Mandrake 8.0 Install problem

[Ironheart]

Got my spinkee new 8.0 CDs in the post today (about bloody time too) but it won't work :angry:

Here's what happened:

I booted the CD fine, it detected several parts of my hardware (USB controller, mouse) just fine. The problem is with partitioning my hard drive. I have a 6GB drive currently with just Windows on it taking up all 6GBs. I was planning on creating a 1.5GB partition for Linux and resizing the other 4.5GB for Windows, as it is only using 3.6GB of this so far which should leave plenty for both to co-exist happily. Unfortunately, when I tried to manually resize the drive to 4500MB it would only resize it to 5500MB, no matter what size I entered. So, my next thought was to resize the drive to the whole 6GB again which went fine, and try to use the partitioning DiskDrake wizard to see if that would work. But trying that gave me the error "This disk is too fragmented. Please run defrag and try again" or something to that effect.

The problem is of course that I had run scandisk then defrag immediately prior to trying this install tonight, so obviously the disk is still too fragmented to install Mandrake to.

Does anyone here have any ideas please? I'm guessing maybe I need to use some kind of 3rd-party defragging tool to fix my C beast?

[enekron]

Somebody told me Linux has to be installed within the first 2gb of the drive...

[aef]

The 2GB thing is to do with booting, what you have sounds like a different problem (though you may have to deal with the 2GB thing later).

Without knowing the low-level demonic intricacies of disks and FAT partitions, I'd say "it's broken, mate".

I've always had good luck with using Partition Magic to do disk stuff, but I'm not guaranteeing that it'll fix your problem. Having a really big (multi-gig) partition, for C drive or anything else, often gives you problems. I think your best bet would be to back up your data (assuming you can), then reinstall everything (your Windows install could probably do with it anyway). Then, install Windows into a smallish (say 800gig) partition. It's a good idea to keep C small anyway (faster scandisk) and install everything you can onto a different partition. Anyway, then install Linux with its root partition first (and small enough that it's all in the first 2G of the disk). Then, once Linux is installed, go back into Windows and make more Windows partitions (D, E, ...) at the upper end of the disk.

Your main other option would be to use something like Partition Magic.

HTH

AEF

[Skunk]

The latest version of LILO (the linux loader) gets around the 2 GB limit thing somehow. I downloaded an RPM for it from somewhere and the 2 GB thing was no longer a problem ;)

[aef]

Hmm... I'd heard rumours about 2GB being broken some time back, but when I last tried Red Hat (a few months ago now) it still needed a separate /boot partition at the low end of the disk.

Can you confirm that you have your kernel image above the first 2GB of your disk, and that LILO's booting it without additional hackery?

AEF

[Ironheart]

Cheers for the advice, hopefully it won't come to that (reformatting C and reinstalling Windows) but I'll give it a shot if nothing else works.

I downloaded another defragging utility last night and it said my drive was still a bit swiss-cheesed, so I let it work on it for an hour or two until it said it was finished, so I'm going to give it another go in a minute and see if I have better luck this time. If not, might be reformat time (as I don't have Partition Magic).

[Ironheart]

Rah, got it working.

I ran this 3rd-party defragging utility (Diskeeper) and it sorted my disk out and I was able to install with no problems.

Oddities: I picked GRUB as the bootloader but still ended up with LILO (not a big deal, bit of a bug though).

And I have to figure out how to change the refresh rate of my monitor. KDE displays the desktop in 800x600x16 just fine, but it's flickering all over the place (looks about 65-70Hz) so I need to fix it to make it do 85Hz like it does in Windows.

[aef]

Right - to get X working nicely you need to configure it. The configuration for XFree86 (your X server) is stored in a file which is either called XF86Config or XF86Config-4, depending on whether you're running XFree86 version 3.x or 4.x. You'll find this file somewhere in /etc, probably in /etc/X11. You will probably be using version 4, though you may well have both config files.

Rather than writing/editing the file yourself, you should use a tool to do it for you. The tool to use always used to be xf86configurator, but I think that's now obsolete and only does version 3. IIRC, the tool to use nowadays is XF86Setup (which is graphical). Also look at another tool called xvidtune for tweaking settings.

HTH

AEF

[Edited by aef on 09-05-2001 at 07:51 PM]

[Ironheart]

Cheers, I will write it down and take a look later.

I'm actually not sure which version of X-Windows it installed. I picked the "Expert" install (because that's the only way you learn about the fiddly bits :wink: ) but it didn't give an option. I know there is a command that tells you what version you have...I'll find it eventually.

Exploring is 90% of the fun anyway.

[aef]

Working out which version of XFree86 you have is surprisingly tricky if you don't know how. (You would assume that there'd be a --version flag to X, but there isn't.)

Run X then, within an xterm, use the following command:

xdpyinfo | grep release

it should tell you what the 'vendor release number' is. The first digit of this number should be a 3 or a 4, depending on whether it's a version 3 or version 4 server.

AEF

[Ironheart]

Posting this through Netscape on GNOME :)

I did that command you said aef, to find the version number, and it came out as 336, so I assume I'm running X-Windows 3.3.6. Should I upgrade to 4.0.3 or not? Also, that xf86setup command doesn't work. I try it from a terminal window (even after su) and it says "Command not found". Any thoughts please? I tried to look for help on http://www.xfree86.org but of course, Murphy's Law, it's down when I need it.

[Ironheart]

Somewhere in the back of my mind I remembered that X-Free 3.x.x needs xf86config to be configured :)

Now all i need to do is find out what my horizontal refresh rate needs to be (I think 85).

[aef]

Well, first remember that Unix is case-sensitive - you need XF86Setup, not xf86setup. If that still doesn't work, see what commands you have on your system that begin either 'XF86' or 'xf86'. Do this as root (either logging in as root, or using 'su -', the hyphen being important in this case). Then type

XF86

and hit 'tab' a couple of times to see what commands you have that begin with those characters. If nothing seems useful, try the same thing with 'xf86'. Look for anything that looks like 'XF86Setup', 'XF86Config' or 'xf86configurator' in that order of preference.

In general, typing the first few letters of a command and hitting tab a couple of times is often a useful way of finding a half-forgotten command.

If you still find nothing helpful, post here again.

AEF

[aef]

Oh, regarding XFree86 v4... Yes, v4 is better, but I wouldn't go to the trouble of upgrading unless you can't get X working nicely under v3 (or unless you're bothered about graphics performance). If you do have problems with v3, v4 may help - it supports more things and does more stuff.

AEF

[Ironheart]

Right, I ran through through the xf86config wizard, entered all my monitor timings, resolutions, graphics card, etc.

Restarted the X-server, no different. Still a flickery screen, so I'll have to find another way of setting the refresh rate since that didn't work too well. Maybe finding and installing xvidtune will sort this out.

Another problem I've noticed is that sometimes when I boot up into Mandrake, sometimes I'm online (I see my hostname in various places) and sometimes it just says localhost. Not sure why. Seems like for each problem I solve another springs up :)

Sorry for posting all silly newb questions here; thanks for having patience.

[aef]

Right, it sounds like one of a couple things could be happening:

1) Your config tool is updating the wrong config file (probably the v4 config file) or not updating it at all.

2) You're adding new screen modes but, for whatever reason, they're not working or not being used.

To see if it's the first thing, do the following (I'm assuming that your config file is in /etc/X11)

ls -l /etc/X11/XF86Config

The date and time it shows will be the time that that file
was last modified. See if that corresponds with the date and time you used the config tool. If it doesn't, then that's the problem.

If that's ok, stop X entirely, then start it from a console with startx, but redirect the output and error streams into files so you can see if things fail:

startx > ~/x.out 2> ~/x.err

Then take a look at x.out and x.err and see if they give you any pointers.

If that still doesn't work, email those files and your /etc/X11/XF86Config file to me at gp@aef.oaktree.co.uk and I'll take a look when I get the chance.

AEF

[aef]

Hostnames:

It sounds like your hostname is being set by DHCP. I think this is probably a bad idea in your circumstances, and so you should probably set it locally. In order to do this, you'll first have to work out which DHCP client you're using - probably one of dhcpcd, pump or dhclient.

See if Mandrake's documentation helps, or try 'locate'.

AEF

[Ironheart]

Will try the commands you suggested later, thanks.

I am using DHCP. I picked LAN when I set up the net connection and entered all the right stuff, it detected my NIC fine (D-Link DFE-530TX+ using the RealTek 8139 driver) and sometimes when it boots I see my host, and sometimes not.

I am using dhcpd (it was the default so I picked it).

[aef]

Just to make it clear - I was suggesting that you not use DHCP to set your hostname, not that you should not use it at all. Unless your ISP has assigned you a static IP (which is nice, but rare) you will need to use DHCP to get your IP address.

AEF

[Ironheart]

Heh, clear as mud now then :)

I think you're saying that since my IP is not static (in the true sense. In fact my IP never changes but it is set up dynamically through DHCP) then I have to use DHCP?

[aef]

I'd point you at the Crab Book (TCP/IP Network Administration - O'Reilly) as a good read right now.

Either your ISP has assigned you a static IP address, or they have not. It is unlikely that they have unless they are a "good" ISP such as Demon. If they have, you should configure all your network settings locally and not use DHCP.

If they haven't, it still might be the case that your IP address will stay the same under almost all conditions - this does NOT mean you have a static IP address. If you don't have a static IP address, you should use DHCP to configure the IP address of your modem network interface. However, I would still advise NOT using DHCP to set your hostname. Using DHCP to set the hostname is a feature best used on always-on networks (LANs, etc). This is because a hostname is related to and important to your machine - it is not just associated with a particular network interface. Thus, it's a bad idea to go changing it frequently during the course of normal operation. You should choose your own hostname for your machine (in .localdomain, I should think) and set that locally. You won't be able to see your machine by that name form anywhere else on the internet, of course. Exactly how you do all this, I'm not sure, as I've never had this problem - but I'm sure it's all documented.

AEF

[Ferg]

The crab book rocks :)

[Ironheart]

Ah cheers, now that makes sense. I think I understand.

I have a Cox Communications cable modem and the address is set through DHCP, so I'll look into messing about with the hostname.

Re: my other problem with my refresh rate, I came across a nice guide that explained it all. Let me see if I can find the link again, since it's in my Mandrake bookmarks and not Windows.

Psha, couldn't find it. Oh well. I'll keep fiddling (it's not going to beat me :) )

[Ironheart]

Right, the latest installment:

I opened a graphical X-Configuring tool in the control panel, it asked me what my graphics card was from a list. I picked it (SiS 5597), then it asked for my installation CD, read a couple of files off that, then restarted X.

Hoorah, now I have 85Hz in 800x600 :)

However...now my cursor looks weird. It's sort of jittery, jumping up and down really quickly and fuzzy at the edges. Not sure how to fix this one, though I will have a look around on the web later, unless anyone here knows how to fix it?