Okay so I run SuSe 9.2 on my desktop and can get around quite easily. I decided to move an old laptop to mandrake 10.1 I have the DVD but initally installed from CD-ROM becuase the Dell laptop I have does not have a DVD drive. I would like to leran but I must say I appear to be quite the stupid noob.

Hardware we are dealing with: Dell Inspiron 3700, Ext. Sony DRX-710UL

First I would like to know why my Sony DRX-710UL does not mount when plugged in before booting. I need to change my installation source to this drive (so I can updatehowever it is not available under the config util in Mandrake. I looked in the /dev folder and I did not see a dvd or dvdr listed so I am not sure how to mount it even if I could find. SuSe kind of spoiled me with automount. I would lIke to create a Mandrake boot floppy to allow install from either USB or IEEE 1394 since the drive supports both.

Second I would like to update. I paid like 21.00 for a mandeake site (mandrake soft I think) and whgen i go to update all the installs fail even though it selects like 720MB.

Last it is really slow ... like dang will this ever finish slow. It is only a Celeron 433 with 128MB of RAM, that may be some of it.

Please help if you can. I tried to search the fourm but it has been very slow in the last week even though i have the Google search for here.

Thanks!

2) for updating, try changing your mirror locations. That usually does the trick for me.

As for 1 and 3, I don't know.

Thanks for the help but with no media locations you caanot use the mirrors. I deleted the mdeia buecuase I do not want to use CD's becuase they are lame fro 3GB distros. I'll just stick with Suse .. it works.