Mandrake 8.1 easy installation????
 

Not for me so far. I know nothing about Linux but thought I was otherwise compuliterate. I have tried 3 installs, no 4 now. and>>>>>>
No1. booted to graphic interface like expected but without mouse and I could not figure out how to navigate to reconfig mouse, so just cleaned drive and started over.
No.2 was to be a dual boot. Win98SE on IDE and Mandy on SCSI. System froze during package installtion, and only way out was to kill power.
Reboot and nothing!! My Win98SE was gone and naturally Mandy did not boot.
No.3 reinstalled on SCSI and booted up but would not let me login.
No.4 installed on my now empty IDE and boots up, logs in but to command prompt and now I have to find a book because I am just plain ignorant at command prompt level.
I am not giving up, must have some bulldog blood!
Wish me luck or help if you can!!
Signed Newbie lost in Mandy Land.

I have two things I tell people before installing linux and they don't know anything about it..

1. Know Your Hardware.

2. Read About Linux Before Installing It. This doesn't just mean books, online documantation, forums like these... etc..

Good Luck, glad your apart of the revolution now.. hope you stick around and any questions feel free to ask here.

Change diretory to /etc by typing cd /etc. You'll want to edit your inittab file, type vim inittab, scroll down slightly to probably the first active line saying id:3:initdefault:
Now change the 3 to a 5 and it will boot you into a GUI login prompt for KDE/Gnome etc...
If you need help on editing using vim, whilest in it type :help
You'll have to be root to do this, OR as a user type su then the root password.
Alternately, you could type startx and see if that boots you into X and editing the inittab would be much easier then with a GUI editor.

Quick Vim guide:

There are basically two modes in Vim: insert and command. In command mode, you move the cursor around, copy, paste and so forth. In insert mode, you are typing (inserting) just like a normal editor.

You start vim in command mode. Four keys move your cursor around, "h" left, "j" down, "k" up, "l" right. ":w" saves the file, ":q" quits (use ":q!" to quit without saving). "x" deletes the letter under the cursor. Pressing "i" or "a" puts you in insert mode. "i" begins inserting at the cursor position, "a" begins at the spot immediately after.

Once in insert mode, you type as normal. To get out of insert mode, use CTRL-[ or ESC. That puts you back in command mode.

There's a multitude of useful commands in vim, but those are the bare mimimum you need to know.

I thought vi is for viewing text files.

Typing :w in vi writes the file.

Typing :qa! in vi does a force quit.
I learn all this from pushing buttons under a login in name so that I can not mess up LINUX. Then I logged in as root.

This is a must including in windows when you want to update drivers or try to overclock your computer.

DOS and LINUX to me have almost the same commands. Linux shortens the commands so you problaby win a race with linux. When it comes to changing attributes or permissions in a OS. DOS is easy for me on changing attributes.

Speaking of overclocking, anyone have any ideas how to adjust the clock frequency of NVIDIA Geforce3 based video cards? is there a "coolbits" hack in linux like there is in windows?.

Also, is there any Linux nvidia tweakers out there? i need to change a few things around like LOD Bias, and antialiasing.

Thanks for the advice so far. In replying to some comments. Yes I know the hardware side, that is my strong point. This machine I am trying to put Linux on is part of my collection of parts from everywhere but is solid, have run win95 and 98se for some time. Just want to learn something more challenging. Ordered Slackware and some books. Maybe there's hope.

well, its one thing to know hardware..... but what i mean by know your hardware is to check out if its supported before installing.. just to clear my own statement up...