Two Problems Installing Linux

[shane25119]

Hello,
Recently I was installing Red Hat Linux on an older system I own (it originally ran Windows 98, and has worked with this same version of Linux). The install went smoothly until I went to start X. Thats when I encountered problems, an error message shows up telling me the problem resides in the XF86Config file, I go there with vi but have absolutly no idea what to do there. A friend of mine fixed this in the past, but he is off at college now. The system has a built in graphics card (which i have disabled in favor of a GeForce 2 MMX). Anyone that could give me a walkthrough on how to fix this I would be most greatful to.

A second problem:
I wanted to switch to Mandrake Linux, so I downloaded 9.2 and put it on a blank cd and loaded it into my Linux system. The disk launched the setup program just fine at boot but when it went to begin the install it could not read the disk. Any ideas as to why? There was a list of drivers that could be used to launch the cd but there were like 100 of them, I don't have the time (or patience) to try all of them. Again any help is greatly appreated.
~Shane

 

[AP81]

For the first question, it sounds like you have incorrectly selected the appropriate video card for your system. Your XF86Config file should have something like this (of course the Identifier will say something different):

Section "Device"
Identifier "ASUS V8170 DDR"
Driver "nv"
.......

After installing the nvidia drivers should have:

Driver "nvidia"

Have a look at your config and change the driver to nv and see what happens.




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There's no place like 127.0.0.1
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[zeland]

Did you check the Mandrake ISOs that you downloaded against the MD5 hashes? A lot of installation problems occure due to ISOs getting corrupted during download.

 

[shane25119]

I'll be sure to give that a try.... I am redownloading Mandrake as I write this, and for the video card, I have the install file its a .run format, could someone give me a quick overview of how to install that driver? I'm not very familiar with the Linux Shell
Thanks Again
Shane

 

[shane25119]

I redownloaded Mandrake 9.2, and burned to a different brand of cd roms but still it can not read my disc, Red Hat discs read fine, it can read it to the point where i can launch the install program, but i can not actually start the install, there is a huge list of drivers i can select from to try again, if you select one it asks for parameters, the cd rom is a samsung sc 140 if that helps any

 

[zeland]

Again, did you check the MD5 hashes for the new ISOs you downloaded before burning them to CDs. Did you download this new batch of ISOs from a different site or the same one. Some sites could have fauty ISOs. There really isn't much you can do if your media is faulty in the first place.

 

[shane25119]

i'm not even sure what md5 hashes are.... i downloaded them from a different site, a site listed at mandrakelinux.com as a mirror site. how do i check md5 hashes/what are they?

 

[shane25119]

ok, i found out what md5 is and it checks out perfectly, i tried another disc, same problem... the installation will boot from the disc but can't read the disc 2 copy the actual files, can you offer any ideas? the cd rom then offers drivers which require parameters to work afterwards, i am at a loss.... i really want to try mandrake but fear i can not with the way this is going.... the cd rom is a samsung sc 140,

 

[zeland]

If the MD5s check out ok, then my next suggestion would be to try another CD-Rom drive. Before trying another drive, are you using one of the preset configurations (Personal Desktop, Workstation, Server) that will try and autodetect everything. CD-Roms in this day and time are really generic devices and should not require any special drivers.

 

[md66]

I'm having apparently exactly the same problem as shanes second/last one. I'm curious whether there is some more feedback about this before starting changing cdroms etc.

 

[shane25119]

md66,
i got that to work.... maybe i can help ya out?

 

[md66]

Yes please, how did you manage at last?
I installed mandrake with my only set of cd's on another machine where it turns out to be working, so I suppose nothing's wrong with my cd's.

 

[shane25119]

in my expierence i could not get drake going... i just went to FC eventually, FC is a good starter distro... i suspose you could 'ghetto rig' and use a cdrom from another computer, but i'm not too sure if you would have cdrom support after you install the new distro then with the original cdrom