WHY IS THE 4TH CD so hard to get? and why does this have the GUI on it??

this is bullcrap and very frustrating....

so proof here that nothing in life is really free and convenient...it's still a pain in the ass to install linux

the 4th cd???

you should be able to install gnome or kde from the first 3 cd's

In the installation, it denotes the graphical user environment as being on the 4th cd...maybe it'just late...sorry about my outburst, these linux distros have been kicking my ass since last night, when I attempted to install the debian 3 distro on my laptop....xinitd failed to launch after about 2 hours of manually configuring the installation.

thanks for your comment.

-b

the 4th CD comes with a paid subscription to the Mandrake Club, or is available via download with a paid membership.

as salparadise mentioned, you don't need the 4th CD to have a fully functional system, especially a GUI. the 3 CD free download set gives you everything you need, & then some. when you say "WHY IS THE 4TH CD so hard to get? and why does this have the GUI on it??" what exactly do you mean? can you not boot into a GUI mode? if so, what steps did you take during the install? can you boot to a command prompt? if so, what happens when you type startx?

it sounds to me like you either set the install to boot into non GUI mode, in which case the startx command will get you to a GUI. or, it could be a video card issue. did you check your video card config & test it during the final configuration part of the install?

please post more info pertaining to your exact problem....... any errors you are getting, does it boot at all? if so, where does it leave you after booting? and, what type of video card are you running if startx doesn't bring up a GUI.

otis

The 4th CD is shown like this

Installation CD4(KDE 3.3)


So I assumed this had the GUI components. Now I know there is much more than KDE, like GNOME, xwin, but it was a little confusing, so I chose to install the os with cd4, and I've been trying to find the ISO image since then.

Right now I am faced with a dialogue box in the installation: "Insert CD4(KDE 3.3), press Cancel to avoid installation from this CD-Rom" which makes me very happy.

Thanks fro your help.

Baris

I am at the "set root password" window and things are going well so far. Thanks for the help. I'll keep you guys posted.

very good reponse at this web site, I am pleased at the support level here.

I have a question, what is the difference between installing the bootloader on the first sector of the drive(MBR) versus the first sector of the boot partition? Which environment would necessitate either of these choices?

ok, sounds like your making progress.

to answer your immediate question, if you're still there, install the bootloader to the MBR. sometimes it can act flukey if you don't.

back to CD4 (KDE3.3). Mandrake 10.1 comes with KDE3.2 (& Gnome, & several other DE's). i had a horrible experience trying to update to KDE3.3 off the 4th CD, so be thankful you don't have it. it's sorta on the buggy side. KDE3.2 is very stable.

please post back with any more questions. once you get things installed & you're at a GUI, make sure you get updates before trying to set things up to your liking. there are many bug fixes/security updates that came out since 10.1 was released. if you need help with updates, or anything else, please post back.

one final thing........after the bootloader, you will be given a final configuration screen. make sure to go through the various configs presented there to make sure things are set up correctly. sometimes it will show something as configured correctly, even though it isn't. (video cards & internet connection, especially)

good luck. you seem to be doing fine, so far.

otis

Hi Otis,

Thanks for your reply. I've had much success since last night. I am able to connect to the internet through a dedicated cat5 connection to my wireless router. Wanted to make sure this worked first even before I attempted to get my Lucent Wavelen IEEE Wireless PC Card have me hooked to the internet

I'm able to find, by navigating to system -> configuration -> hardware -> harddrake (sort of like device manager eh?) this wireless card, and I was happy to see that the OS does recognize the card. However, I cannot connect for some reason. I'm going to see if I can fix this.

However, I need some fundamental questions answered....

How do you install a driver? Where do the driver files go? I'm assuming somewhere under /etc...

Next thing I will is to find the drivers for my wireless card and try to install and upgrade. If I can do this this will be a big step for me today.

I admit I am a linux noob, and although I was able to follow directions and install firefox on this machine (which has dissappeared after I restarted, very bizarre, I might have actually deleted the application thinking that I deleted the .gz file, damn!), I have no clue as to how to install applications. It looks like .bin files are substituted for .exe files in linux, and by simply double clicking on them you can "install them".

On a PC, where applications and your "profile" are nicely separated, program files, and documents and settings, I was surprised that by default firefox wanted to install itself into my home directory, which I let it do, and I accidentally deleted I think because of this.

So shouldn't applications go under /bin? Should I put them there?

Other quick questions:

- How do you show desktop in mandrake through the keyboard, any shorcut key? (equivalent to Windows + D in winxp)

- How to change fonts on the screen? For instance, if I want the GUI fonts to increase...I'm assuming through system -> configuration ->kde, I'll figure it out.

Through all my incessant complaining yesterday, I'm still amazed to have launched a linux distro successfully with internet connection in less than 2 hours....

Since otis seems to be helping you, I will try not to barge in too much, but I will point out a few things.
Not exactly. With Mandrake, the actual installation files are normally ".rpm" files. To make sure you have the latest, best versions of software, go to EasyUrpmi and follow its instructions (in a console window, as root) to set up your repository mirrors. Then you can install, update, delete most software using the Mandrake Control Center gui. RPMs will be installed in the *correct* place for that program. Some non-distro-specific programs come as .bin files, but they must first be made executable in order to run them, and they don't necessarily put the programs in the best place (as you have discovered).

Not so amazing, really. Linux isn't *really* that hard to install/use, anymore.

Thanks for all the good info. I will definitely look into those sites.

My orinoco wireless card is still tits up...however I think it has MORE to do with my network and less to do with mandrake...

I have a 128-bit wep encrpytion key that my mandrake I believe needs to know about.

Since I can see the wireless card on device manager (ok i forget what it was called in mandrake) I don't think there's any hardware driver issues.

How do enter the encryption key on mandrake? I'll actually post this as another thread, that might help too.

you weren't barging at all, Padma. no problemo.........

bariswheel, i'll try to answer a few other questions, if you haven't figured them out yet.....

drivers in Linux can be a bit tricky. Mandrake tries to provide as many hardware compatible drivers as it can, and many are compiled into the kernel that comes with it. all neccessary drivers to get you up & running should be installed for you during the Mandrake install. occasionally you'll find you need a certain proprietary driver for a particular piece of hardware that Mandrake doesn't/can't supply. if that's the case, you're usually at the mercy of the hardware manufactuer. if they're worth their salt, they will have Linux compatible drivers available at their site, with decent intructions to install them. a good example of this is video cards with Nvidia & ATI. Nvidia has been actively supporting Linux for some time now, has easy to install drivers that are frequently updated & extensive support for them. ATI has limited Linux support & the drivers are a bear to get working. if you think you need a driver for something, it's best to first check the hardware manufacturer site. if that don't pan out, then start another thread here with a question pertaining to that specific driver/piece of hardware. you can also try running Mandrake Control Center->hardware->hardware to detect/configure various pieces of hardware.

you're firefox problem is tough to call. if you installed via a .tar.gz file and you deleted the /firefox directory in /home, Firefox should still be installed on the computer. try opening a terminal & typing the following command...........

hit "enter"

that's the command to start firefox. if it doesn't start, post any error output in a new thread for Firefox that you might see in terminal. there is a precompiled .rpm for firefox in the contrib mirrors. if you went to the Easy URPMI site that Padma linked for you & set up a contrib source, you can install firefox for Mandrake using Mandrake Control Center (here to for known as MCC)->software management->install & type firefox in the search box. post back with results of the above in a new thread & we'll get you straightened out, depending on the situation.

Linux does things a bit differently, as far as directory structure & where things go. IMHO, it's a far better way than the Windows way. once you get to know your way around, i think you'll see the beauty of it. in general, all file are kept in various directories structures, based on their use to the system. here's a brief tute on some of them.........

/boot ............ all files related to booting your system are kept here. your boot loader, kernel images, etc. nothing else goes here.

/etc .............. all system configs are stored here. you can manaully edit any config you like, once you know what your're doing. they are all just text files containing commands & parameters for various apps & system functions.

/usr ............... this will contain all system app related files after they are installed. /usr/share contains apps that are shared by all users of the system. think of it as the Linux version of "program files" in Windows.

/usr/bin ............... this is where all the binary files for apps go. binary (.bin) files are the Linux equivalent of Windows .exe files.

/home ........... this is very sweet. that will contain all system user directories. (IE: /home/bariswheel/) in there, all user personal settings are kept seperate from other users, so each user can have their own personalized settings for apps & such stored individually. you can also store whatever else you want in that directory (music, documents, downloads, etc.). and, the great beauty of this is, should you bork your system & find you need to reinstall, when you get to the partitioning part of installation if you leave your /home partition unformatted, it will remain intact during the install & afterwards you will have all you're previous user settings & files waiting for you, saving you numerous hours of setting up applications to your liking from scratch. (not to mention all those important files you may have stored there.)

i'd suggest starting new threads for your desktop mandrake & font questions. this thread is starting to go a bit all over the place & from what i can tell you seem to be finding your way around ok.

congrats!

otis

for those mandrake newbies who just want the missing cd4 iso go to:
http://ftp.uni-kl.de/pub/linux/mandrake.iso/

After download is complete use control center to add the media, and then install the new kde 3.3. Works like a charm

Otis, I really appreciate you jumpstarting my mandrake installation, You've been a big help and I've successfully installed my first app (firefox) and I'm using my orinoco wireless card to connect to my router. Happy holidays and thanks for all your help.

you're quite welcome, & happy holidays!

otis