Pzatch

Glad you finally figured it it out though. Post back after the next attempt. Someplace in the Faqs or tips and tricks section should be good instructions on burning the iso's. good luck.

How would I boot to floppy to load my favorite OS? Personally that just sounds like a viri problem waiting to be started.

What files did you get? from what Mandrake mirror did you get the ISO's. Each Iso should fit on a cdrom. None are over 700 MB. If they are you have the wrong download.

Are you trying a harddrive install or did you burn the DL version to disk? Just because something works on one MB doesn't meen it will work an another. And unless you have a MB older than 4 years you should have sometype of plug and play option in the bios.

Make sure any plug and play is turned off in the bios first. Make sure any extra usb stuff is unplugged for now. Does it say something like this? [yourusername@localhost yourusername]$ If so your in linux already. If you can boot to the cdrom use the first Mandrake install disk in rescue mode to reinstall lilo to the MBR of the hard drive. If you can't boot to the cdrom try making anouther floppy to cdrom boot disk using the image on the first install disk.

Have you gone to the VIA web site and downloaded and installed the drivers for 8XAGP yet. I know they were working on them a while ago should be done by now.

Since its a Dell and you've opended it make sure the jumper pins on the drives are set to master/slave and not cable select. As for the other ethernet card try it out. it can't hurt. No use spending money if you can make something you have work.

Make sure everything plug and play it turned off also. Since your running though a router make sure your setting up as a lan and not a cable connection. Make sure the router assigns your ip sub address number. Sometimes people turn that off in the router.

Put the new hard drive into the computer as the master. Make sure the jumper pins are correctly set to master and not cable select or slave. leave the origional harddrive disconected for now. Install Mandrake to the new drive and place the boot loader in the MBR or that drive. Now switch the drive back to the computer you want it in. Reconnect the other hard drive back into its origional place. Connect the new drive into the computer you want it in leaving it as master. Try starting the computer making sure that the bios knows its there and reads it as the correct size. Make sure plug and play in the bios is turned off. Post back any errors you get. Why couldn't you just put the cdrom into the other computer instead of switching the harddrives? What hardware is in the new linux comp? Whay won't it boot to the cdrom thats in it? It sounds like your really making this far harder than it need to be.

When you installed the second card make sure you had the on board one turned off in the bios. When you go though the MCC and try to connect what does it say? If your using a GUI. Nnormally you don't have to do much for an ethernet card exept tell it to use either a static ip address or DHCP. Sometimes things get more complex but they can always be figured out.

Make sure the jumper pins are set correctly for master/slave and make sure the cables are good. Switch them out if you have anouther set laying around.

Sounds like a buggy download or burn. remember to burn as slow as possible. And to run the Md5sums on each ISO.

Since its only one day since the first install i would just go ahead and reinstall. I know this sounds so M$ but your first install sounds a little buggy. Durning the install just add all the users you want. Make sure you put in all the development packages you can and do an update as soon as the install is finished. That way you know you have good working system. If you have any trouble after that just post back.

Linux normally hides it partitins and only shows the directories. Since your in linux did you get lilo installed correctly?

Gowatar the guitar string manufacturer is Ernie Ball http://www.ernieball.com/index.php

Thanks LiquidZoo That must be it. I'll test that one later.

F***ed Up Data. Mostly. Or False Untrue Data.

Maybe someone else knows better or more and I'de love to here what anyone has to say about this. But after reloading because of my last menu problem ( I know I didn't have to but wanted a fresh base to playwith)I decided to try updating only one group at a time. Skipping anything KDE untill last. Well I ran urpmi on the XFree86 pacages and they hosed the menues. Got them back with the update thing. Since I didn't update KDE yet maybe its just the XFree stuff doing it. If anyone has a better idea please tell me. Now that XFree86 is updated I'll try hosing the menus by updating KDE. Maybe they both do it. Hopefully its just related to the XFree stuff.

Personally i don't like the tone or content of the buissiness mans emails at all. I've tried working with men who sound exactly like that. Months of drawings, prototypes, faxs and phone calls. Yes we can do the work, what does you customer want? Then. Ok we got the sketches how about these revised drawings of them? Ok he wants something a little different. How about this?(new drawings get sent) Ok your customer likes them. Now he wants prototypes. No problem we'll ship them in a day. He likes them. Great. When can we expect the order?(a month passes so we call back) He didn't want that many but now wants just a small run at the same price.(from thousands to hundreds) How about this new price? Ok he'll take it great. When can we expect the order? We never got the order but found the product on the shelves with our design and same measurments 6 months later. He found someone to make it for 1 cent less. This man's name is now mud in our small industry. He ended up getting beefed in the end by the manufacturer of the stuff and was cut out of the loop. He came back to us with a new product after he found no one would work with him in the eastern US any more. I personally told him to stuff it. He sounded just like this emailer. He's got a price and someone to do the job. Why can't he just send him some work to find out how good he is and be done with the speaches. Why do people have to piddle around with stuff like this? You should send Onno a link to this site. I would like to hear how the things are going over there and what type of hardware their running. In the end its a positive move. I hope it pans out for them. Dang. If I had IT work for the guy I would at least send him a little just to see the work and then pay him for his time or by the job.

I wouldn't mind at all.

Whats stopping anyone from writing their own bios now for their own MB? The plane fact is if Nvidia wants to write their own code for their own stuff no one is stopping them. If they get together with AMD and VIA what outside code would they need. Those three companies could write a new one in a minute. Nothing in the OS would ever need changing. Users wouldn't even notice. They wouldn't have to even care or think about. They could even make it modular. If VIA wanted an Intell prossessor instead of AMD then out comes any AMD code and in goes the Intell code. The same for any other components on the system. The plane fact of this Intell, M$ consortium is they want to own and controle the bios code. It will never be open source as long as M$ or Intell have a hand in it. And open source is what all the other manufacturers want. That way they could use it to incorporate their new hardware with out having to pay Intell or write all new add on code. This is also the exact vehicle M$ would love to have a hand in just to screw up anything other than their stuff. M$ will be pushing hard to have more of the boot strap/bios code incorporated into the OS then they will have the code copywritten and closed to everyone else. Pay them or don't play is what will eventually happen. Since the machine code can only be written in one specific way to use the hardware the right way then they will effectivly "own" all the possible code to the bios. And since part of the code will be 'updateable' by the OS your using then just wait for the new M$ way of doing things. Intell wants in on all this because they will own all the other bios code. There are already other open source bios codes out now. One from Japan runs most cell phones and sterios out now. Untill the new consortium says the words"Well make it free and open source" then I'll just keep what I trust now. Sorry about the rant but this is one of the few areas in computing that I have always trusted and never thought would need updated. If it needs rewriten then just rewrite it to be leaner and more stable. No need to change how any of it interacts with what we have out now. I just can't see how we need a new bios for the modular type home PC's we have now. I can't see how the basic modular design for them will ever change. If written the way it is now so that it will work with the modular style components we have out now. I just don't trust this group of companies.

A3MSA-A275 Thats all I put into google and it came back with the MB chipset and manufacturer that it looks like PCpartner used. Use the Google Luke. May the search be with you. Yoda says "Find you will with google" Vader says" Search your google. You know it to be true."

Qcad might work. And its on the Mandrake disks. There are others I just don't know them.

Look up the motherboard chipset first. Looks like its and ATI which should run fine. But it also looks like you have an onboard Rage vidio card. I don't know anything about them but you could look into it also. As for everything else I can find on it it looks good to go. But as always check twice, load once.

Ok now that you have a base line to start from try xf86config this will give you a basic vidio configuration for the x windows system. Make sure you know what vidio card chipset you have and what you monitor vidio settings are. The monitor settings (refresh/resolutions settings) are the important ones because you can always use the vesa or svga drivers to run a basic GUI. Try picking a vidio chipset/card thats as close to your as possible. If not on the list then choose the vesa one. Retry startx after and tell us the output.