[the mahcaws gillifish]

Hey, I'm brand new to Linux. I'm pretty sick and tired of Windows in general because it's just a pain the the @$$.

Originally when I decided I wanted to switch to linux I did my reading a chose Mandrake as I thought it would be the best option for me. I downloaded version 9.1 and using Alcohol 120%, burned the iso's to disks. The disk boots fine and seems as though it will install until it gets to the part where I choose where to install from. It won't recognize the CD (now this is the cd I *just* booted from) or the hd as containing the installation files. I thought it might have been a hardware compatibilty issue so I've since played with my cdroms disconnected the cdrw etc. all to no avail. Deciding this was an isolated issue I downloaded Redhat 9.0 only to find myself in a similar situation. It boots fine and then won't install from the CD.

What in the heck am I doing wrong? I know when I tried installing mandrake I had to use the alt0 kernel at the boot screen at the begining of the installation because if I use the one it defaults to it would cut out and give me an error at the Detecting USB something or other screen. I don't know if anybody has any suggestions but any ideas at all would be helpful

I downloaded the SuSE boot disk and tried to install it over my dsl but I have a PPPoE connection and it only gave me options for installing over a regular DHCP connection when I tried to install that.

Right now I'm downloading the iso's for mandrake again and I'm going to try burning them using nero instead.

Help me! hehe I really want to use this and this just isn't working out for me at all

[the mahcaws gillifish]

From what I've read here it seems like mandrake 9.1 isn't the greatest... think I should just get 9.0 and try that instead?

[PenguinBiker]

I would take a look at SuSe 8.2 pro. I currently use it but i am going to switch to gentoo because i want something more advanced.

i found that SuSe was remarkably easy to learn how to use and system configuation is made alot easier to learn with YaST2

if you can't get burned cds to work i would try a bought copy (some computers and software have problems with iso's)

for a beginner i would recomend SuSe 8.2 or Mandrake 9 (stay away from 9.1)


once you learn it and get into linux you will never switch back to the hellspawn of windows

[the mahcaws gillifish]

I hope so hehe... I have been dilligently working on this for about a week now but it's making me feel pretty dumb hehe :P

I think I'll dl mandrake 9.0 and try that. Any ideas where I can get SuSE? I'll try to download it first and if that doesn't work I'll go out and buy a copy, I just would like to try this stuff before I actually go ahead and buy it

[the mahcaws gillifish]

Well you guys can delete this thread lol :P It was all Alcohol 120%... It always worked fine for all my other iso's but the linux ones didn't burn correctly. i *aquired* a copy of nero and gave that a shot instead... I'm running Mandrake 9.1 as we speak lol Anyway, it's not running as fast as I thought it would but I have a lot of stuff to be mucking with as I can longer get into either of my windows LOL... (I read something about it on here I just forget, something about problems with LILO and windows?) anyway I'm looking for the thread so yeah anyway you can delete this thread

[blueworm]

It is advisable before burning any large .iso to a disk to compare the md5sum.
Most download mirrors provide the file and its md5.
All you will need is the Md5sum program for MSdos.