Need to solve (or bypass) ethernet install for Mandrake10
 

I've been trying to install Mandrake 10 over my copy of Mandrake 9.2. I Only had been uising 9.2 for a short while but the install for that worked fairly smoothly. I had never been able to configure internet access on it though. So I thought 10 might be easier. Heh.

I made a boot floppy and restarted the machine. The Man10 install procedure started well enough. At first it couldn't find the drivers for my Linksys Ethernet 10/100 card but then I made a floppy image of the network_drivers.iso file and it got past that point.

Next however, I came to a screen where it asked me to chose an installation method with the 3 options being "NFS server", "FTP server" and "HTTP server". I wasn't planning to make this computer a server at all. All I want is for the ethernet card to work as an access point for my cable modem so I can have internet access. But picking any of those 3 didn't seem to make any difference anyway since they all brought me to an identical 2nd screen where I'm asked to choose my desired IP attribution from "Static", "DHCP", and "ADSL". On my Windows PC I never had to specify an IP address or login in the network settings. The IP was always obtained automaticaly. So I wasn't sure what to put in for the "Static" option which asked for sever IP addresses. Or DHCP which asked for Host and domain name. Just putting in dummy addresses never did anything excpet freeze things up for a few minutes and then put me back at the start. And I couldn't seem to cancel out or bypass this section. So I am stuck and can't finnish the install.

At this point, I'd be willing to leave the card disfunctional as it seemed to be in 9.2 and worry about it later. Is there anyway to skip over it? And ofcourse if anyone knows a way I can correctly configure the card, that would be nice to know too. Thanks.

Welcome to LQ.

Just set it to dhcp and in the hostname box enter a name for your pc - ie "mos22pc"

I tried your suggestion David, but it didn't work. I just get "Sending DHCP request..." for about 10 minutes and then it times out and says it can't connect. Tried it twice. Once with NFS server and the other time with HTTP. Same results both ways. I didn't have the patience to try it a third time with FTP server.

What is it trying to connect to anyway?

I'm bumping this for those of you who were away over the holiday weekend since my problem hasn't been solved yet

What exactly do you mean by "Once with NFS server and the other time with HTTP."?

Do you have a dhcp server on your network? If not then assign the details acording to your windows set - can you post the output of:
ipconfig /all

How many network devices are on your network?

Every time I try to get through this process, the first screen gives me a selection menu with 3 items and asks me to "choose the installation method". The 3 options are:

NFS sever
FTP server
HTTP server

I have no idea which of these to use. Like I said in my first post, I didn't want to make this new linux box a server. And I wasn't planning to install from a server - just from the CD I made from the Mandrake 10 iso.

I don't really have a network. I'm installing Mandrake 10 on an extra PC I have at home. And I don't intend to connect it to any other PCs (at this time atleast). I just want it to connect through my cable modem, provided by RCN, to the internet.

Here is part of the output from ipconfig /all on my Windows XP machine. It is what I previously was connecting the cable mode to.

Windows IP Configuration

Host Name . . . . . . . . . . . . : HP_P4_2800
Primary Dns Suffix . . . . . . . :
Node Type . . . . . . . . . . . . : Hybrid
IP Routing Enabled. . . . . . . . : No
WINS Proxy Enabled. . . . . . . . : No

Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection:

Connection-specific DNS Suffix . : cable.rcn.com
Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Realtek RTL8139/810x Family Fast Eth
ernet NIC
Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-0C-6E-51-59-D1
Dhcp Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : Yes
Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes
IP Address. . . . . . . . . . . . : 216.15.100.55
Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0
Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 216.15.100.1
DHCP Server . . . . . . . . . . . : 209.122.64.222
DNS Servers . . . . . . . . . . . : 207.172.3.8
207.172.3.9

After looking at this I tried NFS Server and DHCP since according to ipconfig I am using it. I made up a random Host name and gave the Domain name as cable.rcn.com. But it just locked up and eventually failed like the other 2 times I tried DHCP.

I also tried HTTP server with static. I tried plugging in some of the same IP addresses used on my windows machine. But is said the reverse name lookup on self failed. After a few minutes it did progress onto a screen that looked like the DHCP server screen, where it asked for my host and domain name. I think it then asked for the installation directory of Mandrake, which I didn't know. You'd think the install process would know that! Basicly I just hit cancel and I got sent back to square one at the "choose installation method" screen again :scratch:

Sorry I think I missread your first post. Are you trying to run a network install or are you just trying to install from the CDs?

Just install from the CDs. Though I'm starting the install from a boot floppy disk since I didn't seem to be able to boot and start the install process from the CD. That's why all this server stuff has been confusing me.

Check that you used the correct image when making the bot floppy - you maybe used the image for a network install.

That could very well be the problem - that I used the wrong image file to make the boot floppy. I didn't think there would be more then one so I probably grabbed the first iso that said something about bootdisk. I don't have a chance to take a closer look right now but maybe later today or tomorrow.