kde convert: problems

[Shane Wright]

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Hi

Before diving into your points, you seem to have a serious stability problem - 
could be worth asking about that on the Gentoo lists as it's really not 
supposed to happen!  On the other hand Gentoo has recently made the switch to 
gcc 3.2 (instead of 2.95) so its possible there could be some problems (there 
certainly have been a few horror stories).

I dont mean to sound patronising, but I assume that as you've managed to 
install it then you're skilled enough with Linux to be able to run Gentoo?  
If not, you may find it easier in your first few months away from Windows 
with Mandrake or RedHat.

> (1) most annoying.
> the sound system seems to be broken in some way.  i've compiled my kernel
> to use SBLive! EMU10K1 since i have a soundblaster live! value card, but
> when i run any of the following: xmms, kaboodle, or general gui sounds, the
> speakers sound as if they've been blown.  a not brutal, but obvious
> crackling is evident whenever the output volume is even mid-range.

to remove the crackling/blown out sound, take the sliders you have at full 
down to 80%-90%.

> (2) also annoying
> the audio level seems capped rather low.  even with the physical volume
> control on my speakers set to max and xmms set to max, the volume level
> still pales in comparison to windows' ability to "pump"

To increase the volume, open the mixer app (kmix, or K menu -> Multimedia -> 
KMix), there's probably one important slider there thats set really low for 
some reason (it works the same way as in windows; there a Wave slider, a Midi 
slider, etc - and a master slider for everything).

After a short play around it'll pump out glorious sounds every bit as well as 
windows.

> (3) equally annoying
> random crashing.  i open kmail and move one folder to another and BOOM. 
> the program shuts down and gives me an unhelpful popup telling me the thing

see above note about talking to the Gentoo people - they are excellent - I 
usually have good answers within 1/2 hour...

> has crashed.  kmail is also lacking in some simpler areas like the fact
> that it doesn't automatically reply with the identity used in the original
> message, 

If you have an identity with the same email address as the address a mail was 
sent to, KMail will automatically use it (assuming you're using KDE 3.0 or 
higher, as standard in Gentoo).

If it still doesn't work for you, you could use a filter to change the 
identity associated with messages as they come in (e.g. match 'To' to your 
address and set the operation to 'Set identity to..' and the identity you 
want).

> i can't play a different sound for new mail for each identity, and
> there's no colour coding.  what are some names of alternatives? and am i

Sorry, I dont knowabout either of those features.

Some alternatives are Evolution or Mozilla Mail - there are thousands of 
others but those should make a start if you want to change.

> going to have to go through the same full day of email conversion?  my
> conversion from oe5 was less than painless since the kmailcvt2 repeatedly
> blew up.  i ended up using a command-line version that converted .dbx to
> .mbx which i then just copied into ~/Mail and manually sorted (SO not fun).
>   the links i used are here if anyone is suffering the same plight:
>   http://www.idg.net/crd_joe_9-132662.html
>   http://sourceforge.net/projects/ol2mbox/

The KDE converter is much more fun - shouldn't crash, has always worked fine 
for me.  

> (4) tv capture
> what app do i use for this sort of thing?  i'm wanting to record upwards of
> 2hours of video at reasonable quality (about 4gb/hour) for
> editing/compression later.  any names/suggestions?  i'm using ati's
> all-in-wonder radeon 32mb.

gonna have to skip this on as I know nothing about it, sorry..

> (5) mplayer won't start
> i compiled and installed it... but it won't run.  i couldn't find the icon
> under the k menu so i just alt-f2'd it and typed "mplayer" ...nothing.

mplayer is interesting as it has no user interface (at least, none that I can 
see).

You may find xine more fun to start with - interface very like PowerDVD or 
thereabouts (depending on the skin you use).

Make sure you install the Win32 codecs and that you install DivX - you should 
then be able to play any MPG, AVI or WMV file you can find (mine play 
_better_ under linux than in Windows)

> (6) probably not a kde thing
> openoffice is refusing to compile...  i don't know exactly what's wrong
> with it, but just won't play nice.  is there an alternative available? 
> will koffice read/write ms word .doc format AND openoffice .sxw format?  i
> don't really need any of the other options, just the word processor.

you need a _lot_ of disk space and a _lot_ of time to compile OpenOffice - 
something like 3Gb of space and 12+ hours (I have a dual 1Ghz PIII and it 
took all night...)

hope that helps,

Cheers

- -- 
Shane
http://www.shanewright.co.uk/
Public key: http://www.shanewright.co.uk/files/public_key.asc
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