AAUURGH!

[Urza9814]

Mandrake is getting REALLY annying...more annoying than windoze XP! It's REALLY starting to get me mad now. Every weekend I have to re-install it for some stupid reason, when really all I should have to fix is the bootloader! First I installed 9.2 because 10.0 runs too insanely slow on this comp. Then I tried to make a live CD. That took 8 or 9 reinstalls and a few weeks, it kept getting screwed up, finally I got it stable, though I never did get that liveCD made...and now I am getting more RAM on monday, so I decided I was gonna try to play Everquest on this comp...so I installed winXP (I was using 98, but my ethernet card and another half of my comp won't work on it...but I didnt use it really, so I didn't care)...and that screwed up my bootloader. I reinstalled that, and you would THINK it would work, but all that did was f*ck up BOTH my installs of Linux! 2 totally separate hard drives, one can't even be accessed by windoze, so don't say installing XP screwed it up. It's giving me some sh*t about needing to pass 'init' for that one...and some other stupid error when I try to boot the other one, and it will not let me reinstall them!

Can someone recommend a more stable and durable distro PLEASE!?!

 

edited for content - tyme

[Gowator]

Yep, any single distro.....

 

You installed XP, it wrote over you boot sector, changed the order of partitions and your blaming MANDYY ???

 

The reason its complaining is after renaming partitions it has changed the location of /boot and it cant find init....

 

Your easiest solution is FAQ'd and its using the rescue mode to repair lilo.

[iphitus]

Most of the mistakes are your own.

The LiveCD? you were making the mistakes there.

Installing XP? That will always stuff up linux. not just the bootloader. It will renumber partitions and the like, and the bootloader wont be able to find the partitions.

You could have posted the messages that it gave you here, we could have fixed the problem.

 

ANyway, your question. I havent used these myself but others will vouch for them

Fedora

SuSE

 

If you are wiling to do some configuration yourself (read - not afraid of command line and text editors)

Debian

Gentoo

Arch

Slackware

 

All the distros out there are very good. There is no such thing as a more ''durable" linux - unless you count seLinux which is a modification but isnt Durable in the sense you want

You fscked up your Linuxes.

Edited May 9, 2004 by iphitus

[Gowator]

Yep, If it wasnt obvious! Post the probs and let us help!!!!

[mousematt]

If you'd like a durable distribution I'd recommend Mandrakelinux.

 

The one thing I consider really important when playing with Linux on your primary desktop is patience. If you don't know how to do something or something doesnt work right - rather than just fiddle until you break it - share your problem and invite others to share what they know...

 

Just my AUD 0.02 (USD 0.0140)

[VeeDubb]

If you don't know how to do something or something doesnt work right - rather than just fiddle until you break it - share your problem and invite others to share what they know...

That is an excelent point.

 

When you want to dual boot with windows, you need to partition your harddrive first, then install windows, then install linux. Other wise your bootloader get's borked and life get's hard.

 

There's simple solutions for all theother problems if you search the boards and ask specific questions.

[spiedra]

I remember when I first got into Linux, I was always breaking it, and now Mandy has been really stable. She is so good to me.

[tyme]

read the first line in my sig, and you'll know my response :)

 

it's not much different than any of the ones already posted.

[bvc]

:unsure:

dito

:D

we can't help, if you don't ask

[Urza9814]

"Linux doesn't break, I break Linux."

yea...I know that...I'm not really blaming mandy...well, ok, I am...lol...I didn't know XP screwed with the partitions...but still, windoze always says the seconds harddrive doesn't exist...how can it mess with the partitions on it???

 

I'm just sick of having to reinstall every weekend! And, this is the first time it's been something I've done with windoze. I installed win98 and it didn't cause any problems with mandrake. I go from 10.0 to 9.2 and it doesn't work...I have to open up my comp, pull the plug on the cd drive and switch install CDs halfway through to get it to work for some reason...then I try to add a second install of it on my first hard drive and it screws up the bootloader...I fix that but it says something about 'try passing init='...so I reinstall w/o formatting, so hopefully I can keep my data. That somehow sets the permissions of all the config files, and ONLY the config files in my /home to root only. To top it all off, Konqueror's 'apply changes to subfolders and files' doesn't seem to work so I have to fix 'em one folder at a time...AURGH!!!

Edited May 9, 2004 by Urza9814

[liquidzoo]

Is the second harddrive all linux?

 

If that is the case, that's why Windows can't see it. Windows can't read the Linux file systems.

[Guest anon]

Topic moved to Installing MDK

[Tux_Rules]

Hello All, first time poster.

I recently read that with Widoze XP boot with the CD and use the recovery console and type:

fixmbr

I will look for this again and post the link for the full story, but I know that fdisk /mbr does not work with XP

 

edit:

This is where I got the info from:

http://linuxiso.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=17725

Edited May 9, 2004 by Tux_Rules

[linux_learner]

the fixmbr will undo lilo. destroy lilo. it will restore the hard drive to the windows default. dont use fixmbr unless you want to undo lilo.

 

mdk does have a rescue mode in the first cd. select that, then repair (whatever its called) lilo. also make a boot disk. this way if you should (for some insane reason) decide to install windows again, you can still get into linux via the boot disk, then repair lilo. planning ahead is your best friend.

[Cannonfodder]

If you install XP, it will overwrite the MBR. Simply solution, just boot off of CD1 of Mandrake, hit F1, type rescue, and from the menu, reinstall LILO.

 

When you install XP, it asks which partition to install into. If you select the wrong one, well "oh well!"..

 

While I understand your feelings here, here's a tip... "It's not rocket science!". What I mean by this is you just don't know stuff. XP and Linux develop with little regard for each other so if you are going to mix them, then you have to know stuff. Once you know/understand this, you realize its not too complicated.. But you can't afford to get angry about it because then you are not enjoying your hobby anymore ;)