Sometimes things happen I can't figure out or explain. Maybe someone will be kind enough to tell me "what happened?"

Or, maybe this happened to you and you would like to know you are not losing your mind/marbles/whatever because it also happened to someone else.

I installed Icepack. Then I installed Mandrake to replace Icepack on the linux partition. Like Icepack, Mandrake re-formats the partition, presumably deleting everything that is presently there.

When I started up Mandrake, my windows drive was already mounting "umask=0," as I had designated in Icepack. I thought, "this is weird" and doublechecked the fstab file. Yep, sure enough.

Then I installed my CUPS printer. Sure enough, just as I expected my printer was in the list. I printed a test page.

Then the twilight zone hit. While installing CUPS to StarOffice, my printer disappeared. When I went to reinstall, not only had my printer disappeared, but all printers by that company and several other companies had completely disappeared.

I checked the Mandrake RPMs. Those printers were not included in the Mandrake CUPS install!!! Ultimately, I copied the "models" file from my other Icepack computer to my Mandrake computer and "tada!" -- my printers returned. Special note: The Icepack CUPS install has a lot more printers in it than in the Mandrake CUPS install. Why? I don't know -- something to be aware of if your printer is not supported in Mandrake 8.2 version of CUPS.

But then the twilight zone hit again. While install "dosemu," my windows partition became inaccessible to any user except "root." I checked "fstab" and "suprise!" Fstab now read as I had initially expected, no "umask=0." I fixed it and everything was back to working order.

The only explanation I can come up with is that somehow the "format" run by Mandrake did not fully delete the existing icepack files. Somehow they remained available in some sort of "ghost" mode and were useable by me until some sequence of events caused them to be "replaced" by the files installed by Mandrake.

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