weird problem RE-installing Mandriva 2008
 

I've run into a very strange problem with Mandriva 2008 on my desktop machine. Early last week suddenly the updater thingee on taskbar got stuck in "discovering which packages are available" mode, but without any modem activity, and urpmi itself couldn't download or upload anything over the internet (browsers worked fine). Mandriva installed from the same CD continues working perfectly on my laptop.

So I re-installed last Wednesday. The new Mandriva, from the same CDs from which I installed perfectly 6 months ago on both the laptop and tower, now gave me a very messed-up install. It's like someone switched CDs on me and gave me the monkey version.

Updater still doesn't work although urpmi itself does work... including updating :^>. Tomboy won't start except from konsole and spontaneously destructs after a few minutes; some other programs are funkey. Shutdown only gives me the option to close current session, so I have to shutdown in a root console; I fixed it in control panel but after the second reboot it was back wrong again. Privoxy refused to start as a daemon until I manually fixed it in control panel. Default monitor resolution is different. And my PATH was wrong!!

I reinstalled a couple more times with same result. Finally I tore down my partitions and reformatted everything, re-partitioned differently, and reinstalled again. Stil same results.

Do CDs go bad just sitting there? I'd think something's wrong with the individual programs except this seems more like a cluster of problems. Also, a friend has had a similar experience installing Mandriva 2008.1; lots messed up, but different stuff than mine. I installed Fedora 8 and it seems to be working fine. And Mandriva continues working perfectly on my laptop (so far).

Is there any way to retrieve this thing? Any ideas would be appreciated, even outlandish ideas :^>.

In faith, Dave
Viva Texas

Everything is perfect, right down to the last flaw.

There's certainly something funky going on there. I would be tempted to download a fresh copy of Mandriva (perhaps even Mandriva One) and try again. You mention that using the repos still work from commandline, you could try this command which will not only make sure your urpmi database is upto date, but it will also apply any updates automatically:

urpmi.update -a && urpmi --auto-select --auto

2008.1 is in a release candidate stage, and ran 4 betas prior to RC1. Your friend might just have a typical buggy beta. For me, beta 3 was really weird. Cd's of course can get all scratched up making reading them a challenge. But the data does not deteriorate, at least not for 50-60 years for cd's and I think I read that dvd's last more than 100 years. I do not have enough information, but I suspect an underlying hardware issue. The only time I have experienced oddness is with anyone's release candidate or beta.

Well, none of the CDs are visibly scratched or damaged. However, my ISP grumbles when I download really BIGGG things, says it "isn't fair to the rest". So I'll order a new Mandriva 2008 from OSDisc. I had already used EasyUrpmi to set up my sources. The graphical urpmi (gurpmi?) did all the updates. If it's a hardware problem with my CD reader/writer, it doesn't affect Kubuntu, Fedora, or DamnSmallLinux.

In faith, Dave
Viva Texas

"It's times like this I wish I had listened to my mother!" "Why, what did she say?" "I don't know... I didn't listen."

Are they kidding! lol. Do they also grumble at those who play online games too! :scratch:

I don't play games so I don't know. But I live way out in the country, and my ISP won't let anyone else access their lines to deliver service to me, and I use Linux and they don't like Linux, and their attitude is if I don't like it I can stop using the service. Sheeeesh!

So I'm trapped until wimax comes along or until satellite ISPs get more reasonable on their "fair use" policies.

In faith, Dave
Viva Texas

Wisdom: Two rules for success... 1) Don't tell everything you know.

Bummer :( Let's hope your get more isp choice.