Disappointing MDK10.1 install [Unsolved]

[yr2alex]

First things first this is not an indictment against Mandrake, and despite my (hopefully isolated) experience with Installing MDK 10.1 I have not lost faith in Mandrake. Simply put Mandrake (just Rocks!!) and it is my absolute favorite rpm based distro since 8.2. Now that we have gotten that out of the way here is the dilemma that I am facing... and just in case your are asking- the answer is yes!! I am a newb and I'm proud of it. I will continue being a newb until I decide to stop learning, so there..

 

After anxiously awaiting and finally learning of it's release (from this forum I might add) I wasted no time in acquiring the first set of iso's in which I used to embark upon this now seemingly tedious journey. Excuse my wordiness and please allow me to vent.

 

I started by going to mandrakes website, Mandrake Download Page

to find out exactly where I could obtain the much desired iso's. I had never done that in the past I usually go to my favorite ftp. I figured if any one knew where to find suitable iso images the source of the images would. To my surprize I found my favorite ftp site listed GA-Tech yr2alex's favorite ftp site for linux iso's after clicking on the bottom link. I downloaded the software here at my job intentionally because of the advantage of expontentially increased bandwidth, what would have taken me 2 days between work and (or perhaps the lack of) sleep took me 30min if that.

 

I had a similar experience with the more recent release of FC3 but that is so I won't bother with that. The only reason I bothered to mention that is because I want ed to make sure that every stone was turned as not to repeat the fiasco. In short I checked, checked, checked oh did I mention checked?

 

I used XP at work (hold the flames down) as soon as the iso's completed downloading

I immediately grabbed the "Mandrakelinux-10.1-Official-Download-CD.md5.asc" from the ftp site then entered

m5sum -c Mandrakelinux-10.1-Official-Download-CD.md5.asc

which renders the following:

Mandrakelinux-10.1-Official-Download-CD1.i586.iso: OK
Mandrakelinux-10.1-Official-Download-CD2.i586.iso: OK
Mandrakelinux-10.1-Official-Download-CD3.i586.iso: OK

 

I then took the output and cross matched it with the checksum's located on Mandarkes Download Page, still not satisfied I entered md5sum on each invidual iso image the checksums were and exact match across the board.

 

I'm thinking (Wonderful!!! ), Ha! now the fun begins..

 

I burned the iso's to cd's using "Nero ultra 6" then as a test started up VMware 4 (I captured screenies I wish I could show them to you) then performed the following steps:

 

1. pressed enter to install.

 

2. selected appropriate language.

 

3. accepted the lic. agreement.

 

4. chose the desired security level.

 

5. selected "use free space" for the partitioning portion of the install.

 

Now here is the portion of the install that I thought was very peculiar I'll type it verbatim.

 

6. the following installation media have been found.

if you want to skip some of them, you can unselect them now.

 

X installation cd 1

X installation cd 2

X installation cd 3

X installation cd 4 (kde3.3)

 

(X) denotes preselected choices- I found this especially peculiar because there were only 3 iso's available for download yet 4 were detected :huh: :unsure:, nevertheless, onward.

 

7. selected desired packages to install.

 

The progress bar starts then without warining the first in a series of errors occurs. "There was an error installing packages: libbeecrypt6-3.1.0-3mdk.i586 Go on anyway?" you are left with two options at this point "yes or no" once one of the two options are buttoned/ bulleted you click "ok". I did just that bulleted "yes" then clicked ok thinking perhaps it would be the last. Wrong, another, then another, then another.I think to myself this can't be right, I've never had any problems with Mandrake's installations for as long as I've been using it. At this point I did the obvious reboot, (oh wait it gets better) when you reboot you are greeted with nothing but a flashing cursor at the top left corner of the screen, nothing more nothing less.

 

I'm unsure but I'm thinking media at this point, I continue on eventually disproving that theory. However before that I thought maybe it's because Mandrake 10.1 doesn't like being installed in a virtual environment (if so, this would be a first, however still a possibilty). I popped the cd into an IBM R40 laptop. system model= 2682F9U, Processor= P4 2Ghz, Hdd= 20GB, Cdrom= teac CD-224e Dvd/CD-R, Mem= 256MB. Same results, now I'm thinking "what the F.A.Q.- is going on?!"

 

I tossed the cd's that I burned this set of images to, thinking bad media, even went as far as deleting the iso's lets start form scratch right? The plot thickens- this time I download the the iso images from a completely different ftp site (like ina a different time zone altogether) ftp site alternative to yr2alex's favorite =( went through the numbers literally, I checked the md5sum checksum of each iso image digit by digit even after they all passed using the same checksum methodology as before. This time however I learned my lesson I wasn't going to burn another iso image to a cd until I was absolutely, unequivically, positively sure that the image was good in other words a successful installation.

 

VMware 4 (which by the way simply r cks) has a special cost effective feature (come on cd's are cheap but not that cheap) that allows you to install an iso image onto a virtual hdd in lieu of using cd. I made a second attempt to install and- no dice so now i'm feeling like and , not to mention betrayed (no emoticon for that one yet).

 

I've come to this determination, Media is fine, iso checks out according to md5sum on 3 three seperate attempts (I'll spare you the last one by cutting it short- failed miserably) and I'm not crazy so this must be by design, right? I certainly hope not ....

 

Mandrake Linux is my favorite, I mean favorite distro, and I want to keep it that way. I am obviously not an expert otherwise I wouldn't have bothered to post. So fulfill ye my joy and please

 

yr2alex

Edited December 23, 2004 by yr2alex

[Dustpuppy]

I had that happen twice when installing on the parental computers. On the first one, it turned out to be a bad burn - take the burn speed right down in Nero (to something like 4x). It'll take forever but you shouldn't get glitches.

 

On the second one, it just seemed to be a hardware problem. I tried installing again, got the same error, then tried again and it worked. It was a very old, uncared-for machine.

[aRTee]

Can you try to select less packages? Then see if you can install without errors?

 

Also, you do know that you can check the md5sum of the burnt media, I hope?

That way, you can be 100% sure if the cdreader you're using will read the media you have correctly.

 

To check the md5sum with burnt media against the cdrom drive you're going to use, you can do this:

dd if=/dev/cdrom1 | head -c `stat --format=%s mdk101oe-dvd/Mandrakelinux-10.1-Official-DVD.i586.iso` | md5sum

well in this case it's an example of the dvd that I had.

 

Substitute the /dev/cdrom1 for the drive you're using, and you can put the size of the iso image into the command, like so:

dd if=[device for reading the disc] | head -c [filesize of iso image in bytes] | md5sum

 

This will tell you if your drive has trouble reading the media. If it doesn't and the md5sum checks out, this is not your problem.

 

Naturally you need a working linux system to do this; if you check on another system you can only be sure that your media work on that system, so you'll still have the incertainty of the cdrom drive of the system you're going to install onto, in terms of compatibility with the media you have.

[yr2alex]

Firstly awesome suggestions! Thanks didn't think of it , wish I had before I tossed the cd's

 

Can you try to select less packages? Then see if you can install without errors?

 

 

If it doesn't and the md5sum checks out, this is not your problem.

 

 

I will try it the next time I burn the iso's to a cd (which by the way were burnt at 8x the lowest possible write speed of my ibm netvista here at work and minimal pkg install I might add)- but here is why I don't think it (being what you suggested) will work. The md5sum checks out on 3 different downloads on 3 different machines. To further validify my theory, I attempted to install them on VMware directly from the iso itself (as I have done successfully previously with MDK 10.0 and FC3) using two out of the three sets of iso images that were downloaded from different ftp sites with the exact same results as the first attempt using the media that the iso's were burnt to initially. In doing so I eliminated media as a possibility all together.

[crazyspongebob]

I havd had the same problem. I have wasted 3 sets of CD-R burned off on both a linux box and windows box. In my case, it just happens to the second CD.

 

J.T.

[yr2alex]

I havd had the same problem.  I have wasted 3 sets of CD-R    burned off on both a linux box and windows box.  In my case, it just happens to the second CD.

 

J.T.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

 

It would appear that this is not as isolated an incident as I had imagined, maybe it's is true or maybe not. Nevertheless, there is definitely something wrong going on in :mdk: Land. All I want are three good ISO Images so I can enjoy the Distro that I love and put this nightmare behind me. Can anyone point me to a mirror that they know for certain has these incredibly elusive ISO images? Preferably ISO images that someone was able to successfully install MDK 10.1 from. :sad: Please anyone???

[Gowator]

I had similar problems a while ago now ...

It turned out to be bad media but also there might be some bug in the installer.

(Mandy seem to forget its many people's first experience, lucky you know better)

When everything works great you don't see the bug... perhaps something preventing the CD reading.

I also seem to remember one problem like this being due to the power management and the disk spinning down or similar.

 

You can boot and hit F1 then pass noapic, nolapic and acpi=off at the prompt !

 

The good news is once installed it absolutely rocks.....

[yr2alex]

You can boot and hit F1 then pass noapic, nolapic and acpi=off at the prompt !

 

I'll give a try!

 

yr2alex

[adamw]

You might want to try ide=nodma kernel parameter, too. I had a similar problem when I first installed 10.1CE, and it *wasn't* media - I had my RAM overclocked too far :). So random hardware issues can also be a factor here.

[Gowator]

You might want to try ide=nodma kernel parameter, too. I had a similar problem when I first installed 10.1CE, and it *wasn't* media - I had my RAM overclocked too far :). So random hardware issues can also be a factor here.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

 

yep and mine was reading CD's with a DVD reader....

seriously I changed it over and it was OK (the media were crappy though)...

sometimes its the strangest things...

[rhaynes]

Hi, how do you know if the Cd's were being read by a DVD reader?? My CD/DVD drive (LG super mutli) may be doing this too. I was able to install 10.0 no problem but 10.1 would not work with some ramdisk error.

 

Thanks,

R Haynes

[Gowator]

Hi, how do you know if the Cd's were being read by a DVD reader??   My CD/DVD drive (LG  super mutli) may be doing this too.  I was able to install 10.0 no problem but 10.1 would not work with some ramdisk error.

If its a multi-one its a DVD reader. They have two readers but they are offset .. sdinbce DVD streams data faster I guess it gets a better position than the Cd reader and hence random errors occur... these would probably not be noticeable except the installer seems ultrafussy...

 

I just swapped it out and installed then put the mutlireader thing back in!

 

i think if you burn them on the same device you should have better luck...

[aRTee]

Guys, just to point out one thing:

if you do the md5sum check with the actual drive / system you will install with/on, you can rule out media problems.

 

No need to download 'other' isos from the mirrors, md5sums tell you if you have a problem there or not.

 

If you can read the discs with the target cdrom drive, and the md5sums check out, the problem is elsewhere.

[adamw]

artee: from the thread it seems he was always running the md5sum on the iso files before burning, never on the actual burnt discs.

[crazyspongebob]

artee: from the thread it seems he was always running the md5sum on the iso files before burning, never on the actual burnt discs.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

I have tried to burn the iso's at different speeds but no use. I still get errors at the second CD. Now I have 4 sets of no good CDs and one DVD. I had no problem with 10.1 CE or 10.0 at all.

 

J.T.