mdk woes

Last week I tried to install mdk2005 on a celeron laptop. The install seemed ok, but on rebooting there was a (bogus?) fsck error that prevented the system from starting. The problem occurred on a second identical laptop, and I had intended to install mdk on 18 of these!

So I dumped mandrake and installed ubuntu. From a single CD I could go away and do something and come back to a nicely (network-) installed system without having to change discs, and wihtout any problems. I can do this EASILY on 18 laptops.

Followed, then, by another failed install of mdk2005. This time the x86-64 version on my new home athlon-64 system. It installed ok, but then locked up at the GDM screen. So did Ubuntu-64. So Im using FC4-64 can you believe?

This was a sad day for me, since I have used mdk exclusively since mdk7.1, 5 years ago. I remember pouring scorn on a friends RH 6 or 7 for its lack of useful (drak) tools. Since then I've never looked at another distro until yesterday. I was surprised how quick and efficient the Ubuntu install is, and I was even impressed with FC-4. USB devices pop up and work better than on mandrake. For example, have you ever got a usb volume to unmount by right clicking on the gnome desktop? In Ubuntu it does. Have you ever had your card reader pop up correctly and identify itself as containing photos? In FC-4 it does.

I was so impressed with mandrake that I bought shares back when they made that offer. Now I realise that they have been caught up or overtaken by other distros in the friendly desktop department. What a shame.

Suggest looking at SuSE perhaps.... particulrly for laptops, including 64's..

Did you burn your own CD's?
Did you check the md5sum's of the iso's you downloaded?
Did you check the cd for a good burn?

yes I burned my own and used the checksums. The 32bit CD s have been used on a couple of computers already. The 64 bit one has since worked on another computer.

I think I was just unlucky to come up with challenging hardware twice in the same week. Like I say, the AMD-64 failed with Ubuntu in the same way. The laptops, however have been straightforward with a bunch of other distros I tried for the hell of it (bandwidth is cheap here:) ie xandros lycoris debian centos before I settled on ubuntu.