Hi I posted a bug in the mandrake bugzilla about this.

The install went normal and it booted up fine to the bootloader.

After the bootloader is where it got hairy. The default 9.2 screen came up with a status bar. The bar went half way then the screen went completely black. Nothing appeared on the screen.

I dont know if it was X crashing. But I could not boot up linux all the way. I thought maybe it had to do with the type of monitor I was using or the video card, but if I could see the installation then linux should boot up fine.

I thought maybe Mandrake did not support DVI but then again I would not have seen the installation screen to begin with?

My system specs are

P4 2.53 G
Intel® Desktop Board D845PEBT2
Geforce 4 ti4200 64MB w/DVI
wireless linksys wmp54g pci card
Viewsonic VX900 19" LCD w/DVI

I am puzzled. I am not sure what it is crashing on, even on the text boot up I cannot see anything unusual, the screen just goes dark. I hit Alt-Ctl-Del but it does nothing...computer gets frozen.

I have this stupid thing in mdk 9.1 it is a sort of error in ext3.
I got the solution: I won't use mandrake until they get rid of these SILLY and STUPID errors.....

I am using Mandrake 9.2RC1 right now on my laptop which I am using to write this reply. I would recommend 9.2RC1 on certain systems... I think my other system has too NEW hardware like the Linksys 54G PCI card that Windows controls.....
But you know I like the 9.2 it looks way better than 9.1 and I could not even get 9.1 to work on my system anyways. But you should try 9.2RC1, I like it better than Red Hat 9.0 which I have on another machine. Mandrake 9.2RC1 is running good on two of my computers(laptop Dell 4150 and Compaq presario 7200) but not good on the custom system I described above.

It also looks like there is a lot of packages that already loaded on Mandrake that were not automatically loaded on Red Hat 9.

I was wanting to try Lycoris but I cannot find an ISO image...and I dont want to buy it unless I like it.

Try 9.2RC1 and let me know if you like it... it is worth a shot..

It sounds to me like you're having X crash on you. Can you boot to a command prompt? (safe mode, init=3, anything?)

If you can, log in and try manually starting X (startX). This should give you an error msg after X crashes on you at the same terminal that you ran startX from.

I will try the booting up to a command promt last time I checked even failsafe was not showing up... but I will try again....

Thanks for the link... but I cannot download the ISO's??I have not found anywhere else that has them.

I also have been trying to figure this out about linux distros...
Can sites legally use logos like the mandrake logo on their sites??
And I have seen many places sell linux cd's cheap using logos like the suse and mandrake logos on their sites?
If they there is sites selling cd's already then why buy mandrake off the shelf??

What these other sites are selling is the free download edition all nicely burned and labled. The packs you buy from Mandrake (and Suse and others) contain extra software that is not available in the download edition because of space or due to licensing.

I also noticed that there is alot of Linux distributions at first I thought there were no more then 5 but bam I went to the linux cheap cd's sites and saw a ton of distros...
Now could I make up my own linux and use some other linux to start off from that is sold through these cheap cd site's as a base...
I know Red Hat is trademarked but what about Suse can I take their stuff from the cheap cd places and tweak it and call it timbuktoo linux ??

Because of the GPL, you can take any distro, modify it to your liking and redistribute it as long as you are willing to let others do the same.

RedHat only trademarked their name, same with Mandrake, Suse, Slackware, Yoper...but they all conform to the GPL meaning anyone can take their code and redistribute it.

A fine example of this is Ark Linux who basically took Mandrake and tweaked it down to something that they distribute as a 1 cd distro. Even the installer for Ark is the same as the one for Mandrake (with the exception that you get to play tetris as it's installing!)

Oh... but you just said that they trademarked their name...Mandrake did right??? SO that means you can't use their name when redistributing..??


Also if they use the same rpm's as Mandrake where do they get updates from?? Like Red Hat has the RHN does ArkLinux have one?? I think Mandrake does,,but I am not sure?

I am pretty new to Linux OS in general..

Mandrake has the Mandrake Club, along with countless other ftp sites for updates and contrib. Check http://plf.zarb.org for a guide for adding sources to urpmi

The name is trademarked, yes. And if you are trying to redistribute the Mandrake distro as Mandrake, you can use the name. If you are trying to redistribute it as your own you will run into problems.

Most distros that use the RPM packaging system can use any RPM that is out there. The only restriction would be whether or not it was built for your particular architecture. For example, you cannot use a ppc RPM (made for Apple Power PC systems) on an x86 machine (Intel or AMD chips). Also, you cannot use an ia64 (Opteron and the new Intel 64 bit chips) on an ia32 (Pentium and Athlon series) machine.

So the site you just posted is the site that Mandrake gets it RPM's from.??..

I like Mandrake but it is too bloated and I want to reduce it...after I modify it I dont know if it will be Mandrake anymore that is why I should just call this linux a new name but I do not want to get into trouble with using Mandrakes stuff under another name..that is why I am trying to figure out what I can use from mandrake and what I cannot use... I looked at Ark LInux and I am heading in that direction....


I contacted the David the person in charge of the opensource installer program to help them but he never returned my email..

thanks for the info LiquidZoo

...one more thing... what is up with lincencing of the RPM's why can't Mandrake use them?? Aren't they GPL'd or a similar lincence.

Mandrake should be able to use any RPM's that are our there since it's the default package management system for the Distro.

The site I pointed you to isn't where Mandrake gets their rpms, the site has an easy way to add sources to your package manager so you can install more than what Mandrake provides on the CD's/Default Update source (for example, if you want to get DVD's playing in Mandrake).

You can easily strip everything you don't want out of Mandrake. It's actually very easy to do. Say you don't want Evolution (email client), all you have to do is open a console, su to root and type urpme evolution and it will uninstall Evolution and most everything associated with it. It's pretty easy to get it down to where you want it to be. Also, you can do this in the install by selecting individual packages and simply unchecking everything you don't want installed. After that, you can save that configuration to a disk and use it every time you install Mandrake by getting to that point in the install and clicking on the load packages button.

Thanks... now one more question though... what about the rpm updates can I still use Mandrakes channel for updating?? even though
I call it Jose Linux and post it on the web.

If I can't use their channel where can I get the updates from then ??


Hey the lincencing on the DVD rpms what is up with that??How come they cannot redistribute it with Mandrake

For the DVD's, there are laws against it in the US, that's why they are not distributed with the bundles.

I don't believe that you would be able to use Mandrake's update channels for your own distro. I could be wrong about this, though. There are plenty of places out there that will enable you to find rpms, though. You may have to set up your own update source for your distro. I'm not sure how you would go about doing that. If you are using Mandrake as a codebase, you might be able to use their sources. Send them an email and ask them. It's worth a try.