kevmccor

Thanks to all for thier replies. I did a bit of looking on google for "invalid compressed format" and, while I did not find any user-friendly explanation, I found enough to indicate there probably was some problem with my cdrom drive. It was an older Shuttle SD-360 36x atapi. I went out and got a Samsung CD-R/RW, put it in, and the installation proceeded from there. I am sending this on my new 9.2 installation. I suppose I really wanted a R/RW cdrom anyway - now I need something to write! Just an added comment. I have never updated the bios on this motherboard, so that may have something to do with the problem. I actually got the intstall process started one time after playing with the ide drive PIO settings in the bios, but I did not have the hard drives hooked up right at the time. After fixing that, the "invalid compression format" error kept repeating, so I just got the new cdrom drive. Thanks

I have tried the noapic acpi=off and text installation options. I have 8.2 working well on a Jetway 694TAS socket 370 motherboard, celeron 1.2 Ghz, 36x atapi cdrom. I have tried to install 9.1 and 9.2 and get the following error: invalid compressed format (err=1) Freeing initrd memory: 3031k freed Kernel Panic: VFS: unable to mount root fs on 1:03 This happened with 9.1 a while back. I got 9.2 from Mandrake, and am trying to install, but this error stops the show. I have adjusted bios settings as well. Also, an attempt with text install and acpi=off resulted in invalid compressed format (err=2) System Halted. I have another motherboard, a VIA C3M266, but I think this has its own set of problems. Also, I have searched the forum, but haven't found anything on this. Does anyone know what the problem is?

I think the "checking for new hardware" part of the boot-up is done by a service called kudzu, which can be disabled in drakconf. Since I used to run a K6-500 processor, I have some idea of what you are talking about in starting times. I ended up switching window environments, from kde to xfce. It takes a while to set up xfce, but it is faster. To try it, install the latest v. 3 rpm, 3.8.18, from www.xfce.org, rmpfind.net, or possibly a contrib source. It uses gtk so it has a different look that qt. Once you get the rpm, try "rpm -Uvh --test xfce.*.rpm" as root to see whether it thinks it will load. From the boot-up command line, you will need to enter "startxfce" to start it.

Try " /dev/fd0 /mnt/floppy noauto ... I think the error described in the first message results from the mount command trying to mount the floppy drive when there is no disk inserted. The "auto" option tells mount to mount the filesystem at startup. The noauto in ... unhide,noauto,ioch... refers to converting CRLF characters at the end of each text file line, if I am reading the mount manpage correctly. There is a discussion of autofs in the OldDocs part of this website, I believe. Hope it helps

I have read this fascinating thread as one who is faced with the need to upgrade because everything wants glibc-2.2. I have used Mandrake for about 2 years, faithfully buying a new box every so often. I feel that I have learned a fair amount about linux with Mandrake, and because I made an effort to figure out how things worked. I think it is a real advantage to have a system that provides rpm's, or another packaging system, so a reasonably good and useful installation can be made, but you have to probe deeply to have an understanding of how things actually work, what is truly useful, what is reliable, and how to avoid problems. I still need to learn how to use programs like databases, apache, ssh, and such, but I just don't have the time. Really valuable knowledge is in learning how to make the system work for you. Compiling programs is fine, but I don't see it as anything special. My real concern with my distribution has emerged as having a system that is reliable and easy to maintain. This, I think, is what you will learn to create with whatever distribution you choose. If you don't, you will choose again. At this point, I have obtained debian cd's, but I really don't want to go through a tedious install. I will not consider gentoo for that reason. This leaves Mandrake, Red Hat, and Libranet as the candidates. Now, I have learned about installs and how upgrades don't work and how to be very concerned about partitions. I know the gist of Mandrake. I would use Red Hat if I was interested in a real computer job (and probably learn perl, python, php "lamp"). So, really, can one learn anything with Mandrake 9.1, or should I use my distro budget on Libranet?

I have had some problems with my printer, a Samsung ML-4500, that were mysterious. I finally read about the parallel port settings in the mail archives at linuxprinting.org and also read about the parport module in /usr/src/linux/documentation (or something -- I hate looking up paths all the time). Check your system bios for the parallel port settings. Probably ECP/EPP, irq 7 dma 3 or something like that. Then check /etc/modules.conf and see if you have the "alias parport_lowlevel parport_pc " and "options parport_pc io=0x378 irq=7 dma=3" (or whatever applies to your system). It is discussed in the documentation -- don't trust my memory! Apparently many newer printers rely more and more on the bidirectional printer cable and driver software. I hope this helps

I had cable internet for a while. I have seen no mention of dhcp clients, so that may be your problem. I had to use dhclient, which is gets the dynamic IP address (dhcp). Be sure have a dhcp client service started. The dhcp client, dhclient, is confusing at first, but it did work well or me. There is also, I believe, "pump". Also, for me it was necessary to use iptables as a firewall. The following is part of the successor of script that started iptables: # note /etc/sysctl.conf # rp_filter, ip_forward, and ip_always_defrag # echo 1 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_forward # echo 1 > net.ipv4.conf.all.rp_filter # echo 1 > net.ipv4.ip_always_defrag echo '=========================' echo 'iptables packet filter' echo '=========================' NET_DYNA=`ifconfig ppp0 | grep "inet*" | cut -f2 -d: | cut -d' ' -f1 ` NET_BCAST=`ifconfig ppp0 | grep "inet*" | cut -f3 -d: | cut -d' ' -f1 ` NET_DEF_GW=${NET_BCAST} EXT_DNS_1=`cat /etc/resolv.conf | awk 'BEGIN { FS=" " }; { if (FNR == 3) print $2 }'` EXT_DNS_2=`cat /etc/resolv.conf | awk 'BEGIN { FS=" " }; { if (FNR == 4) print $2 }'` You would replace "ppp0" with "eth0" probably. If you have a dhcp client working, the ifconfig command should tell you the dynamic ip number. the "| grep ... " stuff extracts the ip number for use in iptables filter commands. There is information on this on the web, but it has been a while since I looked at it and my memory fails. Good luck.

I have succeeded in getting basic functionality using the programs I downloaded from http://tilp.info/index.php I would recommend subscribing to the mailing list. It helped me figure out some compilition and installation problems and some usermode problems. You may also want to look at http://lpg.ticalc.org/ Good luck!

I have crossover office. It works pretty well for me, the little I use it. You install the crossover program, and then it asks you to install MS Office, through its installation program. The programs work, but not the help part (perhaps fixed now). It is just weird to see excel, word, or i.e. on my xfce desktop. Crossover does seem like a very well written program, but I have no experience with WINE, so I can't compare.