I have been interested in diving into the world of linux for some time now but was afraid of the dreadful learning curve that seems to go along with these things ...

Anyways, I have taken the plunge ..... downloaded mandrake 10 and verified (checksum). I had an old pII 233 with 64mb Ram, 1.5G drive and an s3virge card (I think it has 4mb ram) ..... seemed like the perfect victim ..... I formatted the drive to clean it up somewhat and threw in the first disk. Spark it up and install initiates ..... so far so good ... install seemed fine .... but then when it comes to configuration screen, it says sound card ... not configured (no big deal, I have no sound card) .... then video card .... not configured. SO, I try to click into that and choose the s3 generic and screen goes blank. I can't get into it, so I run the setup again. This time I leave the video not configured as is (with the assumption that graphic generic options will automatically run as I seem to have them during setup).

Everything up to now seems great. I spark it up again and it asks which of the four types of login I want. I choose the first one (linux) as I assume thats the one with the optimum graphics (and probably the most user friendly??? seeing as I do not know any commands). Well it goes through all the checks and everything says ok except for eth0 and network (which is fine because I don't have the highspeed cable hooked up yet, I assume thats why it failed). then it goes straight to black and white text login screen witha grahical 10 on bottom right hand corner. What the heck happened to the graphics? or a normal boot up?

I have tried looking it up but no real luck. I read somewhere to try "su" enter and then run xf drake, but that doesn't work. I tried playing around and got into x38config (?) and ran through the options etc there and no luck when I tried rebooting.


Could someone kindly hold my hand through this. I hate being a newbie, but I have to start somewhere.

Any help appreciated.

by the way, my ultimate goal is to try and run it as a web server.

it sounds like a video card problem not an Ethernet card prob. hmm... mandrake 10 should have no problems with an S3 card (they suck so bad tho) dont you have another old vid card laying around? some old nvidia card? (they are most compatible with linux i hear) i dunno... and 64mb of ram is pushing is kinda Pushing it, at least for the newer KDE and Gnome.. but i dunno... im kind of a newbie myself im here reading in these forums to learn as well. so far the fellas around here really helped me out!

Thanks for your input Jengo.

No other vid card around, stuck with this pci old school thing. Don't really want to strip my other pc.

Can I infer from your post that if the RAM isn't enough, it would default to text? ( I don't expect you to know as you are new too but hope someone else can lend a thought)

The system is on the minimum side but should install. The S3 virge card should be okay, and I think all the S3 cards including the virge should be handled by the default server these days... Back in the old days the S3 trio 64 types had one server while the virge had it's own... You should see a selection for the virge anyway, I think... But it shouldn't matter.

With 64 meg and slow system you will find KDE slow as heck, but blackbox or windowmaker will be okay.

Sounds like you are dropping to a term screen at the end there, but can't immagine why...

But I'm trying to figure where this happens. The config shouldn't come up till after the package install I thought, so I don't exactly know what point you are up to.

I think mandrake 10 has monitor configuration problem because I faced the same problem too with my toshiba a10 laptop... It goes to console directly at startup like your white and black screen and when you "startx" it fails due to the problem of monitor configuration... I tried several configs like Flat Panel 1024*768 etc.. and flat panel worked... You should try other screen resolutions and monitor settings or reinstall another distro...

Amosf, thanks.

Yes the config did come up after the cd installation. I went through it all but opted to not change the two things that said not configured. One was the sound card (which I don't have), the second was the video.

After I started it up again it goes to the blue screen that asks you to chose:
1. linux
2. linux nonfb
3. 263-7
4. fail safe

I have tried linux and fail safe so far and they both bring me to the localhost login (text) screen. So, I log in as the one and only user I set up and then I am at the user@localhost prompt with the $ symbol. ( I started mucking around here to see if anything would work - no luck because I am not fluent in any of the commands)

Any ideas as to what I can do from here? Keeping in mind I have no clue what I am doing.

Berkay, thanks.

To be honest, I didn't even know to type and try "startx". i just tried that and I get execve failed notice .... no such process .... server error.

I don't know how to change the video settings you are suggesting under text (apart from trying x386config earlier which was a crap shoot - I have no idea as this commands true function but it walked me through some video settings - when I rebooted under these settings it still goes to the same text login screen)

Okay... You have installed linux. When you get to that screen, you are running linux... The top option of linux is the correct one.

some of the cli commands you can use are
ls
df
free
cat /proc/cpuinfo
cd

Now I'd say you left the config a bit early and did not install the graphical environment properly or not at all. I'm not sure what command line tools mandrake has...

What exactly do you get when you login and type startx

Not sure what cli tools mandrake has at this point... You may be best to reinstall and try to set up the graphic display during the config... Tho I'm sure there is a tool to do it from where you are. I'll see if I can find it

Just had a look and the tool you want should be

drakx11

and that might set you up from the cli...

You will need to be root so hit

su

and enter your admin password.

Amosf, THANKS again.

I will give the drakx11 a shot and report back. How did you find that out?? Your help is appreciated.

Re: startx question, I get the following:

execve failed notice
no such process
server error.

(by the way, is mandrake the "easy" linux version to use for a newbie? or should I have started with another?)

If all fails with mandrake, you should try fedora core 2.... i didn't have any problems with it and it is much faster than mdk 10..

cheers...

Amosf

Your suggestion to run drakx11 ........... WORKED !!!!

I am up and running. Though the OS seems "bare" , used to getting things like internet explorer "bundled" together. I guess I have to start hunting for applications now and learning how to install etc.

The desktop (kde) seems to running fast enough. It's not 3ghz but for a pII 233 - very very respectable (in comparison to windows).

Berkay ..... fedora core 2 is filed in the memory bank - Thanks for your suggestion.

Mandrake comes with a lot of apps, but you may not have installed many. It has mozilla and a complete office suite (openoffice) and lots of other things. I'd say you just have a very light install and there is more you can load if you have the disk space.

the mandrake control center (might be called 'configure your computer') has a nice graphic utility to install packages off the cd and lots of other tools. (or you can use drakrpm in a terminal window to install stuff).

Glad to hear the darkx11 tool worked!

Thanks for all your help AmosF!

I'll mess around. I chose all the server stuff to load but ommited the office because i didn't have enough room. Mozilla has to be on one of those 3 install disks.

Moved: This thread is more suitable in the Mandrake Forum and has been moved accordingly to help your thread/question get the exposure it deserves.