[wellylug] I blew it - lost a convert

[Eugene Van Wyk]

I agree with MDK10 hassles.  I am still struggling on since I've had
Mandrake8, 9 and now 10 Each new program install is a major fight, and I
still can't get OOo1.1.2 to run from the menu.  (MDK8 or 10)  I've also
had regular issues with X just going sad, and the machine sitting there
with a black screen. 

During the last exercise, I tried to install MDK10 on an IBM 300PL.  I
tried a total of six times.  The best response was text mode.  All
others was a black screen, from which I could only recover by recycling
power.  I then installed my trusty Mandrake8, which has so far never
failed me on any hardware. 

At the last Hutt LUG meeting I took the machine with to ask the experts.
Rebooted with Mandrake10, ran the install, and the machine is up and
running - no problem.   AARGH as you said.

Are there any MDK10 specific info help sites on the Internet besides the
official site?  I've tried talking to them, and they do not seem
interested in this "DSE" distribution.  The bits of info that I can
access as a non registered product user does not seem to cover any of
these issues.

Eugene van Wyk
Test Development Engineer
4RF Communications Ltd
26 Glover St
Ngauranga
Wellington
New  Zealand
 

-----Original Message-----
From: wellylug-admin at lists.wellylug.org.nz
[mailto:wellylug-admin at lists.wellylug.org.nz] On Behalf Of John C
Barstow
Sent: Tuesday, 31 August 2004 10:39 p.m.
To: Wellylug
Subject: [wellylug] I blew it - lost a convert

So, I've agreed to help a friend de-gunk their Windows box; and casually
mention that if they had Linux they wouldn't have this problem. They're
willing to give a go after I evangelize it, and lend me the box to set a
dual boot environment.

I grab a copy of Mandrake 10 from Disk Smith, reasoning that it's a good
first distro and requires me to spend 0 minutes burning. A few clicks
later, and we have a brand-new install.  Windows side is run through a
few good cleaning cycles, Mozilla and OpenOffice are installed, and
there is much rejoicing.

They bring it home and decide to put in that new Radeon they've been
meaning to get installed. Figure they'll boot it up and get the "new
drivers installing" screen they're used to in Windows.

Nothing works. It has been a total of two hours since I handed the
machine to them, and I get a phone call.

I attempt to boot into windows. System just sits there, not doing
anything. Booting into Mandrake fails - turns out they got prompted
about multihead support and hit the cancel button; presumably X is
misconfigured now, pointing at (unused and unsupported) on-board video.

My first priority is to make sure they can get into their familiar
Windows side; I can always revisit Linux configuration later.
Using the Mandrake installation CD, I check out the rescue menu and get
a nice option - "Restore the Windows bootloader". That'll do it, I
think.

Wrong. Now the machine doesn't boot.  Oops, maybe the bootloader got
corrupted somehow.  Grab the XP install disc, drop into rescue mode.
Had a small panic when nobody knew the admin password; then remembered
this was Windows. It was blank, of course.
Now, I run FIXMBR. This should give me a nice, clean Windows bootloader.
MBR writes to disk, claims success, sign of relief.

Machine still doesn't boot. Is there something wrong with hard drive? I
run Mandrake rescue, install linux bootloader into MBR.  Boots nicely
(not into Windows, of course). That is to say, it finds LILO just fine
and boots into linux without problem.

Run FIXMBR again, as well as FIXBOOT. Claims of success, no joy.

So the result of all this hard work is that they ended up with a machine
that boots into text-mode linux.  Obviously with some work I could get X
configured properly, but from their perspective I screwed their machine
and they will end up reinstalling XP. Luckily they don't blame me
personally and may even be willing to give Linux another go once their
new hardware is playing nicely with Windows.

But this is frustrating. Reasonably well-supported hardware, good
install experience, couple of handy test boots, but such pain when I
hand the machine back to the user. It's not fair. And what the $@#% is
wrong with XP that I can't restore the bootloader? I've never had a
problem on any other machine. Single hard drive, Windows partition right
up front where no bootloader should have any trouble whatsoever. Rescue
disk even sees all the files!

Argh!


-- 
Wellington Linux Users Group Mailing List:
wellylug at lists.wellylug.org.nz
To Leave:  http://lists.wellylug.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/wellylug