To whom it may concern,

I recently downloaded Mandrake 9, hoping I'd have better luck with it than I did with 8.2. I'm having some problems, and I was wondering if anyone had some thoughts concerning the issue.

1. The USB services stop the machine from booting. With 8.1 and 8.2, I could uncheck the usb and kudzu services (during setup) from loading, and that would fix things. Unfortunately, I don't have that option anymore. It detects the USB, and gets stuck (every boot).

2. My NIC won't work anymore. I booted off the CD-ROM and did the "rescue noauto" mode. I got in, but my NIC won't load. Same problem with 8.2. I think my Cardbus Linksys PCM200 card is conflicting with my internal Conexant card. The conexant card won't work by itself. Both work fine in Windows. Is there a way to get around this?

3. Whenever I shut my machine down, it freezes. I can't do a reboot (halt only). The machine reboots, and then freezes before POST (I get the "COMPAQ" boot screen, and it locks up). I have to cut the power to get my machine back. Mandrake 8.2 did this, and so does RedHat 7.2 and 7.3. Is there a way to get it to initiate a reboot like Mandrake 8.1?

My machine is a Compaq Presario 1210us notebook. It is 850MHz Duron, 320 MB Ram, 20 GB HD, etc.

I am trying to learn this linux stuff, because I know how powerful linux is. But working with hardware, sometimes win-hardware, can get frustrating when mixing it with linux. I recently set up Mandrake on another box (a server) and it installed flawlessly. If anyone has any tips or pointers for me, I'd be more than thankful. I'm stuck and don't have any direction in this matter.

Thank you!

Jason