Just can’t seem to get off the ground
 

I’ve been using Mandrake 10.1 for the last couple off weeks. I’m very impressed with power and control Linux offers as well as the huge range of well-developed open applications.

I want to keep using Linux, but....

I’m just having a nightmare with getting a stable operating system.

There are two key issues. The Mandrake control center seems to hang when I start it 8 out of 10 times and the second is, when ever I have the control center problem the home partition cannot be unmounted at shut down.

Unfortunately I don’t know what to try. This is the third install and setting and applications I’ve installed are pretty standard.

I thought I’d post this and hope someone has had a similar problem with an identified solution.

Gary.

Mandrake is probably the least stable linux distribution that you can use. It is user friendly, but so are others- and others have less bugs. Mandrake may stabilize next release, but the fact is they are French. 40 hours a week shuts down their entire country.

Try Suse 9.2 or Xandros or Progeny or any other user friendly OS. I hear Ubuntu is nice to, but i've never tried it and the name is stupid besides. I was a mandrakeclub member since it was incepted, and they have just gone down the shitter. But, as always, it's your choice.

what about Suse and Xandros, are they even proper words?

I have had excellent luck with Mandrake 10.0 I had the same problems as you with Man 10.1.

It is just not working. I’ve tried suse, ubuntu and fedora with no luck. I keep getting the same signature problems of the device manager being inaccessible and the home partition not unmounting at shut down.

Does anyone recognize these symptoms being attributed to a particular piece of hardware, i.e. harddrive, CPU?

"I keep getting the same signature problems of the device manager being inaccessible and the home partition not unmounting at shut down."

RMA your hard drive. If they want diag codes for an RMA, slam it flatly into the ground until you hear the head break off with a ding, and then send it back. They don't need codes when it doesn't boot. Just a little techie hint.

Hi,

I've heard that Mandrake 10 is not without problems. But as the prévious post says, if you've got the same harddrive problem with every distro ... it can be a harddrive problem : ) Before breaking the thing try openning your box cheking the connexions, maybe borrow another hardisk to try on your box?

good luck

Hi,
I have installed Mandrake 10 a number of times but I always seem to have issues with it. Right now I have a problem with the boot loader, whereby there appears to be too many options in the bootloader box, like linux smp, floppy, and other such options, but I need to have only 2 options, one for linux and the other one for windows. I deleted the other options and left the one that had been left as the dafault option after the installation, but when I choose it now, all I get is a blank screen with a blinking cursor in the top left hand corner, nothing else.

I have also tried installing Redhat 9.0, but it does not pick the monitor. I also tried knoppix, which works fine in everything.

Any suggestions? Thanks

How about supplying detailed info about your system? Guesses aren't as good as solid info.

Please post:
fstab
exact error messages
output of lspci
your bootloader's config file

I am French so probably not very clever
:) Would you mind explaining this 40 hours a week shutdown thing ? I may learn something about my own country, then :)

"Would you mind explaining this 40 hours a week shutdown thing ?"

Sure, learn away:

http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_i...0447180296B216
http://www.napanews.com/templates/in...B-821D53742737
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4238531.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/1773203.stm
http://en.internationalism.org/wr/225_sncf.htm
http://www.ttc.org/cgi-binloc/search...isplayZop+8220
http://www.ttc.org/cgi-binloc/search...displayZop+168
http://www.ttc.org/cgi-binloc/search...isplayZop+7962
http://www.ttc.org/cgi-binloc/search...splayZop+12749


Since you are in France, you may not notice the effects as it happens every year- or you just don't care. But, if you are doing business with France- you do notice it. DHL and the like striking makes a 2 week shipping time turn into 2 months. Support for products end an hour before everyone else on Earth. Little things like that. And I have had the joy of that experience on a few occasions. Not so much anymore though- because I avoid it in total.

I had a similar problem (and worse) until I replaced all my 80-wire ribbon cables with round ones. Not only did the random HD problems go away, the mother-board temp. dropped 10 degrees (C).

My box was somewhat cramped (6 HD, and 2 DVD), and several of the ribbon cables had gotten "kinked."

But the same problem on multiple distributions does sound like a HD problem, not software. Try replacing the drive (and cable) to see if that clears it up. If it does, and it's still under warranty, ask for a replacement from you supplier of the manufacturer.

Redhat Linux installation problem
 

Hi,

I have been happily using Redhat 8.0 on an older PC. However I have recently purchased an e-machine that originally had Windows XP on it - which is now my next Linux machine.

I kicked off by installing a free copy of Mandriva 2005 Limited edition. It looks great but I had problems with configuring my LAN to work. As Redhat worked well for my other machine, I decided to install Redhat 8.0 instead.

Unfortunately when I start the Redhat installation I don't get past the initial boot stage before the screen goes blue and hangs there. I have tried a low resolution and text install - but to no avail.

Can anyone offer any suggestions? My monitor works fine with the other PC.

At present I'm all lost at sea.

Cheers.

Heh, being a Truck driver I can add to this also...................American Truck Drivers work an
average of 50-60 hours a week........some OTR drivers work 70 hours....................

French Truck drivers only work 32 hours a week..........and they (french drivers) are threatening to go on Strike ( again ) because they are being asked to work an extra 5 hours a week ( 37 total )...........French Truck Drivers are Lazy by our standards, I guess eating snails and drinking all that wine is making them that way.....???

Alright, one more mentioning of 40 hour work week or French and this thread is getting closed along with members getting warnings that lead to losing privileges to this site. Lay off the personal smack and get back on topic please.