Installation of Mandrake 10.1

[bernadette]

Hi
I successfully installed Mandrake 10.1 on an old laptop as a trial run and everything worked perfectly. Subsequently I tried to install it on a Dell machine Version 2002 and during the install a lot of the packages were highlighted saying there was an error reading them and they couldn't be installed. At the end of the installation on reboot, the desktop was completely unreadable. There must be some problem with the VGA but I don't know what it is and what I need to do to resolve this problem.

[fingal]

Hello - a lot of Mandrake/Mandriva problems relate to video cards. What model of card do you have? Did you specifically pick that make and model of card when you installed? One way around it is to pick a generic VESA display when you install (assuming your card isn't supported or you keep having problems).

Strange that your system had trouble reading packages ... I haven't seen that before, but that's life.

This might sound strange, but to resolve a problem you don't have to understand it in depth ... just have a basic understanding of what's gone wrong and try lots of different options. That way you might find that you solve this one.

[bernadette]

Hi Fingal
Thanks for your reply. In the first installation on the laptop I didn't specifically have to specify any model for the video card, it picked it up itself so I assumed the same would happen on the second installation. As you can gather I am a complete novice with Linux and when I installed it from the CD I was assuming/hoping I would not have to make any specific choices. Where in the installation do you specify the video card?

Thanks
Bernadette

[fingal]

Hi Fingal
Thanks for your reply. In the first installation on the laptop I didn't specifically have to specify any model for the video card, it picked it up itself so I assumed the same would happen on the second installation. As you can gather I am a complete novice with Linux and when I installed it from the CD I was assuming/hoping I would not have to make any specific choices. Where in the installation do you specify the video card?

Thanks
Bernadette

Hi - Yeah, sometimes it'll pick up your make and model of card and there won't be any problems. You should be able to configure your video card during the install process, and as far as I remember this is pretty self explanatory. Mind you, it is a few years since I installed from scratch ... Nothing has gone wrong since then so I haven't needed to. Mandriva gives you the option to pick from a large list of different cards.

Hope this doesn't sound too vague.