I'm running Mandriva One 2007 Metisse. For whatever reason, the system is just plain unstable. It started to refuse logins and would give you this message about going into fail safe to fix a problem that didn't exist. When you login with the wrong password, you are directed to login again.

This is what happens even thought the login information is correct.

It also does something else very strange. At times at random, the keyboard changes so that gibberish is typed instead of letters and numbers. This can happen at any time, but is usually at login.

You also can't switch users. There is a glitch. You have to type killall Xmetisse as root from a terminal to switch users if you wish to avoid restarting.

You can't switch desktops even though this option appears. If you try to switch to KDE from Gnome, you get the spinning mouse forever and nothing else happens.

The command draklive-install does a new install, but there is no apparent option to repair a system that is already there. SuSE, Mepis, and most other systems have this capacity.

My question is this.

What terminal command do you type when running the live CD to rescue / repair a system that is already installed?

Also, how do you read and copy data from other partitions on your hard drive?

You can resize them, but can't get any data from them.

Overall, the lack of stability in this version of Mandriva is disappointing. I'll have to try the regular version of Mandriva 2007 from the DVD once my wireless Ethernet bridge arrives.

I was introduced to the distro by Mandrake 10 back in computer school. It was friendly and fun.

I've also used Mepis 6.0 and SuSE 10. Mepis 6.0 broke and can't be fixed because I shut off Xserver when trying to upgrade the Nvidia driver. The repair option on bith the DVD and CD don't work. It will only boot to the command line. SuSE 10 wouldn't see my new SATA 2 drive and SuSE 10.1 and 10.2 wouldn't see my wireless even though SuSE 10 could.

The flip side of this is that every single live CD, live DVD and distro sees my Ethernet card just fine.

The price of eye candy is reliability.

(I'm running the live CD right now)

Mandriva One 2007 Metisse is a preview of what we may expect from Mandriva 2007.1 Spring. IIUC, it is not intended as a production release. The Gnome desktop environment is included on the CD, but not KDE. If you want to use KDE, read on, then after you set up the Internet Software Sources, in a terminal window as root install task-kde:Since you have metisse installed, if you have not done so, perhaps you should set up the Mandriva 2007.0 Internet media sources with the help of Easy URPMI. Follow the directions on the WEB site to add new sources. By default, you start out with only the CD as a media source. If you added an Updates media source, I suggest you remove it before adding the full set of sources. In a terminal window or console display as root execute:You should set up at least the following media sources (repositories) so you can have access to the full range of software packaged for use with Mandriva Linux:

Main
Main_Updates
Contrib
Contrib_Updates

If you have no objection to proprietary software you should also set up:

plf_free
plf_non-free

If you are a knowledgeable Linux user, and want to have the latest and greatest software available (at the possible cost of stability) you can also set up:

Main_Backports
Contrib_Backports


And if you are a knowledgeable Linux user, want to have the latest and greatest software available (at the possible cost of stability) AND you have no objection to proprietary software, you can also set up:

plf_free_backports
plf_non-free_backports

The backports media sources contain newer versions of some software packaged for use with Mandriva Linux, but which has not received the degree of testing the software in the other sources has undergone. Use the backports media sources at your own risk. I use them here with no ill effects, but it is possible you may have a very different experience.

I already have most of those repositories. I'll look into them one by one at a later time, however. Mainly, I'm having problems with stability and glitches. Now, Metisse won't even boot. Before, it wouldn't do the normal things like log off properly without becoming root in a terminal and typing killall Xmetisse all the time. It also was locking up and wouldn't switch desktops from Gnome to KDE with the exception of root. I would like to rebuild Lilo.

All other Linux distros as well as Windows has a provision to auto repair broken operating systems. Some obviously work better then others.

Question: Is Metisse the only one that I have seen that only leaves a clean install as an option in case of trouble or failure? I believe that the regular Mandriva 2007 can repair itself. So can Mepis and SuSE. There has to be some repair command somewhere.

Perhaps running 2 instances of Xserver and Xorg that are modified is the cause of the problems. Maybe my system is too old to handle all the eye-candy.

As per my earlier post:You may be better served to get one of the other Mandriva One images and reinstall. When Mandriva 2007.1 (Spring) is released in (I think) April, Metisse should be fully integrated into Mandriva, and will hopefully work better then.