I have a 533mhz system with 256mg ram running Mandrake Dolphin and Windows98. I had been satisfied with Dolphin as a desktop and it had been stable through Open Office use and dailup internet with an external modem. I only booted Windows to use fax programs and CAD software.
That being said, I had a friend with DSL download Mandriva 2006 for me on 3 CD's and did an upgrade last Thursday. The install asked for an upgrade or install and I chose upgrade. In the beginning everything was working fine until I tried to use Open Office calc and it was working well until it disappeared. No crash or error reports, just gone. Then I tried to load Open Office 2.0 and it wouldn't read the CD. I can't even read from a floppy. The icons are there, but it won't spin the drives.
Booting is slow now and everything runs slowly.
Can I go back to Dolphin? Is there a fix to 2006?
Any input will be appreciated.

If you have "kat" installed, uninstall it.

Dolphin, was the Mandrake 9.0 ?
if so I found that reasonably stable
but not 9.1 or 9.2
I found Mandrake 10.0 stable on my gear
and I can recommend that
it comes on 4 CDs in the download version
although you might have difficulty getting it

cheers
floppy

OK, I'll try the "kat" removal today. Thanks.

Yes, Dolphin was 9.0. I think we did download 10, but didn't install it as it didn't include QCad. Now it isn't an issue, so I think I may have to downgrade if the "kat" removal doesn't help.

Thanks for all your help.

you could load Mandrake 10.0
and get QCad for Mandrake 10.0 from here
http://rpm.pbone.net/index.php3/stat....i586.rpm.html
although it looks like a fairly big file


cheers
floppy

Couldn't find anything called 'kat' installed. So I am rounding up my 10.0 CD's tonight and am going to do a full install tomorrow. Sorry 2006 didn't work.

OK, may have found the problem. After not finding the 10.0 disks, I decided to do a full install with format. 2006 seemed to load in a lot quicker and it booted up fine. Things seemed to be going well until I tried to access the Control Center. It would start to come up and then disappear. Uninstalled kat and it still did not worl. so I tried to install evolution. Mandrake then told me the rpm's were corrupt. So, I think I got a bad download unless other have bad rpm's on their disks.
So it will be back to 9.0 until I got a good burn.
Thanks for all your help and that QCad link.

I'd do a full install of 2006 - upgrades, especially from really old versions like 9.0, are bound to cause trouble. Also BTW qcad has always been included in Mandrake/Mandriva - you just need to setup your sources at http://easyurpmi.zarb.org

OK, just did another install, this time with all boxes checked for packages. I am able to dial up now and get Open Ofice to stay on. however, every time I click on Control Center it starts then goes away.
How well will easyurpmi work on dialup?

On the easyurpmi site select "Use Compressed Index". This will reduce the size of the index files it has to download when your first add the sources. Once that's done the size of the download is just the size of the package - qcad is 3.1MB for example.