Linux Newbie...with some questions....

[Greg Rundlett]

On Tue, Nov 11, 2008 at 4:26 PM, david Bodman <dkblinux at gmail.com> wrote:
> Greetings...
>
> I've been monitoring the list for a while, and just yesterday created my
> first Linux box from a Dell GX160 by putting Kubuntu on it...

Hi David, and congratulations on your first Linux setup.
>
> I've had some Unix experience a long time ago, but nothing with Linux.
>
> Install seemed to go fine, it's up and running, but I'm running into bunches
> of things I don't understand yet....
>
> 1. I'm trying to modify the screen resolution. It's only giving me options
> of 640x480, when I know my video card, etc can go much higher. Help file
> talks about an Administrator Mode button, but I don't see that anywhere on
> the app... I'm confused!

You should be confused..... it's a longstanding bug that the
"Administrator Mode" button is not visible in the normal-sized dialog.
 Try maximizing the dialog box and then you'll see the Administrator
Mode button at the lower right corner (under a lot of empty screen
real-estate!!?).  Click that button, and you'll be prompted for your
password so that you can gain root privileges.  Unfortunately, I don't
think you'll be able to set or modify the screen resolution there,
even with root privileges, unless your Xorg.conf does actually know
what your video card supports.

If the right video driver and modes are not automatically detected,
you'll need to figure out what video card you have.  You can do that
with the command "lspci".  For example, I have an old Dell Inspiron
5100 notebook and when I type "lspci" in konsole, it tells me (among
other things) that I have

01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc Radeon
Mobility M7 LW [Radeon Mobility 7500]

Knowing the card, you can probably find (Google) examples of video
configurations that work and certainly find what resolutions the card
is capable of.  Post more info here and we'll get you going.

>
> 2. I've tried to set up  the email package (Kmail) to work IMAP with Gmail,
> but it keeps on complaining that I don't have an address defined, and I
> don't see where you tell Kmail to sned or receive from the host service.

Make sure you have the KMail documentation installed, since it can be helpful:
sudo apt-get install kdepim-doc

Press the F1 key while the KMail (or Kontact) application is started
and focused.  Alternatively, you can access the KMail help anytime by
typing "help:/kmail" in the address bar of Konqueror (which serves as
the KDE help browser).

Between KMail's own instructions, and GMail's instructions for setting
up their service for IMAP clients [1] , you will be able to get KMail
to act as your IMAP client for GMail.  You basically just click on
"Settings -> Configure KMail" then "Accounts" and "Add" and go from
there.

[1] http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=75725


Greg

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