First I am completely new to linux, this is my first try at it, now onto the problem.

I did a fresh install of Mandrake 9.1 on a new system and everything seems to go okay during installation. On boot, I get to the sign-on screen and choose a gui interface. After logging in, gui startup hangs in one place and the hard drive grinds away indefinitely. I don't know what's hanging because all I have is a blue desktop (kds gui) and a mouse icon shaped like a watch. When I use the Gnome gui, I see the Gnome splash window, but again, the system hangs there while the hard disk grinds away. I can login in IceWM or whatever.

I have reinstalled, but the error persists. Any ideas on how to get into the gui so I can start learning how to use linux?

what's your hadrware spec. In particular memory. kde and gnome need a lot of memory and it sounds like that's the problem since you can start icewm. Icewm is perfectly fine. you can use all the programs.

I have an AMD K6-2 450mhz with 192 megs ram. I was thinking it might have something to do with my sound card or something because I have no sound (not sure if I am supposed to hear anything at system startup or not).

I had the same type of issue with one of my installs using 9, it turned out that it was related to my video card driver. What video card do you have?

i agree with the vid card scenerio. had the same problem in mdk9.1. i was using (at the time) an olf amd333 with an ati ragepro vid card. mdk wouldn't work with the rage pro drivers & i ended up having to use ati "utah" drivers (go figure). you could screw around with booting into init3 for text line & running XFdrake, but that might be a bit confusing. i'd suggest, since it's a fresh install, boot with the cd1 install cd again, choose the upgrade option, let it go through the motions (it won't take very long since there should be basically nothing to upgrade) & when you get to the final hardware configuration screen, check the video & monitor settings, test them to make sure they work, & if not change the drivers until you find one that's compatible. also, like what was already mentioned, if you'd post your vid card make & model it would be a bit more helpful for troubleshooting.

otis

I have a permedia 2v video card, and am using an acer 7133s monitor. In the config at the end of install, everything seems to work fine. I have it set to 1024 x 768 24b, also I am using xfree 4. Any other info that might help? or any other suggestions on how to fix it?

i seem to remember reading that permedia cards can be a buggy with xfree in 24b mode. what is the driver that you're using? if you aren't already, try the glint driver. if you're already using that, try either 32b (if that's available to you) or if not, 16b. see if that gives you any results & post back, please.

otis

I am using the 3dlabs permedia 2 (generic) driver. I tried switching to a 800 x 600 res but no go. I will try your above suggestions, but first what is the glint driver? Is it the brand name? I will see if I can find it and then try it. Post back soon.

Try using some of the generics too, theres a whole section of just generic drivers.

ok tried all that and still no luck. I even added another 32 megs of ram. any other ideas?

upgrade to Mandrake 10 and see what happens.

I have had a lot of problems with 9.1

maybe this will help............

here's where you can get MDK Xfree drivers for the permedia chipset. the rpm for mdk9.1 is the sixth one down. try that if that's not the one you have already. also, here's the driver page for 3DLabs which also has linux driver support.

otis

So how do I install this driver? Also it looks like it is for xfree 3.3.6 and I am using 4.x is this going to cause any problems? should I downgrade to 3.3.6? Also I am working on downloading mdk 10.0 so maybe this will help? Will post back later.

In the first post you said that you get as far as the gnome splash screen. If that's so, your graphic driver is most likely not the problem. If it were, you won't see anything. And if you can login to iceWM, then it's definitely not graphic card related.