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K Bergen

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Posts posted by K Bergen

  1. I just installed it from the one live cd after partitioning the hard drive with a windows xp os on the other part.

    however, there is no boot menu to choose mandriva, it always goes to windows.

    Its on an IBM T43 laptop.

     

    Any thoughts or how to get a boot menu option for the OS or must I reinstall again?

     

    Thanks,

    Chris

    It sounds like your boot loader was written to the linux partition IE /dev/sdaX

    The easiest solution is to reinstall and make sure the boot loader is written to the MBR IE /dev/sda

     

    Ken

  2. Boot into run level 1, i.e. single user mode. That will take you to a root prompt without the need for a password. To do that hit F3 as soon as you see the mandriva grub selection screen which will bring up the kernel options menu; select Default. You will then see a line across the bottom of the grub menu that starts with:

     

    Boot: *************

     

    to boot to run level 1 you just type "1" without quotes at the end of that line and hit the Enter key. Sometimes there is so much stuff that you can't see the end of the Boot line but if you just type 1 and hit Enter, it should go. The boot messages will eventually tell you it's going into single user mode and dump you to a root command prompt that looks something like this IIRC:

     

    sh#

     

    Type in your command to change your root password:

     

    # passwd root

     

    and change the root password to anything you want and then run:

     

    # sync

    # reboot

     

    The should reset your password for you.

    Grub should have a listing of "failsafe" thats the same as run level one.

     

    All else I agree with but lets keep it our little secret. ;)

     

    Ken

  3. Actually I find nothing wrong with the Mandriva model on a single user machine as in that case you are probably also the system administrator.

     

    But and a big BUT it should not be enabled by default.

    The first time you click on the update icon you should be asked if you want a regular user to be able to install updates and be asked for the root password to enable that feature.

     

    Ken

  4. This madness started back in 2008.1 or perhaps earlier.

    It's not really that much of a security risk as it only uses update repositories setup by root and can only update already installed packages but yes it does go against everything I've learnt in my ten years of Linux use. :sad:

     

    Ken

  5. Ken.

     

    I typed it in as you instructed and got a blank, black screen !!

     

    When I left-click the mouse I get a cross on the screen. I didn't expect that ! :huh:

     

    What is it doing ? Help !!!

    A shot in the dark but "Mandrake 10.0" is old and so probably is the hardware, it just might not be up to running two desktops.

     

    You could try killing IceWM

    init 3

    as root, then

    startx KDE

    I know that's not your ultimate goal but it may show whether or not your install of KDE actually works.

     

    Ken

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