Installing Mandrake Linux...

[TheGreatPoo]

I just downloaded Mandrake Linux from one of their mirrors andtried to install it on my pooter.  I did as the documentation said and turned off the PNP OS feature in my BIOS.  I also made sure that my hardware was compatible and it is.

When I boot with the CD, all is well until about 30 seconds into the installation program (when it is initializing all of the hardware or something).  The program stops with an error telling me that it couldn't initialize the RAMDisk.  It says that that could be a hardware problem or a problem with the Linux Kernel.  I really hope that it is NOT the Linux Kernel because that probably means that I will have to re-download it (I did it at work and to download the whole 3 CD set it took almost 26 HOURS!).  This sucks.  Any ideas?  Thanx in advance!

[Ice-9]

This could be a memory problem.
A ramdisk is a virtual disk created in your system memory, lots faster than a regular disk drive.
If a memory module fails or is defect this could result in your ramdisk failing to initialize, I saw that before.

[TheGreatPoo]

Hmmm.  I only have one 128MB stick in my pooter so it should be good.  I downloaded the i586 version.  Is this right for an AMD Athalon 1GHz pooter?  Thanx for the reply!

[Ice-9]

Should be fine, i586 means i586 and above.
I might be wrong but I think an AMD 1GHz is an i686.

[Zombie9920]

Nope, the AMD Athlon is i786. The i586 version of your Linux should work fine on the Athlon.

[TheGreatPoo]

I saw in the help section of the Linux setup program where I can type in "linux mem=128M" to bypass the RAM test.  I did this and the computer screen went blank.  Dunno.  I won't be installing Linux on this computer any time soon anyways (it's the computer at my work).  Thanx for you guy's help!

[voidmain]

Linux doesn't do a memory test, that's your BIOS doing the memory test.  The "mem=xxx" parameter is a way to specify the amount of RAM you want Linux to use (not more than what you actually have it will surely lock up).  Normally Linux will detect and use all available RAM.  

I have an old machine with 128MB of RAM with crappy on-board video that shares the system memory.  Well I think because of this Linux was only detecting and using 64MB.  I added the "mem=120M" parameter to my lilo.conf (you can also pass that on the LILO or GRUB command line) and then it used 120MB of RAM as I had the video card configured to use 8MB.  

Now most people said they didn't have to do this with shared video cards so I must have been a special case but it allowed me to override the amount that it actually detected.

[pkd_lives]

Goto the mandrake errata page, you may be suffering from need of a patch. I had this but on an earlier AMD model, but the bug sounds the same.

[rtgwbmsr]

PKD is right. I also had a problem installing Mandrake, and the patch fixed it.

Have Fun
Dustin

[TheGreatPoo]

Which patch do I use?  I went to the page in question and found threee patches ready for download.  I didn't see one that fit my particular application (but I'm new so I am probably wrong).  Thanx for the help!!!  

[rtgwbmsr]

The patch under K6 and P1 systems. Although you don't have one of those, it should still work.

So you don't have to dig:
http://www.mandrakelinux.com/en/errata.php3