Trouble installing Mandrake 9: It won't

[Dai_Maxwell]

Okay, I'm brand new at this but dl'd and burned the Mandrake 9 iso.  The install window comes up, I select install Linux, it warns me that it's best to backup the files first but to hit ok if I have, and it will reboot to proceed with install.  I hit okay, and nothing happens.

I'm currently runing Win98Se and I've disabled my anti-virus.

Help?

Dai

[TheQuirk]

Is your BIOS set to boot from the CD-ROM?

[Dai_Maxwell]

I was doing it from within Windows?  :rolleyes:

[Master of Reality]

you cant install it from windows... thats the reason for it rebooting.

[voidmain]

I hope you have more than one ISO. Isn't Mandrake 9.0 on 3 CDs?  

When you get all the CDs created you stick the first one in your CD-ROM drive, reboot your machine, enter your BIOS/CMOS configuration at the beginning of the boot process and make sure your CD-ROM is set to be the first boot device. Save/Exit which will cause your machine to reboot and load the Linux installation from the first CD. Follow the installation instructions.

If it's your first time go to Mandrake's web site and find the online installation manual and read it over, all of this is covered there.

[Dai_Maxwell]

I beleive I read at the site I got this from that I could install from DOS and into the Windows directory by typing lnx4win, but that didn't work.  

I thought that if I could just install it into the Windows dir and play around with it at my leisure, I would do it and if it messed up my Windows, it wouldn;t be the end of the world sicne I eventually need to do a clean install of it anyways, but after I enabled cdrom boot and started an install, I realize that I'm not ready yet to risk installing it on my primary computer yet.

Maybe I'll do it on my secondary one this weekend.

Thanks for the help guys,

Dai

[voidmain]

If you are not worried about screwing up Windows (not that I would be) then why would you not want to try it on your primary computer? It's a heck of a lot safer to do a real install than it is to try some convoluted install onto a FAT partition. Maybe you should download the Knoppix CD first. Then you can run Linux directly off of the CD and not worry about touching anything on the hard drive.

[The Auditor]

I agree with void, though personally i would just have a poke at your partition sizes, there is little chance you can "mess up" windows any worse than it already is, and i doubt you would turn back to windows after trying linux.

However, why not back up your primary computer onto your secondary, and then install Linux, no fear?

Just a suggestion.
The Auditor

[Dai_Maxwell]

Well, my primary hd is a 60 gig with three partitions and I was afraid of damaging them because I'm so new to dealing with this.  However... I intalled Linux on a second hd after swapping it out and have played with it some, even getting connected to my ISP.

The feeling of breaking the shackles that is ms is rather invigorating      Here's a couple of questions:

If I install it on my windows partition, in order to access all the windows stuff on it and the other drives, I need to install WINE?  Once I do that, I will be able to run all the things I could do in 98?

Thanks a lot for your patience,

Dai

[Calum]

that's so incredibly convoluted, no offence. forget all this installing it onto some crap fat32 partition. put CD1 in your CD drive, then install mandrake. When you get to the partitioning screen, click the 'let mandrake do my partitioning automatically' button or whatever it is, and you are set. A default install will give you a proper install of linux and next time you start your machine, you'll get a graphical menu which will offer you the choice of booting into windows, or booting into mandrake.

as for WINE, it is not for accessing FAT drives. that is in the linux kernel anyway, no problem. WINE is purely for running windows programs in linux, which is stupid anyway when there's so many good native programs for linux that do the same jobs.

go for it. by now you could have set it up! what are you waiting for???

and to finish, a quote from void main:  

quote:Your computer is already fucked up by having windows on it. You can only unfuck it by installing linux.

Good luck, and post often. Also, have a quick read through the MES FAQ, the link to which you can find in my signature...  

[Dai_Maxwell]

When you have experience doing something, it's easier to be brave about doing it the next time.  Last night when I first tried to install it, I froze at the rather ominous notice that it might overwrite my partitions and since I have over 30 gigs of stuff on the other partitions, decided it was just better to be safe than sorry.

As far completely forgoing winblows, while it may be true that many of the common apps are available in the Linux world, I use a couple of programs that as far as I know are not.  Now, they may turn out to be, but until I know for certain, I can't completely forsake this cursed os.

On a slightly unrelated note, I have a 486 DX66 machine.  Do you know if I can install one of the versions of Linux for it and be able to play mp3's?  Currently, it won't with 95 and it's either give it away to get rid of it or make use out of it.

Dai

[Calum]

quote:Originally posted by Dai:
When you have experience doing something, it's easier to be brave about doing it the next time.  Last night when I first tried to install it, I froze at the rather ominous notice that it might overwrite my partitions and since I have over 30 gigs of stuff on the other partitions, decided it was just better to be safe than sorry.

you are correct. no partitioning tool is totally foolproof, so i would advise you to backup all your data first, although it should not be necessary.

 

quote:As far completely forgoing winblows, while it may be true that many of the common apps are available in the Linux world, I use a couple of programs that as far as I know are not.  Now, they may turn out to be, but until I know for certain, I can't completely forsake this cursed os.

you misunderstand me completely. what i mean is that you should install linux as a seperate operating system on a seperate partition from windows. Your windows installation will not have anything different from what it currently has except that it's partition will be smaller, since you would have shored it down to make way for a few Gigs to put linux on. you do not need to forsake anything. you just install linux as a dual boot and you will get linux IN ADDITION to your current setup.

 

quote:On a slightly unrelated note, I have a 486 DX66 machine.  Do you know if I can install one of the versions of Linux for it and be able to play mp3's?  Currently, it won't with 95 and it's either give it away to get rid of it or make use out of it.

i think that most versions of linux up to about last year will run on it, and should be able to play mp3s using such programs as xmms, noatun and mpg123. Do check if a particular version supports 486 as i know that the latest mandrake 9.0 does not, not sure about current versions of red hat (mandrake 9 supports pentiums and up). Otherwise, i'm actually after an older laptop, maybe you could offload it onto me! on the other hand, it might cost a lot to ship it, depending on where you are. Nevertheless, give me a shout on the private messages if you feel like it...

[Dai_Maxwell]

Right now, I feel like I've just arrived in another country in a language immersion program and have gotten separated from my host family...     It's going to be cool though, just goign to take time and resolve.  And I think I have it.

Dai

[voidmain]

You mentioned that you put in a separate drive to install Linux. That's a good idea. Install Linux on that drive. You will be able to boot into either Linux or Windows as Calum said. You will also be able to access your Windows partitions from Linux if you need to get to some files. After getting Mandrake installed we can help you with this part if   you need it.

I would suggest not rushing in to it though, please read over the installation manual on Mandrake's web site and figure out the best approach for you. You might want to do a custom install. In fact you can practice on your old machine so you can feel confident on your primary machine.

Also, you might have trouble installing on a 486 with a newer distro (especially if you have very little RAM). The latest distros are optimized for newer hardware than that. You could find an older distro that would work fine on it but I would suggest your good machine for best results.

Also, playing MP3's require a certain amount of processing power (on any operating system) because MP3's are compressed. Decompression takes far less CPU than compression, but it still may not play well on a 486 class machine.

[ November 15, 2002: Message edited by: void main ]

[voidmain]

repairing...