Re: sound, and floppies

[Mark Grieveson <mark@tfnet.ca>]

Hendrik Sattler wrote:

Did you install arts? If yes, manually set to to alsa output in kcontrol. The 
sound driver autodetection in arts _never_ worked for me.
  

Arts is installed.  I tried switching kcontrol to alsa, and it did not work.  Then esd, then oss, finally back to autodetect, and none solved it.  The soundcard is detected, but there seems to be some conflict with esd and arts.  For now, I've unchecked the "enable sound server startup" in the gnome control centre, which allows kde apps to have sound without giving the "unable to connect to sound server... null output instead" warning, thus safeguarding sound for all but gnome applications. 
On my home computer, I had this same issue, but eventually I somehow fixed it, as sound now comes from everything.  Kcontrol on my home computer is set as "autodetect", and "enable sound server startup" is checked in the gnome control centre; I did a helluva lot of messing around with the home computer though, before it stopped giving me problems with sound (my home computer is an old pentium III).

And install Windows98? Today? With Debian at hand?
Even Windows2k would be a better choice than Windows98! And Debian is surely 
an even better one :)
  

Most users (and staff) at the shelter are not very computer literate.  Mahjongg, supertux, and the occasional typed Office letter are the extent of usage.  I'm hoping to increase people's awareness (the computer has a CD burner, and high speed internet).  One user, with mental health problems, keeps sabotaging the desktop; so, I've made root the owner of the desktop, which means the program launchers are safe.  If there's a way to change ownership of the panels, I'd love to know.

Floppies are difficult to mount. Only a few can be mounted in the Debian
computer.  All of them were successfully read in the Windows computer at
work.  Any hints?  All responses appreciated.
    

This might depend a lot on the floppy disk drive. You might want to test the 
one from your work with the computer that has debian on it.
  

How do I do this?  How do I test it?

Additionally, you might want to use the mtools for easier access to floppy 
disks (see the floppy:/ target in konqueror).
  

I'll try mtoolsfm, and see if this helps.  Mtools is already installed. 
Thanks for your suggestions.

Mark