Re-install, Patch, or What?

[Jon Campbell]

I installed Mandrake 8.2 recently in a dual-boot system with W98. The W98 side works well, but Mandrake is very slow, won't recognise the sound card (Crystal CS4235), the SiS 5513 IDE controller, the onboard modem, the on-board graphics card (SiS 530) or the 3Com etherlink network card. To cap it all, the cursor in all of the available GUIs has a couple of scratchy looking lines underneath it.

So, do I reformat and start all over again or is this just the normal starting point for a routine configuration exercise?

[sarah31]

hmmm it sounds like your box is pretty well useless with Mandrake 8.2. Before you do anything visit the mandrake home page and check to be sure that the hardware you list is supported by Mandrake.

Here is the link to the hardware support page.

[Jon Campbell]

I had a look at the Compatibility HOWTO, and all my bits and pieces are there.

I was having a poke around in KDE (?), and the Linux Configurator either couldn't find a configuration file or it reckoned it was corrupted or else I have discovered a bug.

Perhaps the best approach is to format the Linux partition and start over. Any system which is this screwed up is going to need such a lot of patching and fiddling with that I am going to have lost interest long before I get anywhere near what it should be.

ho hum!

Looks like Mr Gates:1, Penguins: 0

[Nivuahc]

I went through the exact same thing when I installed Mandrake... 3 times.

I'm not sure why, but sometimes it seems that Mandrake skips a couple of major pieces during the install.

The last install, however, worked fantastic... so there is hope.

For me, I've decided to take the leap and try my hand at Slackware 8.1

The way I figure it, if I can get through the install... well... that'll be something, won't it?