linux dual boot problem

[fluxquantum]

hi there,

i own a dell latitude d800 and i setup a multiboot scenario: win2k, winxp, and linux mandrake 9.1

i used partition magic 8 to create a linux partition, set it active, and installed linux on there. the installation went fine, now i am stuck at a screen prompt with the following:

localhost login: name
Password:
[name@localhost name]$

i have no idea what to do. please help. thanks in advance.

 

[sciencewhiz]

you either didn't install X or it isn't set to start by default.

Try typeing "startx" and press enter

 

[fluxquantum]

okay, i will give that a try. also i do not see the windows option when the linux loader comes up. is there a way to get windows to show on the menu?

 

[Bladesonfire]

That's weird: usually when doing a standard Mandrake installation, X should come up right away and Windows should be in the menu. I didn't touch anything through the Mandrake install (just trying to get through it quickly) and that's how it worked for me.

Anyway, I'm guessing you'd be using LILO, so you have to either a) edit /etc/lilo.conf or I think Mandrake has a GUI tool that will allow you to change the boot settings. I'm currently not booted into Mandrake, so I couldn't tell you. If you edit /etc/lilo.conf, enter the following lines:
other=/dev/hda1
label=Windows

Note: Assuming that Windows is on the first partition, otherwise, you have to change "/hda#"

 

[drag]

Originally posted by: fluxquantum
hi there,

i own a dell latitude d800 and i setup a multiboot scenario: win2k, winxp, and linux mandrake 9.1

i used partition magic 8 to create a linux partition, set it active, and installed linux on there. the installation went fine, now i am stuck at a screen prompt with the following:

localhost login: name
Password:
[name@localhost name]$

i have no idea what to do. please help. thanks in advance.

That their is a bash pompt. It's part of your shell. In other words it's a command line, get used to it, because it's your freind. 🙂 Or not, but it's very very very powerfull, much better then any gui.

X starts up automaticly in mandrake, but for some reason it is not. Probably because it's not correctly configured or is missing the display drivers.

startx will start X. That's what it is for. 🙂

Use it once, It should fail. If it doesn't, good for you.

Basic bash commands are:
cd --to change dir
ls -- to list dir contents
cat --to output file contents to your screen (standard output)

if X fails goto /var/log/
look for a file that says something about XFree86.

then IF the filename is (for instance) XFree86.log.0
try

cat XFree86.log.0 | less
(thats the | button, should also be the \ button)

Then look for errors. Each line should have a II or a WW or a EE or something like that. EE indicates errors. Write them down and get back to us.

A quicker way would be to try:
cat XFree86.log.0 |grep EE

But that way you lose context.

some helpfull links:

Newbie administrative guide to using BASH.

This looks somewhat helpfull

If you have questions, Google is your friend. 🙂 Also often the quickest way

Hope that helps.