CougTek
Hairy Aussie
Here we go again. I didn't think I would mess up with Linux so soon after my last roller coaster ride with Mandrake 9.0, but after reading this article about 9.1 beta 2, I felt maybe it deserved another try. I didn't want to jump into the FreeBSD wagon yet, since I've been warned several times against dot "0" releases of this OS and I don't want to start on the wrong foot when I'll finally give it a shot.
So I downloaded the three ISO CDs and copied them on re-writeable medias (why waste write-once discs for a beta release?). Booted up and start the installation process. Re-partitioned my otherwise NTFS-only 15GB Quantum Fireball Plus LM with a 3GB "/", 243MB Swap and 1.9GB /usr (that's what the automatic partitioning gave me). I usually makes a small /boot, but it's been a while since last time I partitioned for a Linux distro and I forgot what's the appropriate size for a /boot partition, so I didn't create one. During this first installation attempt, I chose to use the French language and Canadian French keyboard layout, since it's the one I'm the most familiar with and I figured that since Mandrake is from France, French shouldn't be problematic, even for a beta release. I selected the packages I wanted to install (Gnome, KDE, a few games and Office applications, nothing server-related since this is intended to be a desktop-replacement box). Fast forward to the disc-to-hard drive file transfer. Passed through disc one fine, asked for disc two. Passed through disc two fine, asked for disc three. Copied a few files from disc three and system hangs with some 10 secconds remaining to the file copying process. Me blue, taked a deep breath, remembered it's only a beta (altough the third, figured it would work by then but...) and cooled down.
Hard reboot required. Restart the whole thing, but this time in US English and all standard options only. Disc one ok, disc two ok, disc three...I left my computer room, drank a big water glass, cooled down and came back. Hard reboot again. US English, selected only KDE, not Gnome, no Office applications. Disc one, disc two, canceled disc three (international CD) since it's supposed to be able to complete the installation without it anyway. Hanged again just before the end of the file copying process. Computer then almost been rewarded with another war paint on the face plate. Hard reboot, US English, KDE only. Installed disc once, cancelled disc two and three...success. Computer box stoped sweating while looking at me with big scared eyes.
I completed the whole installation and configuration process, removed the Mandrake CD and rebooted. Went fine and made it through the whole booting process without a glitch.. Once in KDE....no internet connection available. Went to the terminal windows, ping my router...response times just fine. Went to the computer management part and checked the IP address of my NIC...just fine. Restarted Konqueror...still not able to pass through my USR8000 router. Continued to mess up with my network setting for half-an-hour without success. Restarted the machine, loaded Win2K in Grubs and end of story for Linux this week.
I willl probably re-install the whole thing, but this time in my main language and I'll select more packages, but only those that can be installed from CD1. I installed a few more things from CD 2 and 3 once I made it to KDE, but it hangs everytime I tried to install something from CD 2 and during the initial installation process. I have no clue why it cannot pass through my router even though it sees it.
I found many how-to guides since last December when I had all kinds of problem to upgrade KDE, so next time it should go more smoothly. But I'll need to figure out the internet problem before I get there.
So the beta 3 is still far from being ready for wide distribution. Wait for beta4 / final release before wasting CDs to burn the ISO.
So I downloaded the three ISO CDs and copied them on re-writeable medias (why waste write-once discs for a beta release?). Booted up and start the installation process. Re-partitioned my otherwise NTFS-only 15GB Quantum Fireball Plus LM with a 3GB "/", 243MB Swap and 1.9GB /usr (that's what the automatic partitioning gave me). I usually makes a small /boot, but it's been a while since last time I partitioned for a Linux distro and I forgot what's the appropriate size for a /boot partition, so I didn't create one. During this first installation attempt, I chose to use the French language and Canadian French keyboard layout, since it's the one I'm the most familiar with and I figured that since Mandrake is from France, French shouldn't be problematic, even for a beta release. I selected the packages I wanted to install (Gnome, KDE, a few games and Office applications, nothing server-related since this is intended to be a desktop-replacement box). Fast forward to the disc-to-hard drive file transfer. Passed through disc one fine, asked for disc two. Passed through disc two fine, asked for disc three. Copied a few files from disc three and system hangs with some 10 secconds remaining to the file copying process. Me blue, taked a deep breath, remembered it's only a beta (altough the third, figured it would work by then but...) and cooled down.
Hard reboot required. Restart the whole thing, but this time in US English and all standard options only. Disc one ok, disc two ok, disc three...I left my computer room, drank a big water glass, cooled down and came back. Hard reboot again. US English, selected only KDE, not Gnome, no Office applications. Disc one, disc two, canceled disc three (international CD) since it's supposed to be able to complete the installation without it anyway. Hanged again just before the end of the file copying process. Computer then almost been rewarded with another war paint on the face plate. Hard reboot, US English, KDE only. Installed disc once, cancelled disc two and three...success. Computer box stoped sweating while looking at me with big scared eyes.
I completed the whole installation and configuration process, removed the Mandrake CD and rebooted. Went fine and made it through the whole booting process without a glitch.. Once in KDE....no internet connection available. Went to the terminal windows, ping my router...response times just fine. Went to the computer management part and checked the IP address of my NIC...just fine. Restarted Konqueror...still not able to pass through my USR8000 router. Continued to mess up with my network setting for half-an-hour without success. Restarted the machine, loaded Win2K in Grubs and end of story for Linux this week.
I willl probably re-install the whole thing, but this time in my main language and I'll select more packages, but only those that can be installed from CD1. I installed a few more things from CD 2 and 3 once I made it to KDE, but it hangs everytime I tried to install something from CD 2 and during the initial installation process. I have no clue why it cannot pass through my router even though it sees it.
I found many how-to guides since last December when I had all kinds of problem to upgrade KDE, so next time it should go more smoothly. But I'll need to figure out the internet problem before I get there.
So the beta 3 is still far from being ready for wide distribution. Wait for beta4 / final release before wasting CDs to burn the ISO.
