The first few times I installed Mandrake 9.1, it installed OK.

After this, for a few attempts, there were some error messages saying that there was error installing some packages. KDE never installed well.

Of late though, the install freezes inbetween and stops. I waited for like 15 minutes, no response, can't open the CD-R door. So, I just have to reboot.

What does this indicate ?

Vijay

I had same problem installing Slackware on one of my machines, installed once before with no problems, reinstalled with same cd a while later and it would fail on some packages, then it would get to the point where it would skip many packages and not install to a working system. It ended up being a hardware conflict in the system or something. I'm not sure if it was exactly my RAM, NIC or Video Card but I already planned to upgrade most of my system, and new components worked out ok.. cause after that, I could install with no problems once again.

Thanks !! This is very good to know. This is again proving that there can be a lot of Hardware conflicts in regards to install and using Linux.

Several say that Linux works well on older machines. My PC is 4 years old. The number of hardware conflicts is simply amazing.

Linux is not a smooth path definetely. it is not just the steep learning curve. Hardware conflicts almost create a need to upgrade. Who knows how the upgraded/new PC will be ? What if one buys a new PC and there are hardware conflicts ? It is not possible to check each and every minor part before purchase. There are some serious concerns here.

Vijay