[NTLUG:Discuss] Mandrake 7.0 Install problem

[Christopher Browne]

There was a report today of problems installing Mandrake 7.0 via the
DOS-based install process.  This was on a LinuxCentral disk that we
sent out last month, so it appeared reasonable to be open to many
possible causes.

The cause was not _too_ clear; I have a machine, "godel," that I'm in
the process of "scraping off;" I installed StormLinux on Thursday, and
it will probably have installs of OpenBSD and RHAT 6.2 before all is done.

To help test, I took the Mandrake CD home to see if it seemed seriously
flawed.

I had no DOS/Windows environment available, so I pulled the "cdrom.img"
file from the /cdrom/images directory, and the CD is whirring away
installing packages, so it seems to me that it's fine.

The report was that the user was trying to install from DOS; this involved
running some DOS software that apparently does some setup and then boots
Linux to proceed to the installation process.  This appears to be the
problem; apparently there is something really flakey happening at the
DOS/Win32 level.  Apparently the CD "goes crazy," and the system never
gets to proceed to installing Linux.

Has anyone hit the same issue?

I can certainly commend the idea of starting a new install, if possible,
by _NOT_ trying to do anything fancy under Win32/MS-DOS.  If you've
already got a Linux install running somewhere, the best idea seems to me
to be to find boot disks, likely in /cdrom/boot or /cdrom/images, and
copy the relevant image straight to a floppy.

# dd if=/cdrom/boot/bootdisk.img of=/dev/fd0
where the "image" file gets renamed as necessary...
--
REALITY is a policy phased out early in the Eisenhower administration.
cbbrowne at hex.net- <http://www.ntlug.org/~cbbrowne/lsf.html>