Yesterday was my first first serious attempt to get a Linux System (Mandriva 2006) to work, i was real impressed by the speed and easiness of the installation process. However, after installation I had my first setback.

After I finished installing the 32 bit version of the 2006 Mandriva it asks me to remove any bootable CD's from the disc drive and it tries to make a restart. Coming to the bootloader I choose linux and it went on until it comes to the point of "starting alsa version 1.0.9b:" and it doesn't continue. i tried reinstalling the system as well as using the Live CD Version, all of that ends at the same point.

For the installation I gave Mandriva about 50 GB of space on it's own partition, however on the same hard drive, just other partition is still a version of Windows XP Pro. installed.
My system contains the following hardware:
Motherboard: ASUS P5RD1-V-Deluxe (sound on board from REALTEK, Graphic on board from ATI Radeon Xpress 200 series, a TV card on board which i turned off in the BIOS, and a MARVEL YUKON Ethernet card)
CPU: Intel Pentium IV 3.0GHz
RAM: 1GB, however 128MB of it takes the Graphic Card
TV CARD: PCTV Stereo from Pinnacle
Hard drives: 250GB SATA from Maxtor and a USB connected also from Maxtor (IDE and 160GB)
than i connected several USB devices like a web cam from Mustek, A Cannon Scanner and Printer, a Logitech Headset and a USB Hard drive to it.

I hope i could give all necessary information, if not please let me know.

I appreciate every suggestion how to get Mandriva to work.

Sebastian

Perhaps try installing without the USB peripherals. If you can get it up and running then try adding your USB hardware piece by piece. That way you'll know whats breaking Mandriva.

Your system hangs when it tries to start the ALSA sound-daemon (=Advanced Linux Sound Architecture).

So first thing I would try is to disable the onboard sound in the BIOS (though it´s new to me that Mandriva or Linux in general has problems with that). If that doesn´t help you could try reinstallation with onboard sound disabled.
Did the installer identify the soundchip correctly in first place?

Thank the both of you for your quick respond. I really appreciate that.

@Philosopher: You were right about turning off the onboard sound, after doing so it went right through. Now I reinstalled it again and chose the option "unknown OSS", when it comes to configuring the sound device. Even though my sound doesn't work yet, but I'll worry about that tonight. However, "I'm actually writing this from my Linux OS" (I understand if that doesn't mean anything to you)

Anyway, thank you both for taking the time to respond to my problem.

Why wouldn´t it mean anything to me? I´m happy about every single user who gives Linux a try and chooses the "hard but free way" to put up with computers

About your sound problem: I´m using a terratec Aureon 5.1 soundcard and it works with no problems. Should be about 30 Euros.
Or go here to find out about compatible hardware.