Being someone who does'nt believe in upgrading, I overwrote a previous distribution of Mandrake and tried this 8.1. Everything went smoothly right down to the XConfiguration of the video and the printer drivers but when the install completed, nothing. Just a cursor against black background. I was wondering if the Xfree86 files would help? I downloaded the *.iso images from Mandrake's site and I discovered that I had these reference files and did not burn them to disc. How do I get those files to Linux? I have not mastered the format commands yet. But I can at least log in as root so I am not that dense............(just don't leave out any characters), I should be able to follow............

PentiumII, 450MHZ, 256MB, 32MB ATI Radeon VE, Sony Trinitron by Dell, Multiscan 20series

Mind you, under 8.0 version of Linux (NO PROBLEMS)! NO PRINTER THOUGH

Thanks,
D.

not exactly sure what you are trying to do. Do you have them on CD? IF so you can mout the cd and get them that way.
mount /mnt/cdrom
Otherwise go online and look around while in linux. If that doesn't answer your question plz provide more info.

Sorry, I thought I was clear...........

Is there a command I could use to get my machine to work under Linux? I am using 8.1 and cannot get to the desktop!

it would *seem* that you're simply not loading a window manager properly. you should have a ~/.xinitrc of ~/.Xclients file which will define which WM to load once X has loaded. try creating a .xinitrc file with just "exec blackbox" or which ever window manager you want to use.

I take it you want to run KDE if so add this line to the ~/.xinitrc file:

exec startkde

If you want to run GNOME run:

exec gnome-session

Currently my ~/.xinitrc file is like this:

exec startsawfish &
xmms &
gkrellm &
eterm --all --those --options --that --I --want

and I can only exit sawfish when I close the eterm. Would changing it to:

xmms &
gkrellm &
eterm --all --those --options --that --I --want &
exec startsawfish

run xmms, gkrellm and eterm in SF and still allow me to close SF the normal way?

well yeah, you'd start your apps before you actually start the window manager, which then picks them up when it's loaded. and naturally then closing SF will make the script fall through, thus ending the X session.

thus???

Cheers. I've been in Uni all day, so I haven't tried it yet. I couldn't figure out if xmms would complain that it can't find a running X session because I ran it first, and I haven't been at my Linux box to try it. Going home now, so I'll do it.

Wow i didn't know that Sawfish can run on its own like that. I learn something new every day!