Hi. i would really appreciate some advice on this because i do not know where to go from here.

I have had suse 9.1, mandrake 10.0, fedora core, and xandros installed on my laptop in the past and they all installed without any real problems.

i now have a desktop which i built recently, and i want to install a distro. i have just spent 18 hours solid trying to install mandrake 10.1, suse 9.1, and xandros latest edition (the free one).

suse installed ok after a couple of attempts but it does not support my lan (i downloaded the drivers for this with my laptop from via's website but i cannot install them, as i cannot compile the source code, as suse personal does not include the make command and i didn't manage to find it for download).

mandrake installs great but after i get to the end of the install and reboot to finally enter the gui, it hangs while the progress bar is about half way along. when i enter verbose mode i see lots of error messages i do not understand but it finishes with "code?? (followed by a long list of numbers)".

i have tried all mandrakes different install methods, text, expert, etc, but always with the same result. i even downloaded a duplicate iso and burned it at half speed but still the same thing happens.

xandros goes through the initial stages of install. it detects and configures my hardware (so it tells me anyway), but then i get the big blue letters across the screen (PLEASE REMOVE CD AND PRESS RETURN TO REBOOT YOUR COMPUTER), just before it enters the install proper. this happens with the standard install and 256 colours.

the hardware spec of my machine is as follows:

AMD (Newcastle) Athlon 64 3500+ 2.2GHz 512kb L2Cache 939pin

Abit AV8-3RD Eye Skt 939 K8t800pro 8xAGP ATX Gigabit LAN, SATA150 RAID, IEEE1394, 6ch Audio, ìGuru USB2.0

1 gig of Crucial CT6464Z40B 512mb DDR 400MHz PC3200 CL=3

Sapphire Radeon 9550 256MB DDR AGP8x

Seagate 160GB 7200rpm Barracuda 7200.7 SATA

Western Digital Caviar SE 80GB SATA150 7200rpm 8mb

Antec TRUE430PGB True Power 430W ATX Power Supply

Sony 52x32x52x16 IDE Drive (combo)

pioneer all formats (nearly) dvd writer -dont have the spec handy as i bought it a while back

Mitsumi OEM Black Internal Floppy Drive 1.44mb 3.5 Inch
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
the network adapter is a: via networking velocity family giga-bit ethernet adapter.

does anybody have any ideas?? or will i just need to stick to windoze on this machine.

thanks in advance for any replies.

Are you trying to install the normal versions or 64-bit versions. I ran into those problems when I was installing Fedora Core 3 which in my opinion is the best operating system ever created it can handle anything. Anyways, I have a 64 bit system also. See most distros have 64-bit versions available to take full advantage of 64-bit power and compatability. If you download the 64 bit version and still fail to install linux try flashing the bios with the newest update it makes a huge difference most of the time.

these have all been the standard 32 bit versions i've been trying. i think for mandrake at least you have to pay for the 64 bit version. i don't know about suse (which is a distro i like) but not much point thinking about suse anyway since i cant install the driver i need.

flashing the bios sounds like a good (but slightly worrying) idea. i've done it once before and got away with it but not too keen on it.

http://www.novell.com/products/linux...rver/eval.html go to that site and get the 30 day eval of the 64-bit version. after 30 days all it kills is updates and support if you really like suse that much. I just found suse a bit intolerable as a linux operating system and have worked wonders with again FEDORA CORE 3 but give that suse a try out. Plus most boards support in windows bios flashing but if yours doesn't just get a fresh floppy and you'll be fine.

thanks for the link. i will download the eval. i didn't know about it.

also, flashed my bios first thing this morning and it went fine. didn't make any difference to mandrake though which was installed at the time, it still refuses to boot, so i've since installed suse again and spent most of the day trying to get the c++ developers tools and then install my drivers. i got the make command up and running but still cant get the install to work. it says that the kernel is missing??? which i take to mean that i don't know where to point the console <<nothing is ever simple>>>

anyway, glad my bios is up to date now.

cheers

Perhaps you'd like to try Debian or
Gentoo for AMD64. They don't charge.

for SuSE:
You need to make sure that the kernel sources are installed. Go to Yast2 and search for the kernel sources for your copy of SuSE 9.1. Once you've got them, then install them. Also, make sure that you have gcc installed. I don't believe it installs (kernel sources or gcc) by default.

You are correct-Suse does not automaticaly install the kernel source or gcc.