installing mandrake

[Guest darkmonk04]

I just installed MandrakeLinux 10.1 and when it boots it looks 'like dos' I guess that you could say. I was wondering how I can give it a windows look...one of my professors has linux and it resembles a typical Windows desktop with some changes.. can anyone tell me how to do this?

[adamw]

You're starting up in 'console mode' rather than 'graphical mode'. I guess you probably missed the step in the installer where you configure the graphics (it's not part of the step-through bit; when you get the hardware summary you have to click on the graphics card and configure it). No problem - just log in as root and then run this command:

 

XFdrake

 

it will let you configure your graphics card and set up graphical boot. Good luck.

[Guest darkmonk04]

Ok I have done this...but how do i make the graphical interface actually work...as you can tell i know nothing about this

[adamw]

Run through XFdrake, give it the correct information about your graphics card and monitor, and then either reboot or type 'init 5'.

[Guest darkmonk04]

I have done all of that...when i type reboot it does, but then it just goes back to the same stuff...what do i need to know about GUI i clicked all 3 of them when i installed it

[Guest darkmonk04]

Ok...i did what you told me a bunch of times and it finally worked...anyways what i need to know now is how i can change what GUI i am using...i dont likw GNOME all that well

[wahur]

Ok...i did what you told me a bunch of times and it finally worked...anyways what i need to know now is how i can change what GUI i am using...i dont likw GNOME all that well

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

1. If you have them installed there is a dropdown box on the login screen for choosing that

2. if you dont have it installed then there are two ways to do it:

2.1

su root
urpmi kde

or

urpmi xfce4

or whatever desktop you happen to like. I suggest you try them out - kde and gnome are the big ones, but some lightweight thingy like XFCE or WindowMaker or ROX or Fluxbox or... hell, there are at least twenty good ones plus combinations of them... might be good for you as well. After all installing and uninstalling them is a snap.

 

2.2 is basicly the same but you just fire up Control Center and install the software from there. It takes more time, but you see what options you have and what kind of extras are available.

[Guest darkmonk04]

Ok that works...now for another question...do you think it would be ok to install this on my laptop (dell 9100) cause i was wondering if the fans and stuff would still work righte

[wahur]

Laptop is a difficult question. If you look around in diff. forums you will find out-of-the-box-working success stories, but they are few. There is a high probability that achieving full functionality will take some serious tweaking, and there is certainly a probability that you lose some functionality.

 

My suggestion is, first to google around for "Linux Dell 9100" and see what comes up. You should get an idea if and how well power management will work. As sometimes hardware spec might differ it is also good idea to make a list of "sensitive" pieces - graphics card, wifi, modem etc. and do some googling on those devices.

 

It might be a good idea to make a dual-boot test installation first, so that you have Windows as a fallback option.

 

Finally, my experience shows that laptop support is getting better really fast, new and better stuff is coming out on weekly basis, even if 6-month release cycle of Mandrake does not make all goodies immediately available. Using cooker instead of stable release has certainly special attraction for laptop users but I would not suggest it to a beginner or for a mission-critical production box.

 

Happy hunting!

Wahur