Releases/Mandriva/2007.1/Errata
From Mandriva
Introduction
This page contains the Errata for Mandriva Linux 2007 Spring. This means it contains information on known problems with Mandriva Linux 2007 Spring and, where available, how to fix, avoid or work around them. You should also see the Release Notes, which contain more general information on the Mandriva Linux 2007 Spring release.
Mandriva Linux 2007 Spring is currently in development. During the development cycle, this Errata page will list problems users have encountered with the beta and Cooker releases. As this release is in development, the usual methods of resolving issues do not apply. Official updates are not issued for beta releases. Issues will be resolved by updates uploaded directly to the Cooker tree, and as new beta releases are made, these issues will be resolved in them. Issues that occurred with earlier beta releases but not with later beta releases will be considered 'resolved'. Where an issue is valid with the latest beta release but not in current Cooker, that issue will not be considered 'resolved' until a new beta is issued, but a note that the issue is fixed in Cooker and a reference to the specific fixed package will be included in the description of the issue.
Kernel
General instructions: kernel problems often require the use of kernel parameters. To set up kernel parameters to be used at every boot, run Mandriva Control Center and go to the Boot tab. Click on "Set up how the system boots". Click on "next". Choose the menu entry you usually use to boot the system (normally just 'linux', the default choice) and click 'Modify'. Then type the required kernel parameters into the 'Append' box, click 'OK', and then click 'Finish'.
kernel-enterprise incompatible with ACPI suspend
See also 
Bug #27071. Mandriva Linux 2007 Spring's support for PAE, an i586 instruction set extension used to allow support for over 4GB of physical memory, is incompatible with the ACPI suspend mechanism. This means you cannot use ACPI suspend with kernel-enterprise (the Mandriva kernel variant which allows support for more than 4GB of RAM). Currently you must choose between support for more than 4GB of RAM or support for ACPI suspend, you cannot have both. This issue may be fixed with a future kernel update.
XFS filesystem issues
See also Bug #24716. Some users have encountered a bug in XFS support in Mandriva Linux 2007 Spring which can result in failure to read the disk and also possible data loss when the filesystem is under heavy load, for instance when attempting to transfer a large amount of data using rsync. It is possible this issue may be fixed by developments in the upstream kernel. If so, the fix will be added to the Mandriva kernel as an official update.
Slow internet response (particularly web browsing)
See also Bug #27070. There is a known problem with all Linux distributions that enable IPv6 networking (the new standard for network addresses which uses a longer, hexadecimal address format to provide a much larger number of possible addresses. The old standard is IPv4, which gives the four-groups-of-three-digits decimal address format most people are familiar with, e.g. 216.105.167.65). Some systems and networks do not cope well if your system has IPv6 networking enabled. If you experience sluggish response on the Internet - especially when browsing web sites - and cannot find the cause, you should try disabling IPv6. To do this, edit the file /etc/sysconfig/network, add the following line, and reboot:
NETWORKING_IPV6=no
See also Bug #27073. If this does not resolve the problem, there is another possibility. Most Linux distributions, including Mandriva, enable a kernel feature called TCP window scaling. This is useful for increasing the speed of transfers over very high bandwidth connections. However, a change was made in the default values for TCP window scaling in kernel 2.6.17, which seems to cause very slow network performance for some users with some internet sites. To see if TCP window scaling is the problem, you can disable it with this command:
sysctl -w net.ipv4.tcp_window_scaling=0
If this resolves the problem, you can make the change permanent by adding this line to the file /etc/sysctl.conf :
net.ipv4.tcp_window_scaling=0
This will disable TCP window scaling at every boot. If you do use a very high bandwidth network connection - for instance, you regularly transfer large files over a local 100Mbit or 1Gbit network - you may notice that disabling TCP window scaling results in slower performance over this connection. In this case, you could try restoring the pre-2.6.17 default settings rather than disabling TCP window scaling entirely. To do this, add the following line to /etc/sysctl.conf, instead of (not in addition to) the previously suggested one:
net.ipv4.tcp_rmem=4096 87380 174760
This will change the default window scaling settings at every boot.
Issue with networking/firewire on Zepto/Compal models including Znote 6515WD
See also Bug #18938. Using these laptops you will get "Disabling IRQ# 11" (or similar) resulting in broken networking.
After installation this can be fixed by making a few changes to the /etc/modprobe.conf file:
blacklist ohci1394 blacklist ieee1394
Sound always plays through speakers on Zepto / Compal Znote 6515WD
See also FIXME. On this laptop model, sound always plays through the internal speakers even if you plug a pair of headphones or speakers into the headphone / speaker output jack. If you want to be able to toggle between using the internal speakers and the headphone / speaker output jack, there is a script that can help you. To use it, first download the script, filename 'speaker'. Open a console and navigate to the directory where you saved the script. Now run this command, to make it executable:
chmod ugo+x speaker
Next, run the command su and enter your root password to gain root privileges. Then run this command, to make root the owner of the script:
chown root.root speaker
Finally, run this command to move the file to the /usr/bin directory, so you can run it from anywhere:
mv speaker /usr/bin
You can now switch between the internal speakers and the headphone jack with these two commands:
speaker on
speaker off
Please note that this script will not work for all laptops that display the same symptom (sound always playing through internal speakers). For many models, you can toggle between the internal speakers and the headphone / speaker jack by toggling one of the switches in the KDE or GNOME volume control applets.
ipw2200: Firmware error detected. Restarting.
See also Bug #27074. The hardware encryption support in the ipw2200 module (which supports recent Intel Centrino wireless networking chipsets) is known to be buggy in some cases, causing connectivity issues which result in this error in the system logs. To fix this add the following to the /etc/modprobe.conf file:
options ipw2200 hwcrypto=0
PC Card devices not found
See also Bug #26112. Users of some (particularly new) laptop models may find that the system does not seem to recognise PC Card devices at all. If you are having trouble with PC Card devices, check whether they show up in the output of the command lspci run as root. If not, you may be suffering from this problem. To fix it, you can try rebooting after adding the following kernel parameter (for instructions on using kernel parameters, see the start of this section):
pci=assign-busses
This is known to be a problem on the following systems: Acer Travelmate 2410 series (2413).
Broadcom wireless network devices not working / unstable
Mandriva Linux 2007 Spring includes the bcm43xx driver for Broadcom wireless network chipsets. Broadcom chips are frequently used in systems with integrated wireless networking, for instance laptops. Your system's manual / technical specifications document should tell you the manufacturer of your wireless chipset.
The bcm43xx driver is a relatively new development and is based on reverse engineering, not official Broadcom technical specifications (which are not provided). The driver is therefore incomplete, contains some bugs and does not work correctly with all varieties of Broadcom chipsets. If you have a Broadcom wireless chipset, Mandriva is using the bcm43xx driver, and you are not satisfied with its performance, you may consider using ndiswrapper as an alternative. ndiswrapper is a module which uses Windows drivers to provide wireless networking on Linux. This has obvious compromises in terms of licensing, but in some cases will give better results than the bcm43xx driver. ndiswrapper should be included and available as an option in the networking configuration tool (you can choose either to use the bcm43xx driver or 'a Windows driver', which means using ndiswrapper).
Some laptops (VAIO VGN-FS115B, Asus W6A) run slowly on AC power
See also Bug #24598. Some laptop models, including the Sony VAIO VGN-FS115B and Asus W6A, run Mandriva Linux 2007 Spring at the expected speed when running from battery power, but run much slower when the AC power adapter is connected and they are running from mains power. It is not currently known what causes this problem. A workaround is to disable local APIC on boot. To do this, go to the Mandriva Control Center. Go to the Boot tab, and click on 'Set up how the system boots'. Click on 'Advanced'. Uncheck the box labelled 'Enable Local APIC'. Click 'Next'. Click 'Finish'. Close down all open applications, and reboot the system.
Software issues
gnome-volume-control and gedit packages not on Beta 1 DVD
The DVD edition of Mandriva Linux 2007 Spring Beta 1 does not include the gnome-volume-control and gedit packages, which are part of the GNOME desktop environment and should have been included. You may install these packages from a Cooker repository. They will be included on the next beta release.
man and info packages not on Beta 1 One versions
The 'man' and 'info' packages were inadvertently left out of the One versions of Mandriva Linux 2007 Spring Beta 1. They will be restored in Beta 2.
Truetype fonts not correctly imported with drakfont
See also Bug #27506. A bug in drakfont, the Mandriva Linux font import tool, means that when you try to import TrueType fonts, the original TrueType version of the font is not correctly imported. The font is still available to most applications, as drakfont also converts imported fonts to Type1, and this part of the process works correctly. However, Type1 fonts do not render as well as TrueType fonts, so you will noticed that imported fonts seem visually inferior. To work around this issue, you can import fonts manually. As root, copy the fonts to /usr/share/fonts/ttf, then run the following commands:
cd /usr/share/fonts/ttf
ttmkfdir > fonts.scale
mkfontdir
chkfontpath -a /usr/share/fonts/ttf
You can also fix the bug in drakfont by editing /usr/sbin/drakfont as a text file, going to line 333, and changing it from:
system('cd ' . $temp_dir . ' && cp *.ttf ../../ttf; chmod 644 ../../ttf/*ttf') if glob("$temp_dir/*.TTF");
to:
system('cd ' . $temp_dir . ' && cp *.ttf ../../ttf; chmod 644 ../../ttf/*ttf') if glob("$temp_dir/*.ttf");
UTF8 issue when reinstalling and keeping a previous /home that was not in UTF8
When installing instead of upgrading, and keeping a previous /home, the install doesn't convert the /home to UTF8 and some characters might not display properly in filenames.
To solve this issue, save the following convert-filenames-to-utf8.pl script in your /home/UserName/, and run the following commands to convert your /home/UserName/ to UTF8:
cd ~/
chmod u+rx convert-filenames-to-utf8.pl
./convert-filenames-to-utf8.pl
3D-accelerated desktop (AIGLX, Xgl)
3D-accelerated desktop not starting under GNOME
Some users, especially those upgrading or preserving /home directories from previous versions of Mandriva Linux, may find themselves unable to enable the 3D-accelerated desktop under GNOME. Even after running drak3d and selecting one of the 3D-accelerated desktop options, on login to GNOME the native window manager (metacity) will start up and no 3D desktop effects will be observed. This problem can usually be rectified by removing the file ~/.gnome2/session . We recommend you simply move this file somewhere else (for example, your home directory), rather than deleting it, so it can be restored if problems arise as a result of its removal. Once you have removed the file, log out of GNOME and log back in, and you should observe that compiz is started instead of metacity, and the 3D desktop effects appear.
3D-accelerated desktop and video playback
See also Bug #27036. If you use the 3D accelerated desktop technologies included in Mandriva Linux 2007 Spring (AIGLX or Xgl), you may notice that video playback does not work very well - moving, resizing, maximising the video window will cause problems, or you may see strange artifacts in or through the video. You may also notice that, if you use the 'cube' feature of compiz, the video does not play while you rotate the cube. To avoid these problems, you should set your video player to use an output driver which does not use video overlay. If you use AIGLX, you should use the x11 / xshm output driver. If you use Xgl, you can use the x11 / xshm driver or the OpenGL output driver (which may be smoother and offer more features, such as brightness / contrast control, than the x11 / xshm driver). The way to do this is different for different video players.
- For players that use gstreamer (for e.g. totem-gstreamer), run gstreamer-properties, go to the "Video" tab, and set the video output to "X Window System (No Xv)".
- For mplayer, for x11 / xshm output, add this line to ~/.mplayer/config (and also to ~/.mplayer/mplayerplug-in.conf if you use the mplayerplugin browser plugin):
vo=x11
For OpenGL output, add the following line instead:
vo=gl2
- For xine, go to the settings menu, set your configuration experience level to "Advanced", then go to the video tab and change "video driver to use" to "xshm" for x11 / xshm output or "openGL" for OpenGL output. Alternatively, you can use these console commands. For x11 / xshm output:
perl -pi -e 's|#video.driver:auto|video.driver:xshm|' ~/.xine/config
For OpenGL output:
perl -pi -e 's|#video.driver:auto|video.driver:openGL|' ~/.xine/config
- For Kaffeine, go to the settings menu, select "Xine backend configuration" and in the video tab change the driver to "xshm" for x11 / xshm output or "openGL" for OpenGL output.
- For Totem in Xine mode, run this command for x11 / xshm output:
perl -pi -e 's|#video.driver:auto|video.driver:xshm|' ~/.gnome2/totem_config
Or this command for OpenGL output:
perl -pi -e 's|#video.driver:auto|video.driver:openGL|' ~/.gnome2/totem_config
- For x11 / xshm output in KMplayer, go to Settings -> Configure KMplayer. Then in the "General Options" section go to the Output tab. In this section change Video Driver to "X11Shm".
3D-accelerated desktop and some Java/Swing applications
See also Bug #25900. Some Java applications using Swing may not display correctly under Xgl/AIGLX with compiz - the usual symptom is that text is not displayed. A possible solution is to run the following command at a console before launching your java application:
export AWT_TOOLKIT=MToolkit
If this works, you may want to add these two lines to the file ~/.bash_profile (that is, the file .bash_profile in your home directory):
AWT_TOOLKIT=MToolkit
export AWT_TOOLKIT
Some people have also reported that this issue is fixed in compiz-quinnstorm, an alternative version of the compiz compositing manager that is used to implement 3D accelerated desktop effects. These packages are available in the contrib media. To test them, you will need to remove the compiz package and install the following packages from contrib: compiz-quinnstorm compiz-manager compiz-quinnstorm-plugins cgwd cgwd-themes csm. Please note that compiz-quinnstorm will not recognise configuration changes made by gset-compiz, the compiz configuration tool launched by drak3d. You must use the new csm configuration tool instead.
AIGLX and repeat logins
See also Bug #27103. There is an issue with AIGLX which may prevent users from logging out and in again multiple times when using the KDM or GDM display managers (by default, KDM is used).
One way to work around this issue is to force your display manager to restart X on logout.
For KDM you should edit the file /etc/kde/kdm/kdmrc and check you have in the =[X-:*-Core]= section the following line:
TerminateServer=true
For GDM you should edit the file /etc/X11/gdm/gdm.conf or /etc/X11/gdm/custom.conf and check you have in the =[daemon]= section the following line:
AlwaysRestartServer=true
Xgl and multiple user logins
See also Bug #27104. In a separate issue from the one above, there is an issue with Xgl which may prevent switching users (i.e. logging in graphically to the desktop as one user, logging out, and then logging in again as a different user).
If you use KDE with the KDM login manager - the default configuration of Mandriva - you can work around this issue by using this script to log out. Save the following text as a file, for example, logout.sh:
#!/bin/bash rm -f /tmp/.X93-lock rm -f /tmp/.X11-unix/X93 dcop kdesktop default logout
Make the file executable, either with the chmod +u logout.sh command or by using the graphical File Properties dialog. Running this script will log the current user out and remove the lockfiles that prevent another user from logging in, which should allow you to login again with no problems. You can create a desktop launcher that runs the script, for ease of use.
If you use the GDM login manager, you can work around the issue by editing the file /etc/X11/gdm/PostSession/Default and adding the following as lines 5 and 6:
rm -f /tmp/.X93-lock rm -f /tmp/.X11-unix/X93
3D-accelerated desktop and KDE shortcuts
See also Bug #25394. When you use the 3D accelerated desktop feature you may find some commonly-used KDE keyboard shortcuts no longer work correctly. This is because the compiz compositing manager used to provide 3D desktop effects does not know how to pass these shortcuts on to KDE correctly. The most commonly experienced problem is that alt-F2 no longer brings up the 'run program' dialog box. To fix this problem, run this command:
gconftool-2 -t
str --set /apps/compiz/general/allscreens/options/run_command0_key '<Alt>F2' \
--set /apps/compiz/general/allscreens/options/command0 'dcop kdesktop KDesktopIface popupExecuteCommand' \
--set /apps/compiz/general/allscreens/options/run_key 'Disabled'
If you wish to reverse this change, run these two commands:
gconftool-2 --unset /apps/compiz/general/allscreens/options/run_command0_key --unset \
/apps/compiz/general/allscreens/options/command0
gconftool-2 -t
str --set /apps/compiz/general/allscreens/options/run_key '<Alt>F2'
