2008 Spring

Information
- Product registration number (corresponds to the product activation key) .................................................... - Internet Login (email address used to register on my.mandriva.com) .................................................... - Internet Password (password associated with above email address) .................................................... - Incident numbers (the incident numbers you reported on Expert website) .................... - .................... - .................... - .................... .................... - .................... - .................... - ....................

Access to Mandriva Services

www.mandriva.com/support/ https://my.mandriva.com/login/

Published April 2008

Table of Contents
Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . iv 1. Quick Start . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . iv 1. Installation with DrakX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 1. The Mandriva Linux Installer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 2. Choosing your Language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 3. License Terms of the Distribution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 4. Where to Install Mandriva on your Hard Disk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 5. Package Selection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 6. User Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 7. Checking Miscellaneous Parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 8. Installing Updates from the Internet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 9. It's Done! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 2. Enjoy your new Mandriva Linux Desktop . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 1. Accessing Your Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 2. Read Your E-Mails and Surf The Web . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 3. Listen to Your Music and View your Photos . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 4. Ofce Work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 3. Register your product and join the Mandriva User Community . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 1. Your product includes coupons and additional services that you can access online. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 2. We are adding services and goodies regularly with our ecosystem partners . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 3. Additional documentation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 4. Access to support and extra services . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 5. How to contribute . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

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Preface
1. Quick Start
Congratulations on purchasing Mandriva Linux Powerpack Spring Edition. Get started with Mandriva Linux in 3 easy steps. This guide will walk you through: installing Mandriva Linux on your system (Chapter 1, Installation with DrakX [1]); using essential features of your new Mandriva Linux desktop (Chapter 2, Enjoy your new Mandriva Linux Desktop [8]); joining the Mandriva User Community to extend your Linux experience (Chapter 3, Register your product and join the Mandriva User Community [16]).

Figure 1. The KDE Desktop

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Chapter 1. Installation with DrakX

1. The Mandriva Linux Installer
With the DrakX installation program, it doesn't matter whether you're a newbie or a GNU/Linux guru. The job of DrakX is to provide you with a smooth installation and an easy transition to Mandriva Linux's latest version. DrakX also detects existing Windows and Linux installs and adds boot menu entries for them, so you can start either operating system. Make sure that all your hardware is connected to your computer and powered on during the installation. Printers, modems, scanners and joysticks are just a few examples of peripherals which DrakX can automatically detect and congure as Mandriva Linux is being installed. Procedure 1.1. Begin Installation 1. 2. Place your installation CD or DVD into the reader and reboot your machine. The installer will start automatically. Press any keyboard key (except Enter ) when you see Mandriva's welcome screen appear (Figure 1.1, First Installation Welcome Screen [2]). The rst screen offers a list of various possible actions, and if you do nothing, the rst option (Boot from Hard Disk) is carried out when the timer expires. Press the F2 key to have all options displayed in your language. Simply select your language by using the up and down arrow keys, then press Enter . Simply select the Installation option from the list, and press Enter .

3.

4.

Installation with DrakX

Figure 1.1. First Installation Welcome Screen

1.1. The Installation Process

When the installer starts, you see a nice graphical interface (see ???). On the left are the various installation steps, the current one is marked by a highlighted bullet. The installation occurs in two phases: installation, then conguration. Steps and Substeps. Each step may present various screens. You can surf between those screens with the Next and Previous buttons. Additionally an Advanced button may be available to show more advanced conguration options. Note that most of the latter should only be used by expert users. But there's no harm in looking at them! The Help button displays explanations about the current installation step.

Installation with DrakX

2. Choosing your Language

The rst step is to choose your preferred language. If you have already changed the language at the CD or DVD boot splash screen (Figure 1.1, First Installation Welcome Screen [2]) and don't need to install additional languages, you can safely move to the next step. Open the tree representing the continent you're located in, then choose your language. Your language choice will affect the installer, the documentation, and the system in general.

3. License Terms of the Distribution

Before continuing, you should carefully read the terms of the license. It covers the entire Mandriva Linux distribution. If you agree with all the terms it contains, select Accept and click Next . If not, clicking on Quit reboots your computer.

Release Notes
If you are curious about any technical changes which have occurred in the distribution since the last release, you can click on Release Notes .

4. Where to Install Mandriva on your Hard Disk

You now have to decide where you will install Mandriva Linux on your hard drive. Your hard drive needs to be partitioned which means it must be logically divided in order to create the required space for your new Mandriva Linux system. Because the process of partitioning a hard drive is usually irreversible and can lead to data loss, it can be intimidating and stressful for the inexperienced user. Fortunately, DrakX includes a wizard which simplies this process. Before continuing with this step, read through the rest of this section and above all, take your time. Depending on the conguration of your hard drive, several options are available: Use free space This option performs an automatic partitioning of any blank areas of your drive. If you use this option there will be no further prompts. Use existing partitions The wizard has detected one or more existing Linux partitions on your hard drive. If you want to use them, choose this option. Then choose the mount points to be associated with each of the partitions. The legacy mount points are selected by

Installation with DrakX

default, and for the most part it's a good idea to keep them. Then choose the partitions to be formatted or preserved. Erase and use entire disk Choose this option to delete all existing data and partitions present on your hard drive. You won't be able to undo this operation after you conrm. If you choose this option, all data on your disk will be deleted.

Remove Microsoft Windows This option appears when the hard drive is entirely taken by Windows . Choosing this option simply erases the entire drive, partitioning everything from scratch. If you choose this option, all data on your disk will be lost.

Use the free space on the Microsoft Windows partition If Windows is installed on your hard drive, you might have to create free space for GNU/Linux. To do so, you can either delete your Windows partition and data (see the Erase and use entire disk solution) or resize your FAT or NTFS partitions. Resizing can be performed without the loss of any data, provided you have previously defragmented the Windows partition. Backing up your data is strongly recommended. Using this option is recommended if you want to use both Mandriva Linux and Windows on the same computer. Before choosing this option, please understand that after this procedure, the size of your Windows partition will be smaller than when you started, which means you will have less free space to store your data or to install new software. Custom disk partitioning Choose this option to manually partition your hard drive. Be careful: it's a powerful but dangerous choice and you can very easily lose all your data. This option is only recommended if you have performed custom disk partitioning before, and have enough GNU/Linux experience.

5. Package Selection
We now enter the software package installation itself. It consists of selecting the installation media and the packages to be installed.

Installation with DrakX

5.1. Choosing a Graphical Environment

You can choose between 2 workstation desktop proles or customise. KDE desktop KDE is similar in look and feel to a Windows desktop. GNOME desktop GNOME is similar in look and feel to a Mac OS interface. Custom install This option allows to specify each package group and application you want to install. For those who are using Linux for the st time, you are advised to choose one of the rst two proles, as the package groups are automatically selected and installed. Note that this guide focuses on the KDE desktop.

Installation with DrakX

6. User Management
6.1. Administrator (root) Password
The Root Password is Key to Your System Security. The root user is the system administrator and is the only user authorized to make updates, add users, change the overall system conguration, and so on. In short, root can do everything! That's why you must choose a password which is difcult to guess: DrakX tells you if the password you choose is too simple. Depending on the security level you chose, you're not forced to enter a password, but we strongly encourage you to do so. GNU/Linux is just as prone to operator error as any other operating system. Since root can overcome all limitations and unintentionally erase all data on partitions by carelessly accessing the partitions themselves, becoming root must be difcult. Choose the Right Password. The password should be a mixture of alphanumeric characters and its minimum length will vary according to the chosen security level. Never write down root's password it makes it far too easy to compromise your system. However, don't make the password too long or too complicated because you must be able to remember it too! Enter the Password, Twice. The password won't be displayed on screen as you type it. To reduce the chance of a blind typing error you have to enter the password twice.

6.2. Enter a user

Create a User. You are rst asked for a real name. DrakX uses the rst word you type in this eld and copies it, all in lowercase, to the Login name eld, which is the name this user must enter to log on to the system. Then enter a password, twice (for conrmation). From a security point of view, a non-privileged (regular) user's password isn't as crucial as the root password, but that's no reason to neglect it by making it too simple: after all, your les could be the ones at risk. Linux is a secure multi-user system. You can add other users. Refer to Section 7, Checking Miscellaneous Parameters [7]. Each user may have his own preferences, les and so on. But unlike the system administrator called root, the user you create at this point is not authorized to change anything except its own les and its own congurations, protecting the system from unintentional or malicious changes which could have a serious impact on it.

Installation with DrakX

7. Checking Miscellaneous Parameters

7.1. Summary
As a review, DrakX presents a summary of information it gathered about your system. Depending on the hardware installed on your machine, you may have some or all of the following entries. Each entry is made up of the hardware item to be congured, followed by a quick summary of the current conguration. Click on the corresponding Congure button to make any changes.

8. Installing Updates from the Internet

By the time you install Mandriva Linux, it's likely that some packages have been updated since the initial release. Bugs may have been xed, security issues resolved, etc. Choosing Yes displays a list of web locations from which you can retrieve updates. You should choose one near to you. Review the packages from the tree selection, and press Install to retrieve and install the selected packages.

9. It's Done!
There you are. The installation is now complete and your GNU/Linux system is ready to be used. Just click on Reboot to restart the system. Remember to remove the installation media (CD-ROM or oppy). The rst thing you should see, after your computer has nished doing its hardware tests, is the bootloader menu, which allows you to choose between the OSes your system can boot.

Chapter 2. Enjoy your new Mandriva Linux Desktop

1. Accessing Your Files

You can access all your les using Konqueror, a full featured le manager supporting access to les no matter where they are located: on your local disk, on FTP or Web servers, on SMB (Samba and Windows shares) servers, on remote machines through SSH, and even on your NTFS partitions1 with full read-write access (see Figure 2.1, Accessing Windows Files With Konqueror [8]).

Figure 2.1. Accessing Windows Files With Konqueror

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Provided you have Windows installed on another partition in your machine.

Enjoy your new Mandriva Linux Desktop

All le management operations are simple, you can use drag&drop to link to, copy or move les around or right click on les to pop up a menu with actions according to that le type. Type the full path of the le or folder (or URL if it's a remote le or folder) you want to access in the Location bar, or use the web browser-like buttons to navigate through your les.

2. Read Your E-Mails and Surf The Web

2.1. Managing E-Mail
You can manage all your e-mail using KMail, a complete and full featured mail client supporting multiple mail protocols (POP3, IMAP, SMTP), security enhancements, spam ltering, etc. We present its interface and basic usage, please refer to the KMail Home Page [http://kontact.kde.org/kmail/] for more information.

Launch KMail by choosing Internet KMail from the main menu. The rst time a wizard appears to setup your main mail account: ll it with the conguration information (account type, login and password, mail servers) provided to you by your ISP or network administrator.

Enjoy your new Mandriva Linux Desktop

Toolbar

Message List

Message View Pane Folder List

Figure 2.2. Managing E-Mail with KMail Table 2.1. KMail Main Action Buttons Compose a message: ll the recipient(s), message subject and body. Click on to add attachments. Click on to send the message immediately, or keep it pressed to display a list of sending options. Get new messages for all dened e-mail accounts. Keep this button pressed to display a list of all dened accounts. Select the one you want to get mail from to retrieve messages only for that account. Reply to the author of the selected message. A message-compose window pops up with some elds already lled. Forward the selected message (send to a third party).

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Enjoy your new Mandriva Linux Desktop

2.2. Browsing the Web

You can browse the web with Firefox, a state-of-the-art web browser supporting tab browsing, security enhancements, search suggestions, RSS feeds, multimedia online content (such as Javatm and Flash), etc. Here we concentrate on its interface and basic usage, please refer to the Firefox Home Page [http://www.refox.com] for more information.

Launch Firefox by choosing Internet Mozilla Firefox from the main menu. One of the main features of Firefox is tab navigation which allows you to browse many websites at the same time without opening another browser window (see Figure 2.3, Tab-Surng the Web with Firefox [11]). Just hit Ctrl + T to open a new tab and Ctrl + W to close the currently open one.

Browser Tabs

Figure 2.3. Tab-Surng the Web with Firefox

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Enjoy your new Mandriva Linux Desktop

3. Listen to Your Music and View your Photos

3.1. Listening to Music
You can listen to all your music with Amarok, a complete music player supporting audio CDs, multiple digital music le formats (mp3, ogg, wav, ...), album covers, lyrics, etc. We present its interface and main features here, please refer to the Amarok Home Page [http://amarok.kde.org] for more information.

Launch Amarok by choosing Sound & Video Amarok from the main menu. The rst time a wizard appears, you can safely Skip it. Click on Build Collection and mark your folders containing music les.

Playlist

Browser

Play Controls

Volume Control

Figure 2.4. Amarok Rocking The House!

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Enjoy your new Mandriva Linux Desktop

Double clicking on a song in the Browser adds it to the Playlist, while double clicking on an album in the Browser adds it to the Playlist and starts playback immediately. Use the familiar Play Controls to control playback of the songs in the playlist. To play an audio CD, insert the CD in the drive, then choose Play Audio CD with Amarok from the window that pops up: the Playlist is automatically populated and playback starts immediately.

3.2. Viewing Photos

You can view all your digital photos with ShowFoto, a full-featured image viewer and editor (part of DigiKam) supporting many image formats and also RAW formats from high-end digital cameras. Here, we present its interface and some features. Please refer to the DigiKam Home Page [http://www.digikam.org] for more information. Launch ShowFoto by choosing Graphics showFoto from the main menu. Choose File Open folder from the menu and select the folder containing the photos you want to view, a strip with the photos is shown on the left, the currently selected photo in the center, and metadata about the photo (EXIF information for example) on the right (see Figure 2.5, Browsing a Photo Album [14]).

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Enjoy your new Mandriva Linux Desktop

Image Display

Image Metadata Images Strip

Figure 2.5. Browsing a Photo Album Click on or press the F9 key to start a fullscreen slideshow with all the pictures in the currently opened folder.

4. Office Work
You can write documents, create spreadsheets and stunning presentations using OpenOfce.org, a full-featured Microsoft Ofce-compatible ofce suite. We briey present the word processor interface, please refer to the OpenOfce.org Home Page [http://www. openofce.org] for more information.

Launch the OpenOfce.org word processor by choosing Ofce OpenOfce.org Writer from the main menu. You can start typing your document's text right away and insert tables, lists, images (see Figure 2.6, The Familiar Word Processor Interface [15]).

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Enjoy your new Mandriva Linux Desktop

Format Bar

Rulers

Insertion Point Page Style

Work Area

Figure 2.6. The Familiar Word Processor Interface Even though you can directly change the appearance of your document (for example, font family and size), it is recommended that you use styles to standardize on document formatting. Press F11 to open the Styles and Formatting options, select some text and click on a style name to apply that style to the selected text. Use OpenOfce.org Calc for spreadsheets and simulations and OpenOfce.org Impress for creating stunning presentations with slides containing text, lists, images, charts, animations, transition effects, etc.

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Chapter 3. Register your product and join the Mandriva User Community
1.Your product includes coupons and additional services that you can access online.
Mandriva users from all over the world gather in community spaces to share their interest in new Linux technologies. They help new users get comfortable with Linux basics, providing hints and tips, or telling the tales of ancient Unix commands. This gathering of various different people in passionate communities is what has made the Linux and Mandriva communities so unique since the inception of our distribution in 1998. This community is open: we invite you to join other Mandriva Linux users to share your experience, ask questions or just say "Hi!". You can easily join other users by connecting to http://www.mandriva.com/community and following the major links to community resources. Register simply at: http://www.mandriva.com/register As an added bonus, we are inviting you to become a registered and identied member of this community. The registration is free-of-charge and open to all. There is no membership fee. By registering you can interact with other community members as an identied member on the forums, not just as "Joe Anonymous User". We continue to add benets for registered members, such as: Access to free online courses: 25 free training modules accessible at the etraining website [http://etraining.mandriva.com]. Access to free technical support from the Mandriva Expert Community. A free blog space on the Mandriva Club platform. A subscription to the Mandriva Newsletter containing security alerts, new package announcements, product releases and special offers. Powerpack customers get additional benets: Free access to special online courses.

Our Club offering has been enhanced

You can now participate in all former club activities without additional fees or restrictions. The Mandriva Club is open, it is merging into the

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Register your product and join the Mandriva User Community Mandriva User Community. Only the download subscription remains a paid option. Check http://club.mandriva.com/ to get the latest news.

2. We are adding services and goodies regularly with our ecosystem partners
All this for free. The registration and the services are free for all. The Mandriva User Community is open and accessible to all.

3. Additional documentation
You may nd additional documentation either online at the Wiki [http://wiki.mandriva. com/en/Docs], or in your installed system under Menu + Documentation . Mastering Mandriva Linux is a complete manual of more than 250 pages, where you will nd information on installation, features, advanced user applications and explanations on how to congure your computer, network, partitioning...

4. Access to support and extra services

Mandriva offers you a great source of technical or more functional information about Mandriva Linux and its products. You only have to choose what ts your needs. Get useful, high quality information from the forum, the blog. Benet of Mandriva's support platform providing professional support. Access to Linux E-training courses.

5. How to contribute
Interested in giving a hand to Mandriva Linux? Whatever your specialty, Mandriva welcomes you by offering you many possibilities, you may: Join as a translator Because Mandriva believes that everyone on the earth has the right to have their operating system running in their own language. As a result, we include as many languages and localization features as possible in our products which as you can imagine represents much work. You can help us in translating programs and their associated documentation.

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Register your product and join the Mandriva User Community Become a writer Mandriva lives for innovation and improvements. Therefore, at all times of the year changes are brought to the distribution which means that help is always appreciated to update the manuals and documentation. Become a programmer Many programming projects are directly managed by Mandriva, so don't hesitate to get in contact with us if you are capable of coding with our teams. Many exciting and cool developments are on our lists and are just waiting for new motivated people. So don't be shy. Help us with the packaging Help us package the programs coming from the community, to increase the compatibility between different programs inside the Mandriva Linux distributions. Become a tester Bug hunting is one of the most important things you can contribute to Mandriva Linux. Check that your hardware is well supported under Mandriva Linux, report any issue with the desktop and applications: this will be helpful for the whole community of Mandriva Linux users!

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Colophon
This guide was written by NeoDoc [http://www.neodoc.biz] (c) 2000-2008 Mandriva S.A. - All rights reserved About Mandriva. Mandriva, formerly known as Mandrakesoft, is the publisher of Mandriva Linux, the innovative and easy-to-use operating system. It is one of the most popular Linux editions in the world. Since its creation in 1998 by three Linux enthusiasts, Mandriva has sponsored the Cooker project to develop open technologies with the open source community. Dedicated to making open source technology accessible to all users, the company offers a full range of products and services to individuals, enterprises and government organizations. Mandriva products are available online in 80 languages and in more than 140 countries through dedicated channels. Headquartered in Paris, France, the company is publicly traded on the Euronext March Libre. More information at http://www.mandriva.com.

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