I tried to compile the 2.6.2 kernel on one of my Mandrake boxes. Evidently I didn't do it correctly because it blew away init, so I can't boot any more. LILO displays all of the old kernels on the machine (it has quite a few, but none of them work). When I choose failsafe the kernel unpacks and drops a kernel panic.

This machine doesn't have a floppy drive (makes the boot disk pretty useless).

So my thinking is that I can simply re-install from the CDs, but the PowerPack CD's that I have for 9.2 seem to be damaged; it simply can't install the kernel RPM.

My attempt at a solution now is to burn the public ISO to a CD and try and install from that. However, I'm a wee bit concerned about the side effects because I'm under the impression that it is different from the CD's that one purchases from Mandrake (or downloads from mandrake club if they can afford it).

Has any one ever installed Mandrake using 1 public ISO and the rest of the commercial CD's?

By typing expert at the installation bootprompt, of the public cd, you can select what cds you have (public). The installation only installs kde, and a normal system. Then you can add your commercial cds to urpmi and get the other packages.

P.S what is the difference between commercial and public?

Uhhh.... you can install Gnome and a few other interfaces with the public CDs. It's just it defaults to only installing KDE. (I perfer Gnome, but, eh) From what I understand, the only differences between the two sets is that the commercial version has a bunch of software included that isn't easily distributed for free (or can't be). Examples: Open Office, Sun's Java, etc. You can always throw those other discs in and install them afterwords if all else fails.

the first public cd only contains kde.
all he needs is this one to set up a base system

Ok, this is odd. If I choose "expert" mode, and don't pick any CD's (other than the first one), it says that "critical packages" were not installed. But if I select them and cancel out of the copying when it asks to replace the cd, it works. (but it doesn't really install anything, not even KDE).

This is a pain in the neck: I think I just might order a new set of CDs. (Or should I wait until 10.0 comes out? Hmm.)

At any rate, I'm almost done.

Thanks!

make sure their 9.2 cds not 10rc1

Alright, now when I try and boot I get the following message:
Error inserting '/lib/ext3.ko': -1 Unknown symbol in module
.
.
.
kernel panic: No init found.

At this point, I'm just going to reinstall the operating system from scratch. (I'll pretend it's XP, it will make me feel a bit better about myself).

It would be nice if the Mandrake Recover mode could reinstall the kernel to a working state.

Oh well...

you are still using a 2.6 kernel,
I guess reinstall it