Gowator Posted May 9, 2003 Report Share Posted May 9, 2003 I purchased the FULL expert Mandrake Expert edition for 9.1 the other day and I'm dismayed to find the media seem **** and the installer falls over because of this. I have tried this on three VERY GENERIC machines with the same result. I had the same problem with 9.0 ---- lousy media and an install that falls over when it can't read all the packages. I PAID for this half to support Mandrake (though God knows why anymore) and half becuase I don't have an internet connection at home at the moment (except through WAP). Question: How do I actually fix rpm drake which keeps telling me oops everthing already insalled this isn't supposed to happen! I ended up in a infinite loop of ad media - pacjkage not found -add media before writing the MBR so everything had to be configured manually. (lilo ... X, you name it) Does anyone else have lousy media, (ps. all my hdc's are DVD players) In 9.0 I ended up downloading and remaking the CD's, somewhat ironic when I paid in the first instance! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest anon Posted May 9, 2003 Report Share Posted May 9, 2003 I purchased the FULL expert Mandrake Expert edition for 9.1 the other day ! Never heard of that edition.Anyway, try rebuilding your rpm database, in a term (su) rpm --rebuilddb Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ixthusdan Posted May 9, 2003 Report Share Posted May 9, 2003 I have seen issues in the past that may be attributable to faulty media. Where did you buy it? Perhaps you could get another copy. My concern is that you have had this happen with a different version. Are you sure that there is not a hardware issue that might be the cause? I've used Mandrakwe since 7.0, with purchased and downloaded media. It really is a good os. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pzatch Posted May 10, 2003 Report Share Posted May 10, 2003 Can you list the system your trying to load it on and what you've tried doing to get it going. I know that sometimes Mandrake can get confused if you have a cdrom or dvdrom on the same cable as a hard drive. This can also default the speed of the drives to the lowest speed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
afunke Posted May 10, 2003 Report Share Posted May 10, 2003 I purchased the FULL expert Mandrake Expert edition for 9.1 Wouldn't it be "Powerpack" instead of "expert"? And what have you seen (error messages, etc...) that made you conclude the media is faulty? There have been several reports of error messages stating some packages could not be read or installed, during the installation process, that may lead to the assumption of a media failure, when this might not be the case (the errors may be related to changes in ide/dma behavior or to the apic management). I suggest below some tests to check for defective media, fell free to describe the one you used if I didn't include it below. Please provide more information on what kind of installation you are trying to do: 1. What happens when you boot from the installation CD (first one)? 2. Do you choose "Install" or "Upgrade"? 3. The rpmdrake errors are seen in you 9.0 system? I don't think DrakX (the graphical installer used by the installation CDs uses rpmdrake). 4. Have you tried to boot the installation cd, press F1, and enter the command: linux noapic ide=nodma 5. Can you load the CD on you 9.0 system, and browse the RPM directory? Can the cd be mounted on your 9.0 system? 6. Is the error specific to one of the 7 CD's 7. Please provide the details above, otherwise no one will be able to help you. Period. I'm sure you are interested in sorting this out, and gather further evidence that may help you advocate for a replacement media (should a faulty media be the true source of your problem). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gowator Posted May 12, 2003 Author Report Share Posted May 12, 2003 1) Yes, Powerpack. 2) Systems Tried: Easiest to describe first ;-) Mdk 9.0 Shuttle 41X with Creative DVD 12x on sec IDE (1/2 gig RAM) Athlon 1300 Laptop Fujitsu Seimens Amilo (celeron) 384MB combined CDR/DVD (sec IDE) Generic Athlon (name escapes me right now) MB with ADAPTEC AHA2940UW - sda = 36GB Seagate Cheatah (+HP Scanner), Primary IDE 40GB Maxtor, secondary IDE Panasonic DVD ROM (master) and Sony CDR (slave). 1/2 GB RAM. Various graphics/NIC/sound tried ! None of the systems have a CD slaved to the HDD. 1) It boots up and incorrectly loads the wrong SCSI driver in 9.1, in 9.0 it loads the correct driver. Actually it was hanging completely on some CPU intensive task. So I went to watch a DVD (on the patched shuttle :-)) finally it shut itself down on the CPU temp monitor! It usually runs at 55-60C with shutdown at 74, it has been doing this 24*7 for months and never overheats (and it shouldn't with the amount of fans) Once I got a vestiage of a working system up it did the same overheating thing when I booted into 9.1. Locked up and then over heated! 2) I chose INSTALL 3) The problem seems to be with the RPM database and what happens if it can't read a package. 4) No but I will tonight! 5) Yeah I can browse the whole CD but I can't copy it, it falls over on some of the RPM's (i.e. TOC is written but errors on media) same for the other disks (actually a couple are OK). 6) I think 5 should answer that! 7) And answer to Ixthusdan bought at FNAC rpm --rebuilddb (Yeah tried it, it didn't work but I forget the error message or exactly what happened. ) >>snip I've used Mandrakwe since 7.0, with purchased and downloaded media. It really is a good os. << Yeah, I supported it since I switched from RH (after RH7.0 AND becuase of KDE/RH issues). Ive had some really good experiences but starting with 9.0 this has all gone downhill. Removing MP3 encoding sucks, stilll no CSS decryption sucks when Lindows 1.0 had it by default. At least 9.1 has added support for my built in Winmodem on the Laptop (although I haven't tested it yet). My issues are the new RPMDrake which absolutely sucks, I mean seriously seperate apps to add or remove apps. I didn't see a single person who liked it during 9.0 beta II yet Mandrake went along and did it anyway under the escuse they were porting it to Perl for maintainability. Yeah like that means you have a seperate app for adding/removing packages! My issue with Mandrake is they have actually started to get a bit carried away with themselves. The advertising on the BOX is misleading "Play your DVD's" (yeah like my video store does unencrypted DVD's) Then the same thing with Mandrake Club/Mandrake Expert. I honestly have no issue paying for an OS and Mandrake have put a lot of work in but they are also loosing their roots. They lack the balls to put in CSS (remember 7.0 with the encryption where it automatically downloaded 128 bit encryption if you promised you weren't Sadam Hussein? I had 9.0 working quite well (after downloading the CD's I'd already payed for plus the PLF stuff) and its really kickass once its up and running but the package manager really sucks. I have less time than I used to have so I try and keep to RPM's and use the package manager, the times when the first thing I would do is recompile the kernel have slipped away! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mtweidmann Posted May 12, 2003 Report Share Posted May 12, 2003 If you've got a faulty CD why don't you just complain to whoever you bought it off and request a replacement? If I bought a music CD that was damaged so wouldn't play I'd just take it back and exchange it not complain about the record company. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ixthusdan Posted May 12, 2003 Report Share Posted May 12, 2003 Gowator I know that pc stuff can be really frustrating when it should work and it doesn't. I recently had fun and games with my own pc and dual booting winxp, but that is another story. Please bear in mind that everyone here wants to try to help, none of us are paid by Mandrake to do this, which means our incentive to help is because we want to. And I don't think anyone wants to blame you for having trouble. I always use a console and urpmi to do my installations, and I have heard that the gui is not the best. But it is really difficult to determine what is good and what is not if the installation media is having a bad day. I really think that the media is bad, or the data is bad, or the media and the data are bad (any combination of the preceding! :lol: ) Rebuilding a faulty database is like trying to correct spelling without the correct letters available. The database is faulty to start with, because of the bad media. The fact that he cpu is running overtime getting nowhere is a sure indicater that the datat is not communicating the instructions correctly. (loop da loop) If I were experiencing this, I would reburn the disk, and throw the other one away!! :wink: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gowator Posted May 12, 2003 Author Report Share Posted May 12, 2003 Yeah, I could take a half days vacation and go back the the same store but its not really practical ;-). The point is the installer should be recoverable if it screws up the install: I found the reason for the hang (in 9.1) on the 'everything Linux forum'. So far Ive only seen one package drop out but I was doing other things at the time. http://www.mandrakeusers.org/viewtopic.php?t=3863 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gowator Posted May 12, 2003 Author Report Share Posted May 12, 2003 Oops Ixthusdan, crossed posts. I was replying to the other one. Hey, noones complaining here. This board is rockin.... I think I had one meda (unfortunately CD1) with an error in 9.1. I strongly suspect if I use a CD rather than DVD as hdc then it should read it. The installer hanging in an endless loop is another story though. If I'd got a clean install in 9.0 (fault urmpi db) I'd try an upgrade. I might see if I can just add packages instead! Thx .... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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