Mandrake's Graphic card's quesetions (lots questions)
 

hello, this is my first post, im new to linux (been using windows for soooo many years) yesterday, my dad asks be to install Mandrake on my computer.

while installing, when asked to sellect the driver for my graphics card (on the screen of the installation, it says Configure X) i selected Geforce 4 and the defalt driver. but when testing, it doesn't pass the test (for some reason i forgot, sorry) i tryed to change the resolution, but no chance. in the end, i got fed up and just clicked done.

now every time i want to use linux, i have to use "failsafe" mode, or nothing is on the screen. :( here's my questions:
1. how do i get it to work without having to reinstall?
2. if i reinstall, what shall i do?
3. can i download a driver for it? (via winXP)
4. please help
5. i've never learnt programming, but i know a little about modding games such as CnC Generals, does changing settings in linux need to edit script?

thanx for reading this, btw, im a newbie (as new as you can get) :P

4) no problem: go to nvidia.com and you'll find the linux driver you need for your video card, as well as installation instructions. Simply download (with any OS you like) and install in linux

I reinstall all the time.
 

If for some reason Mandrake can not automatically recognize your graphics chip, you might want to try one one of the generic (vesa) drivers.

You might want to reinstall Mandrake again. Mandrake 10.0 reinstalls in about 20 minutes on my computer. You might find that you made a silly little error that caused the problem. I believe that the nVidia chip should have installed without a problem. nVidia has a good reputation for making graphics chips that are compatible with Linux.

You could go to nVidia and download the unified driver. However, as a new Linux user, you might have difficulty installing the driver with Madrake.

cheers, guys (or girls if there's any) so all i've got to do now is to download the linux driver and try to install it onto Mandrake, then restart out of failsafe mode and hopefully it'll fix the problem. sounds good :D

here's another question: before installing Mandrake, i tryed to install RedHat 8, but don't know why, the "linux medcheck" can't read my second disc, when i was installing red hat, the system froze after ive inserted CD2 and clicked OK ?!?!? :mad: when i got into WinXP, my CD-RW and DVD-ROM can both read the second disc???!!!
then i made CD1~5 into iso images. when half-way through installing, it says that a file on CD2 in unreadable!!?!?! :rolleyes: *shouting out aloud like mad* :confused:
i'd really like to use red hat because it's more popular and i knew Linux through seeing red hat, so is there any way of getting around this??

Personally, judging by this:
I'd reccomend a download of Mandrake 10 CE. I had no problems during installation, although I don't use a high-class gfx card either. The hardware detection thru Mandrake is excellent, and 10 should come stock with your drivers. It's possible that your 9 just might not have the drivers for your NVidia card.

Also, I had my fair share of problems with 9 - installation trouble mostly. 10 solved all these, and the OS is great. The only time(s) it's broken, have been when I broke it lol :D

How did you get the redhat disk? Did you download the ISO image from internet? The file may have been corrupted. Even though you can see all the files, some of the information may be inaccessible or unreadable. That's what the md5 checksum is for and why redhat offers to check your media before you start installation. If you want to install you have to download the ISO again (check its OK with the checksum) and burn a new CD. I recommend you burn it slowly, because that could also be a cause for file corruption.

download again!!! or download another one!!!! :( 56k just isn't up for the job :( (the Mandrake is from a friend and the Red Hat is downloaded from my dad's office)

to answer your question, my dad probably did download it, and that friend also downloaded Mandrake.

I know what you mean: I'm on a 56k as well, so most of the cd's I have I got with magazines. I don't know about the UK, but here in Spain there's quite a choice of mags including even DVD's on a monthly basis (I've seen loads in France as well). I got FC2 complete in 2 months.

how do you know im in UK... oh, yes, never mind......

as a mater of fact, i've never looked at PC mags, all i've been reading are PCZone (PC games) PCGames (well, you can guess that) and that's it. i'll go and have a look sometimes, but don't think i'd be lucky this month

Tell ya what wuyanxu, I'm down on the south coast and lucky enough to be in an area that had broadband enabled exchanges pretty much from the start of BB.

Yes it would be reasonably straight forward for me to either download whatever, or just buy Linux format mag and usually a month or two after a release, they usually put the latest stuff on the cover disc - I get the dvd version!

But, after trying my first downloaded version of mandrake (back when 8.2 was current), I now just get "boxed set" disc's direct from mandrake. Usually the power pack version, because it has the nvidia driver pre-configured plus a fair bit of other stuff (I originally needed the alcatel speedtouch usb modem support as well which is also included in the boxed set).

I've never had any problem's with them. Also, it's supporting mandrake, which I have absolutely no qualm's about!

As for redhat being more popular? not too sure about that. Yes, it's big in the States, but what's popular depends on where you are. Look to the far east and you see lot's of other stuff that "seem's" more popular than deadrat!

Personally, I'd say that if hardware recognition is your priority, then get the latest mandrake or possibly even better, the latest knoppix. Then at least you can either keep it as a "live" distro and run it from hdd, or install it to your hdd.

Then while it can, after a while, degrade (well, just get old/outdated), you can then find out how to meddle with it to either make a full/proper debian system or just do full upgrades - but just do them overnight, because like anything linux, it can take quite a time with dial up!

regards

John

UK? ~ b r a i n w a v e z ~

You never get exactly what you want when you want it, but you might find something even better...