Linux Mandrake Installation Issues

[Jaraxal]

Ok, I've installed serveral different variations of Linxu (Caldera, Red Hat, and Mandrake) starting with 4.2 of Red Hat.

So I download the latest ISO of Mandrake (7.2) and I burn it with no problems. I boot my machine off of the cdrom and begin the installation procedure. Everything goes without a problem until Mandrake actually starts to install the the packages.

It doesn't seem to proceed normally. It takes forever to "Prepare for Installation" or something to that effect, I can't remember. If I let it sit for about 30 or 45 minutes it will tell me that it failed to install a package and ask if I want to continue, but the same thing continues ... and the installation fails.

I have tried several different ISOs from different Mirror sites and burned them all. I can't get it installed. Red Hat 7.0 installs with no problems.

My question is has anyone else seen this, or is it a problem exclusive to me?

 

[Damaged]

I haven't installed Mandrake 7.2, but I've installed all versions prior to that. Not sure why it would do that, but have you tried looking at the vc's to see what exactly the problem may be?

 

[Jaraxal]

Not yet. I just get frustrated and give up, then install Red Hat ...

But I would prefer to run Mandrake for the optimizations that they provide by default...

 

[FOBSIDE]

what they have in mandrake isnt anything you cant put in yourself in redhat. you might want to go that direction if youre having that many problems.

 

[Damaged]

Except he wants to use Mandrake because it's binaries are compiled with pgcc (makes use of the pentium options) for better performance.

 

[kylef]

I do remember the installation "hanging" on two software packages in the middle of the install... The installer gave up on them, but they were non-essential and haven't affected the system. I don't even remember what packages they are.

Have you tried burning the image with different media or a different burner? It sounds to me like a CD-reading issue to me. I doubt that the installer would hang if it weren't simply failing to read something from the CD. Do you also have a spare CD-ROM drive to try? I haven't had very good luck with CD-rom drives lately either...

Personally I think these damned 40-50X drives aren't worth half of a good old 8X drive... The 8X drives were a lot quieter also

Kyle

 

[MGMorden]

I tend to agree w/ you kylef about the new speed cd drives, but strangely the mandrake install cd gave a kernel panic if I tried to install from my 8x burner. Put in my 50x acer (which I hate, but it was the only other drive I had around) and it worked fine. Anyways, on topic, as FOBSIDE said, you can add anything you want to any distribution really (even recompile the programs for your target processor, although that would take a long time and IMHO wouldn't be worth it). I'd say just go with another one such as Caldera, SuSE, or Redhat. (though I like Mandrake better than any of those. Slackware is also nice once you get very used to Linux/Unix).

 

[Jaraxal]

Well I'm using a Sony CR140X 8/4/32 CD-RW that has given me absolutely no problems. I have been able to install several other distros of Linux, including earlier releases of Mandrake. That is why I was leaning towards the ISO having problems ...

If I get 3 ISOs of Mandrake Linux 7.2 from 3 different mirror FTP sites and burn all 3 ISOs to CD, I have the same problem. Tends to make one wonder.

So now I am trying to install Mandrake Linux using VMware's virtual machine ... same problems...

 

[AT]

I had some CD drive problems too with Mandrake 7.1. Once it started copying files it would just reboot my computer suddenly. This happened several times so I solved it by just hand picking less packets to install and hoping that it would get through and it did with pretty minimal installation.

And all this on a:
Celeron 300@464, 192MB, Asus P2B, AOpen 40x CD-ROM, Abit Siluro Geforce MX, 2x IBM HD's, MX300, D-Link 530TX

 

[jtshaw]

Just for sh*ts and giggles, and because I like to keep myself current, I tried installing Mandrake 7.2 ISO (I got it from ftp-linux.cc.gatech.edu...the place I get all my linux distro's I test since it usually gets things very quick and it is on the campus net with me...btw, it is fast for off-campus locations too). I tried installing it on my Sony 4/2/32 CD-RW drive and my Toshiba 8x DVD and it worked just fine with both of them. There were no stalls and no errors. ftp-linux.cc.gatech.edu is a mirror site so I don't see how it would have a different ISO then any of the other mandrake mirror sites but you could try it I guess.

 

[Jaraxal]

Well it got tired of the problems, so I spent the $30 on the commecial Mandrake 7.2 (MacMillian or something like that).

Talked about Pi$$ed off. The installation process doesn't even look the same as the ISO I downloaded. It doesn't even match the manual, which by the way, looks like the ISO install procedures....

See my sig for my setup. At this point I'm going to stick with RedHat. But what frustrates me is I've never had a problem before ... sigh

 

[Damaged]

So you had the same problems with the retail box set as well?

 

[Jaraxal]

Actually, I never followed through with the installation routine. It turned me off when I saw the it didn't look like it was supposed to.

For example, it doesn't even give you the option to select "Recommended, Custom, or Expert". And the manual that came without it (just thought I would look at it and see if it jived with the installation), doesn't match the GUIs that are supposed to be displayed.

Strange.