wow.. after mandrake 8.1 fell over the x windows config - it hung after i selected neomagic in the initial install - i managed to get xwindows up afterwards!

with the help of this link :-
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...543#post822543

well i followed the instructions and ran XFDrake (god knows what this is)
and it reran the configuration program for xwindows (i think)!

and then instead of using 32 bit colou r- i used 24 bit colour for neomagic 128 - i think that did it.

well, now im off to se eif i can find hte icon for apache and shorewall.. maybe i can run these form inside gnome!

^_^ just sharing good news...