Two problems: difficulty with DVD-Rom and wireless connection

[lastredoubt]

Hi again,

I recently installed SuSE 10.1 on a Toshiba A10 Satellite laptop with a Toshiba DVD-Rom/ CD-RW (DVD-ROM SDR2412) and am experiencing difficulties with copying files from burnt DVDs to the harddrive. I have been trying to rip music from my CD's as well as copy and paste folders of mp3's from a DVD to the music folder in my home directory. The difficulty is that it generally states that the process stalled as I try to pull specific folders over and then refuses to manually eject rom unless I reboot. Also, when I put in an actual CD of a band and choose the option that rips and converts, it says i am missing the correct encoder. If someone could please tell me if this is normal or if there is something I can do about it, I'd be thankful.

My second problem seems minor but I cannot figure it out. I'm accessing the internet with a Toshiba America Info 82801DB PRO/100 VE (MOB) Ethernet Controller and wireless LAN that goes through a secure network in the house I live in. It has an encryption key, and I manage to get it up and running fine. The only complaint is that every time I turn my computer off or reset, the network is never automatically detected or accessed and I can only get it working again by using YaST and going into network devices and just having it do exactly what's already there (which I guess refreshes the device). Anyway, I would appreciate it if someone could tell me how I can get my internal network card to automatically detect wireless networks and access them as soon as I log in.

Thanks in advance,
Daniel

[joefay]

Hello lastredoubt!

I've struggled through both of these issues, and I MAY be able to help, But I need some additional information...
1. Are you dragging this over from a network, or from a DVD/CDROM on your Linux box? If an MS network, is it a samba share, and if so, do you have a firewall up on the link?
2. Linux usually doesn't come with an MP3 encoder/decoder built into the distrubution due to legal difficulties, since it is not open source, and someone has to pay to get the rascal. Have you tried to get one of the alternatives, such as the LAME encoder/decoder that is a "work-alike?"
3. Are you using the GUI(e.g. drag and drop) or a terminal to copy the file?
4. Are you in ROOT or one of your users when you try to do these things?
5. Which version of 10.1 are you using: The older one, or the 'remastered' version (which has lots of bug fixes, and works better!)?

1. On the network problem, are you using for a network manager (e.g. knetworkmanager?), and do you save your config after you edit? Where?
2. How did you come by the driver? (e.g. ndiswrapper, Madwifi, OR a native driver from the mfg)? Was it in source that you had to 'MAKE' AND 'MAKE INSTALL?'

Good Luck!
Joe

[lastredoubt]

Thanks for trying to help me out Joe,

I have recently jumped ship from MS to SuSE and was looking forward to the challenge of learning what to do -- So I guess that's the better way of saying 'I don't really know what I'm doing at all.' Firstly though, for store-bought cd's I've managed to find and utilize successfully the import cd feature on Helix Banshee, which must have always been there, but I guess I just slipped by it in my frustration. On to your questions, which I will answer to the best of my ability.

1. I am dragging from a burnt data DVD containing many folders of albums that is in the DVD-ROM media drive in my laptop. The not-so-elaborate process I was first using was to open the media in a window via My Computer and then highlighting a folder which contained an album of music and right clicking to use 'copy to' my music folder. That ended up working for a lot of the albums if I did them one at a time, but some folders would stall the drive and I would have to reboot or use the eject feature from the right-click menu on the media icon. Though it may be worthwhile to note that even if I used the eject command, if I then tried to reload the DVD and try to drag over again it would stall immediately requiring reboot anyway.

2. After the alert told me Linux required a decoder/encoder I tried to find where I could get one within the system. In my options, though, it showed me in a pull-down menu that I could select LAME to use as my encoder, but when I tried that, it still didn't work. I guess I may still not actually have LAME but have an option for choosing it? I'm a little scared of installing packages on Linux since it is new and I have no idea how to go about it yet. I've tried finding some good ebooks on it, but I haven't had a chance to see if the downloaded ebooks will open without fail in SuSE once I take them off the Windows desktop I have in the house.

3. I guess it may be obvious by now but I am using KDE instead of a terminal. I still haven't ventured to the terminal though I know I have to at somepoint.

4. I'm logged in as one of the users, in fact, I cannot find a way through the GUI to change anything about root, (though I understand that I am automatically root user while using YaST) but I think I am probably just overlooking something simple.

5. I am using the Re-mastered SuSE 10.1 DVD.

Okay, on to the network problems:

1. This one is simple -- I guess I haven't been saving at all. Everytime the OS loads and I see it isn't working, I immediatly go to YaST and go into the network devices to see if anything is wrong, but end up just clicking next a lot until it refreshes the same configuration. I am not sure if I fully understand all the different Network Managers in conjuction with YaST, and what takes dominance over the other. Is there anywhere I can get some decent documentation on this sort of thing? I tried opensuse.org but the language used to help new users is apalling and needs some more effort in communication.

2. I am assuming here, but I think the driver is native. I didn't have to make install anything other than what the SuSE 10.1 DVD put on my computer during the OS install for my hardware to work.


This is lengthy, but I really appreciate your help, thanks!
Daniel