you use kdesu was that so you could use a graphical text editor in X as root.

edit - and deb... shouldn't be part of the command that you type in... what I meant was to add that line at the end of the file in the text editor.

edit - and I just checked on it... in that line, replace "testing" with "etch".

 

[bgast1]

Probably from x inside a virtual terminal. I will su to root, and try it again.

I am very confused. (proper interpretation -- maybe I should go back to school to learn how to read proper English, but I'm an old guy and it's probably too late to teach an old dog new tricks) LOL!!

Thinking about going back to Mandriva and trying to make that work. Too bad because this was such an easy install. The problem with Mandriva is that I have to search for the proper video driver to get Cedega to work.
Anybody got any suggestions for another distro and how to get it. Perhaps this Mephis has some restrictions to it as to what I can do with it? I really don't want to spend any more money purchasing another Linux packagage. I already spent money on Mandriva Discovery Lx. The only other option that I have laying around the house is Suse 8.0, but I think that would entail downloading a lot of stuff to make it work on my system. I'm not even sure Pentium IV were out when 8.0 came out.

Honestly, there is nothing wrong with Windows on my machine, in fact I have to have it on my other hard drive for my wife. It's just that I want to learn Linux, and I have this personal bias against Bill Gates and Microsoft.

I have to run to Walmart with my wife, and maybe out for a bite to eat but once I get back I should be able to get some serious playing around done with this computer.

 

[Chairman Meow]

Perhaps this Mephis has some restrictions to it as to what I can do with it? I really don't want to spend any more money purchasing another Linux packagage. I already spent money on Mandriva Discovery Lx. The only other option that I have laying around the house is Suse 8.0, but I think that would entail downloading a lot of stuff to make it work on my system. I'm not even sure Pentium IV were out when 8.0 came out.

No, there aren't any restrictions, just that it doesn't come with what you need by default because of various legal restrictions. Once you get the hang of it, it's pretty easy. Also, unless you're on dialup, which makes it very difficult to download large files, there's no real reason you should have to spend money buying Linux distributions. If you want to try another distribution, you can go to its website and download it from there.

 

[bgast1]

Thanks for info. Glad to know that I don't need to spend any more money. I have cable internet, so downloading isn't a problem. I just haven't had any experience with ftp transfers other than the Mandriva Discovery Lx, and I already forgot how I did it.

I actually seem to like this Mepis so far, it has been pretty easy up to this point of getting the packages, and Cedega to work. But your answer at least tells me that these problems are fixable as well.

My plan for this installation of Mepis is as follows:
1. Get the packages (repositories?) that I need installed.

2. Get Cedega installed, and working, and a couple of games. At the very least -- Civ III Complete, Command and Conquer Generals. I would like to get Tiger Woods 2005, and Links 2003 installed as well, but I don't see them on Cedega's approved game list.

3. Start learning how to proficiently use Linux, not just from a Gui standpoint. I acutally liked the idea of typing in commands like in the old DOS days rather than Windows. In fact when I used to use dBaseIII +, I always used the dot prompt, even though I could only write very simple programs.

Is there another distro that you know of that would better fit my needs? I could easily go back and re-install the Mandriva, but I forgot which nvidia driver I need, and when I start messing around with trying to find the proper driver, my system invariably gets screwed up and I get tired of reinstalling because I don't know how to just fix it.

 

[bgast1]

Some progress made Still have problems with Cedega. I received the following reply at another forum:

For Cedega to work properly I had to add a line to /etc/fstab for the cdrom drive:
/dev/cdrom /mnt/cdrom auto ro,noauto,user,exec 0 0

Make sure this is at top in the static entries, not towards the bottom in the Dynamic entries. Hope this helps.

The problem is whether I attempt to type /etc/fstab at a console window (even in root) both ways, I receive Permission Denied

This is my best experience ever for Linux so far, I would hate to see it ruined because I can't get Cedega to work.


Disregard all of the above ----I got that line added to /etc/fstab but it doesn't solve my problem. I still have problems with Cedega

 

[Padma]

/etc/fstab is not an executable file. It is a table of file system entries.

To edit it, type "kdesu kwrite /etc/fstab" as a normal user.

 

[bgast1]

Problem solved. Edited /etc/fstab as follows:

# Pluggable devices are handled by uDev, they are not in fstab
/dev/sda1 / ext3 defaults,noatime 1 1
/dev/sda2 swap swap sw,pri=1 0 0
none /proc proc defaults 0 0
none /proc/bus/usb usbfs devmode=0666 0 0
none /dev/pts devpts mode=0622 0 0
none /sys sysfs defaults 0 0
/dev/sda3 /home ext3 defaults,noatime 1 2
/dev/hda /mnt/cdrom auto ro,noauto,user,exec 0 0
# Dynamic entries below, identified by 'users' option
/dev/hdb1 /mnt/hdb1 ntfs noauto,users,exec,ro,umask=0222 0 0

Cedega passed copy protection. Don't really know what I did but it worked.

However, when I went to install Command and Conquer Generals, I received this error message:

mount: mount point /mnt/cdrom does not exist

 

[bgast1]

Got -- mount: mount point /mnt/cdrom does not exist -- solved by:

mkdir /mnt/cdrom

Still have problem with multiple cd installations in Cedega. I get an error message like this:

Error 1311: Source file not found: F:\Data2.Cab
Verify that file exists and that you can access it.