KDE questions under Mandrake 9.1

[computerguy]

Question 1 :
I just installed Mandrake 9.1, I am using KDE.
On the desktop I have a CD Rom Icon, CD writer Icon and Floppy icon.
Is it possible to move them all to a folder on my desktop so that the 3 of them is not cluttering up my desktop ?

Question 2:
I installed Opera and the only way to launch opera is to launch it from a terminal.
How do I make a shortcut so that i can open Opera from my desktop ?

Question 3:
In Mandrake 9 I was able to logg on as root.
Now I only have the option of the users I have created, how do I logg on as root to be able to see a desktop and those kind of things ?

Thanks :)

[computerguy]

Another question ... how do i give myself as a normal user rights to be able to move files ?
For example, I want to use a new backgrownd that i found on the internet, the picture has to go into the wallpaper directory but I can't copy it there because I do not have the right to copy any files to that directory, only root has.

thanks

[hop-frog]

Originally posted by computerguy
Question 1 :
I just installed Mandrake 9.1, I am using KDE.
First off, I am using KDE 3.0.0 and SuSE 8.0 so my computer might be slightly different then yours, but see if these suggestions help anyway.

On the desktop I have a CD Rom Icon, CD writer Icon and Floppy icon.
Is it possible to move them all to a folder on my desktop so that the 3 of them is not cluttering up my desktop ?
Right click on the desktop, choose Create New > Directory. Give the directory a name and it should show up as a folder icon on your desktop. Then drag and drop the icons onto the folder icon and select your prefered method.

Question 2:
I installed Opera and the only way to launch opera is to launch it from a terminal.
How do I make a shortcut so that i can open Opera from my desktop ?
Same menu on the desktop only choose Create New > Shortcut. More details and instructions for putting them in the K menu are found here (http://www.kde.org/documentation/userguide/adding-programs.html#icons-add).

Question 3:
In Mandrake 9 I was able to logg on as root.
Now I only have the option of the users I have created, how do I logg on as root to be able to see a desktop and those kind of things ?
That is not recommended, in fact I'm not even sure if Mandrake allows you to do this. You could risk messing up your installation. You can log in as user and then type "su" and your root password and you have root access there, but be careful with this.

Another question ... how do i give myself as a normal user rights to be able to move files ?
For example, I want to use a new backgrownd that i found on the internet, the picture has to go into the wallpaper directory but I can't copy it there because I do not have the right to copy any files to that directory, only root has.
There might be another directory for backgrounds on your computer that the user has access to. Try typing:

cd ~/.kde/share/wallpaper/

If this directory exists then put the wallpaper there and the next time you run KDE's control center you should be able to select your wallpaper from the list.

To change permissions of a directory open up konqueror (as root) and go one level above the directory you want to change. When you see the directory's icon, right click on it, choose Properties, then click on the Permissions tab. There will be a drop down list. Set that to the user name if should belong to or if you have multiple users that should access the directory choose User.

[computerguy]

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
On the desktop I have a CD Rom Icon, CD writer Icon and Floppy icon.
Is it possible to move them all to a folder on my desktop so that the 3 of them is not cluttering up my desktop ?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Right click on the desktop, choose Create New > Directory. Give the directory a name and it should show up as a folder icon on your desktop. Then drag and drop the icons onto the folder icon and select your prefered method.



------

No, I tried that already, when I try and move the icons to a new directory I get a message that I am not allowed to do that.

Thanks for the other info :)

[computerguy]

This permission thing is realy getting me down :mad:

I can't do nothing with my icons on my desktop except with the ones I created myself.

I installed Gnomemeeting and it placed an icon on my desktop, I can't move it to another folder and I can't delete it.
I get a error message that says : Access denied to : /usr/share/apps/kdesktop/desktop/and the the file name.

With the CD Rom Icons I can't change the permissions, it just tell me I am not allowd to change permissions.

[hop-frog]

I guess Mandrake really locked down everything in their new release. There are a number of other ways you can do these things.

Besides learning several Bash commands, you might try to learn to use Midnight Commander (http://www.ibiblio.org/mc/).

Go to the console or an xterm and type mc. This is a very useful program. If you log in as root before running Midnight Commander you can change the permissions of files so that the user account owns them, then exit out of root and manipulate those files as a normal user. Take note of the table at the bottom of the program that describes the use of the function keys.

I believe the command for editing permissions in Midnight Commander is CTRL+x, followed by o. Make sure the file or directory you want to change is highlighted first before you enter this command. It should then display a long list of users and groups. Choose the user you want and once you hit enter that file or directory will belong to the user you selected.

[Kalamity]

Originally posted by computerguy
This permission thing is realy getting me down :mad:

I can't do nothing with my icons on my desktop except with the ones I created myself.


I think the the easiest was to resolve this issue is to open up a terminal window. once you have the terminal window open enter the following commands.

su [enter]
root password[enter]

cd /home/yourusername/Desktop [enter]
(on my system it would be cd /home/sean/Desktop)

ls [enter] (to view the names of the files you want to move)
mv "filename" "folder you want the CD rom links to go into"[enter] - don't include the quotes in your command.

hope this helps.

[computerguy]

Thanks, I managed to get rid of all the icons I don't want.

Next question :D

I now want to make a new CD Rom shortcut on my desktop because then I will be able to move it.

This is what I know ....

Right click on the desktop, click on Create new CD ROM device.

Easy ... no :(

The icon is now on my desktop but when i try and open it up it says that only root is allowed to mount the CD.

How do I fix that ?

[77Punker]

Logging in as root in 9.1 is possible, just not enabled by default. Here's how: In KDE, go to the KDE control center. Over on the left, click on login manager. Now click the users tab. It's pretty intuitive what to do from there. I hope I helped!

[computerguy]

Hmmm .... no, what I need to do is create a CD Rom device shortcut on my desktop.

The problem is I don't know how to mount it, it must be able to mount under the user and not root.

[Tuxxer]

Originally posted by computerguy
Hmmm .... no, what I need to do is create a CD Rom device shortcut on my desktop.

The problem is I don't know how to mount it, it must be able to mount under the user and not root.


You have to give users permission to mnt the CD rom , so you have to log into root and right click the CD unit and you should have a bunch of boxes to check off , in the permissions tab.

tuxxer

[Replica]

Originally posted by computerguy
Question 3:
In Mandrake 9 I was able to logg on as root.
Now I only have the option of the users I have created, how do I logg on as root to be able to see a desktop and those kind of things ?

Thanks :)

i figured out how to do this by accident installing Nvidia drivers, if you Ctrl-Alt-F1 > su + password > then run /init 3 to kill X > type startx while logged in as root and it gives you a warning about starting X in root and you can click ok. (not recommended btw)