[tony starks]

Hi I just installed Mandrake 10.1 I have XP installed on my hard drive and I let Mandrake installation protion off 10GB. It looked like everything went well it installed bootloader but after it was finished only XP loads up. There is no boot loader. It just goes stright to XP. Is there anything I did wrong or need to do?

[matttah]

I am not sure exactly how mandrake works, and what bootloader but what you can do if you want to use lilo is this. Well first let me state what i think happened. I think it just didnt' installed the bootloader to the mbr=p Ok to do this, you will need a live cd of some sort...mount your / directory..or wherever you have lilo stored. make sure the /etc/lilo.conf is already created(I am guessing that mandrake does this already for the user) Then do lilo -M /dev/xxx
The xxx is where you will place sda or hda or the name of your drive. This will install lilo to the mbr of your hard drive. Also if you use grub, i believe the command is something like, grub-install --root-directory=/boot /dev/xxx....I'd look up a little documentation on that if you wer eto do that. and i believe that .conf file is in /boot/grub/grub.conf. I'd do it for ya but i gotta getheading to school. If there is someone here that uses mandrake, which i'm sur ethere is, i'm positive they probably are more help than i.
Daum

[Dapper Dan]

Hi tony starks and welcome

Another thing you can do is put the install cd 1 back in and do an upgrade not and install. You can also add a few more packages this way if you want. It will take you to the part again offering to upgrade or re-configure the boot loader. Do this, installing Lilo to the MBR. I think Mandrake does this automatically. Also make sure your XP is there as a boot choice as well. Just take your time and it will come out OK. then proceed to the end of the install as before and reboot. Lilo should now be installed to the MBR, and give you a nice dual boot screen when you first boot.

If you can't get this working, post back and let us know. Good Luck!

[tony starks]

Ok I got it working now, mandrake look very nice. Question, in bootloader there are more than one selection for windows Ex:
windows1, windows2 and others along with Linux. Most dont work I get a message saying boot fail or something alone that line. Is it ok to delete the ones that doesnt work? And also when mandrake starts it starts up in windows maker, then I have to switch over to KDE. Can I make it start from KDE, or is it just like that?

[Dapper Dan]

Look in your Mandrake Control Center. I forget where it is, but there's a utility in there that will allow you to switch your preferred desktop environment to KDE. Does KDM, (the sign in window thingie) come up for you? if not, do Ctrl-Alt-Backspace and see if it takes you to it. If it does, go under sessions and choose KDE and log back in. That should set it as your default.

[danleff]

If you have Mandrake installed on the primary master hard drive along side of XP, ignore the Windows entries after the first that shows. Mandrake tends to find any fat32/NTFS partition that it thnks has any trace of Windows on it and creates an entry for the partition.

[tony starks]

I know but is it ok if I delete them? Also can I use AOL with Mandrake along with other programs?

[Dapper Dan]

You can delete them but it's not going to hurt anything for them to be there. I always thinks it's best for new users to avoid deleting anything until they are certain they, (a) know exactly what they are doing, and (b) are certain they aren't deleting something they may need later on.

If it just bugs you to have them there on the boot screen, do what we call, "comment them out." That is, you put a '#' in front of the entry so it is not read. here's an example of my grub.conf, before and after commenting out certain entries...

Code:

# grub.conf generated by anaconda
#
# Note that you do not have to rerun grub after making changes to this file
# NOTICE:  You have a /boot partition.  This means that
#          all kernel and initrd paths are relative to /boot/, eg.
#          root (hd0,0)
#          kernel /vmlinuz-version ro root=/dev/hda5
#          initrd /initrd-version.img
#boot=/dev/hda
default=1
timeout=10
splashimage=(hd0,0)/grub/splash.xpm.gz
title Gentoo (2.4.20-gentoo_r6)
	root (hd0,0)
	kernel /vmlinuz-2.4.20-gentoo_r6 ro root=/dev/hda5 hdd=ide-scsi
title SuSE 9.1
	kernel (hd0,5)/boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/hda6
	initrd (hd0,5)/boot/initrd
title Mandrake 9.1
	kernel (hd0,8)/boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/hda9 quiet devs=mount hdd=ide-scsi acpi=off vga=788
	initrd (hd0,8)/boot/initrd.img
# added by NeTraverse - DO NOT REMOVE THIS LINE, it's used for uninstall
title Win4Lin
        kernel (hd0,8)/boot/win4lin root=/dev/hda9 hdd=ide-scsi acpi=off vga=788
        initrd (hd0,8)/boot/initrd.img
# end added by NeTraverse - DO NOT REMOVE THIS LINE, it's used for uninstall

If I wanted to eleminate, say Mandrake 9.1 from my grub boot screen, I could go something like...

Code:

# grub.conf generated by anaconda
#
# Note that you do not have to rerun grub after making changes to this file
# NOTICE:  You have a /boot partition.  This means that
#          all kernel and initrd paths are relative to /boot/, eg.
#          root (hd0,0)
#          kernel /vmlinuz-version ro root=/dev/hda5
#          initrd /initrd-version.img
#boot=/dev/hda
default=1
timeout=10
splashimage=(hd0,0)/grub/splash.xpm.gz
title Gentoo (2.4.20-gentoo_r6)
	root (hd0,0)
	kernel /vmlinuz-2.4.20-gentoo_r6 ro root=/dev/hda5 hdd=ide-scsi
title SuSE 9.1
	kernel (hd0,5)/boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/hda6
	initrd (hd0,5)/boot/initrd
# title Mandrake 9.1
#	kernel (hd0,8)/boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/hda9 quiet # devs=mount hdd=ide-scsi acpi=off vga=788
#	initrd (hd0,8)/boot/initrd.img
# added by NeTraverse - DO NOT REMOVE THIS LINE, it's used for uninstall
title Win4Lin
        kernel (hd0,8)/boot/win4lin root=/dev/hda9 hdd=ide-scsi acpi=off vga=788
        initrd (hd0,8)/boot/initrd.img
# end added by NeTraverse - DO NOT REMOVE THIS LINE, it's used for uninstall

That way, it just doesn't even show up as a boot choice, but is easily restored if I ever need it again.

What other programs besides AOL are you wanting to run? I'm not aware that AOL makes a port for Linux, or even if you can use their services without Windows. Maybe someone else knows...

[

[tony starks]

lets say like photoshop pagemaker bryce 5. Also can I play my mp3s on mandrake and how can I see my other HDs I have one external along with an enternal both was with XP.

[Dapper Dan]

Originally posted by tony starks:

Quote:

lets say like photoshop pagemaker bryce 5. Also can I play my mp3s on mandrake and how can I see my other HDs I have one external along with an enternal both was with XP.

There are Linux equivalents to photoshop. Have a look in the "graphics" section of your menu. You can easily play your mp3s. Look in the mulit-media section for mp3 player, or it might be labled as Xmms. There is an mp3 plugin you'll probably have to install before it will work though for patent reasons. I'm not sure which one will work with Mdk 10.1

I'm pretty sure Mandrake by default mounts automatically existing Windows partitions. Open konqueror and go into /mnt. see if there is a folder in there called "Windows" or "XP" or some such thing. If so just continue on into it for your Windows files. On the external drive install of Windows, I would imagine it would be a simple matter to just mount it. In fact, Mandrake may have auto mounted it too. Again, look in /mnt and see if you see anything in there that may be your external drive.

[tony starks]

Just woundering on how I can get to my grub config? Also I DL a new Nvidia driver how do I install it? Sorry for the noob questions.

[Dapper Dan]

Find grub.conf likely in /boot/grub Open it in X with Gedit or from the command line using vi.

Those "drivers" you downloaded, are they Windows drivers or Linux? Are you wanting to install the Nvidia 3d module?

Once you've downloaded NVIDIA-Linux-x86-1.0-5336-pkg1.run, you'll have to install it outside of Xwindows. Here's how...

You'll have to edit your /etc/inittab file. Become root and type "gedit", without the quoteations and press enter.

click "open", and in the left hand pane, double click the "../ " 2 times.

In the left hand pane, scroll down to /etc and double click it.

look for "inittab" in the right pane, and double click it. gedit will then open the inittab file.

look for the line..

id:5:initdefault:

edit this line and change the "5" to a "3"

save, exit and reboot the computer.

This time, your "user manager thingie" will not come up for you to enter your name and password because you will now not be in X windows. You will have to enter your username and password at the command line.

become root, "cd" to the directory where the Nvidia universal driver is installed and type:

chmod 777 NVIDIA-Linux-x86-1.0-5336-pkg1.run

Be sure you're online and go:

./NVIDIA-Linux-x86-1.0-5336-pkg1.run

...and follow the instructions. After completion, at the command prompt, type "startx" and press enter. This will start X and will put you back in runlevel 5.

log in as usual, and return to gedit as above. Go back to /etc/inittab and change the "3" back to a "5". Also while in gedit, find and open /etc/X11/XF86Config-4, and look for a line under...

Section "Device"

and where you see "nv", change it to "nvidia" (this time only, with the quotes just as you see them)

save this file, exit out of gedit, reboot, and everything should work as before except your new updated Nvidia module will be installed. It sounds complicated but as you'll see, it really isn't.