fuzzylizard Posted March 13, 2004 Report Share Posted March 13, 2004 (edited) I have been attempting to install Mandrake 10.0 CE onto my laptop -- a Dell Inspiron 1100. To begin with, this laptop has a bug with the video bios which makes it hard to install any version of Linux onto it. However, I have successfully installed Red Hat 9 and Mandrake 9.2 onto it. Trying to install Mandrake 10.0 made me think of the first time I install Mandrake 7.something onto a computer. I had to use the text based install as the graphical install never worked. During the beginning of the install, it kept asking for a floppy with extra drivers on it and would then die if I said no. (My laptop does not have a floppy drive and I do not have some floppy with extra drivers anyways) During the install, I was asked for some mysterious 4th CD. The install said to press the cancel button if I did not have the CD. However, there was no cancel button anywhere. The only thing close was the 'Previous' button. Which I pressed. This caused something in Perl to generate and error. However, the install did continue. I finally made it through the text based install and could not get X started. Okay, this was to be expected and I fixed that with the appropriate patch. However, I could also not get my network cards working. I have a regular wired card and a wireless card. I spent about 10 different reboots and each one, another card would be recognized. I would than have to go through and configure it, using the text based tools, and then finish the boot process. However, the next boot I would have to do this all over again. Very frustrating. In addition, I have acpi on my laptop, something that Mandrake 9.2 detected and install correctly. No go with 10.0. Apparently I will have to compile my own kernel for this. Supposedly, kernel 2.6.3 is supposed to support the synaptic touchpad on my notebook. However, I was never able to get the 'tap' part to work (where you tap the touchpad to simulate a click). This is something that, once again, Mandrake 9.2 was able to configure. Yes, KDE 3.2 is very nice, although I did not really see a lot of it, but I did like it and would like to use it sometime in the future. For right now, I have removed Linux from my laptop completely and may reinstall 9.2 sometime this weekend. All-in-all, this has been the most disappointing linux install since I tried to install Mandrake the very first time about 4 years ago. Well, back to Mandrake 9.2. P.S. Not trying to bash Mandrake 10 CE, just trying to state how my install went. Edited March 13, 2004 by fuzzylizard Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iphitus Posted March 13, 2004 Report Share Posted March 13, 2004 Supposedly, kernel 2.6.3 is supposed to support the synaptic touchpad on my notebook. However, I was never able to get the 'tap' part to work (where you tap the touchpad to simulate a click). This is something that, once again, Mandrake 9.2 was able to configure. Let me know how you go with that touchpad, i have one too. The tap click worked in Mandy 9.2 running 2.4.22-10mdk, but now in arch running 2.6.3 the tap doesnt work. Maybe there is an option or setting that needs to be set. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fuzzylizard Posted March 13, 2004 Author Report Share Posted March 13, 2004 I ended up getting too frustrated with my little network card proble to try this, but it might work for you. http://w1.894.telia.com/~u89404340/touchpad/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
arthur Posted March 13, 2004 Report Share Posted March 13, 2004 the touchpad needs a driver in 2.6, since it handles mice differently. you can google it easily. then just load the driver in XF86Config and make sure you have evdev loaded as a module or compiled in the kernel. the tap-to-click will then work, as well as other advanced features. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
polemicz Posted March 13, 2004 Report Share Posted March 13, 2004 I did an install of 10.0 on my Inspiron 4000, actually I did an upgrade. All worked well, including the touchpad. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fuzzylizard Posted March 13, 2004 Author Report Share Posted March 13, 2004 I did an install of 10.0 on my Inspiron 4000, actually I did an upgrade. All worked well, including the touchpad. Cool, congrats. Does your computer have integrated video or a 'real' video card? Part of the problems listed above come from the fact that the Inspiron uses an integrated video card and a screwing BIOS. The problem is that XFree is unable to communicate with the bios and tell the bios how many megs the video card should use. This results in the video card only getting about 1meg of ram. Not exactly enough to properly start XFree. However, I am not convinced that this is the complete reason that I was unable to do a graphical install. I have been able to do one with Red Hat 9, Mandrake 9.2 and SUSE 9. Therefore, this, and other posts on the site here, have lead me to believe that there are other problems with the installer. hey, YMMV, unfortunately, ya gotten remember that with Linux. One thing it just doesn't do is 'just work'. For that, you need a Mac and OS X. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
polemicz Posted March 13, 2004 Report Share Posted March 13, 2004 real video card; ati rage mobility (or whatever it's called). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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