This is odd... I put in the BootCD, and the computer is set to boot from the CD drive first. After a bit, I get the "Welcome to mandrake" message, followed by the options of either hitting F1 for further options, or hitting Enter to install it. I hit enter, and it goes through a buncha' text and such, and after a while it just comes back to the first screen with the options to hit F1 or Enter. That's all I can get it to do. Might there be something wrong with the CD? Or should I be doing something at a particular point? (keep in mind I am about as noob-like as it gets with all things Linux and CLI...)

Anyway, if I do get Mandrake installed, there's some apps I want to install (they're in tarballs.) I know nothing about this stuff, so is there a particular command to "unzip them", or is there some Winzip-like thing I need to get? (or is there something built in? must I unzip them from a terminal or what have you?)

Thanks for any help.

I have had a few problems with te Mandrake 10 setup CD. If I try and install from my CD/RW drive it asks me for a whole heap of modules. Anyway about tarballs, you can use Ark in KDE or file-roller in GNOME to view their contents. To install, you would do something like the following at the command line,

tar -zxvf packagename.tar.gz for gzipped packages or tar -xjvf packagname.bz2 for bzip2 packages

cd packagename
./configure
make
and as root "make install"

Thats a rough guide, more info is on the web. Always read the installation notes before installing anything so that you know exactly how to install the program because not all tarballs conform to the above installation method.

Hi,

I've had problems with the Mandrake CDs if they are burned at too fast of a speed (though it could just be my burner ). Maybe if you re-burn the discs at a slower speed you'd have better luck?

Also, in case you don't realize it, you can find RPM packages of most software... which makes the install super easy and makes it easier to remove the software later if needed .

-Nick

Well, I thought it might be burned too fast... this time I only burned it at 4x. Thing is, I've been using Disk Copy on MacOS X to burn the discs. I imagine there must be something I haven't set correctly or somesuch... anyone here know a thing or two about burning iso's on a Mac?

for package install you should certainly use urpmi -- this will install the most current, up-to-date versions of any software. It's very much like apt in Debian. Once set up, it's as simple as typing $urpmi <packagename> as root and ----da dah ---- it's on your box.