mandrake install problem on my laptop

[stevemu2]

Hi,
i,ve been trying to install mandrake 9.2 on my laptop,all goes well as far as the page detailing what has been configured and graphics is neveer configured.i go in to do so manually and the video and such are set correctly for my laptop spec.
I move on and reboot as instructed,the blue welcome screen appears and mandrake says it is loading...........THEN
It drops straight to a comand tool type page and strangly will only accept root login.
once done this however gets me nowhere as standard comands etc just chuck back errors,even ls
I'm a complete linux noob but ame faminliar with basic unix comand lines
ANY pointers or assistance appreciated.I'm living on the assumption its all about my video setup....?????
Incidentaly when asked to test video setup what should i expect ,the display shows lots of repeated colours blending into one another

thanks in anticipation

Steve.

type in startx to load up the GUI

[stevemu2]

Wow that was quick...I'm not at home right now but I'll give it a shot as soon as I get in and get back to you

Many thanks

Steve.

[krohnjw]

once done this however gets me nowhere as standard comands etc just chuck back errors,even ls

Did you add another user or is root the only specified user?

I am thinking that starting a GUI is the least of the problems, let alone if it starts.
From what you say it seems the X server is trying to start and failing.

Type echo $PATH and see what your path as root is listed as. This may be due to a bad PATH or bad X server configuration. If you cannot execute simple commands however I would venture to say something in your path is not correct.

[stevemu2]

Hi,
well i finally got to a GUI , startx failed,$PATH showed /home/username/ but nothing below it so I used the install disk to recover damaged instalation and after a couple of attempts changing the graphics setting got into KDE

HOWEVER - i have no applications and half the facilities available don't work.
looks like just a desktop with nothing much behind it.

A couple of things I had thought of , at no time has the instalationa sked for the second disk , also the first time wizard that the book says should come up at first login didn't

any Idaes would be welcome all i really want from it at present is internet / mail and office suite and preferably the option to use GNOME ( which doesnt appear as a start option)

Is it possible to "roll back and rebuild or is there a utility i can use
I can call up a command tool in bash#

any ideas gratefully received

Rgds

Steve.

[lynchmob]

Could be bad media or cd drive. Where did you get MDK 9.2? Download or retail box?
lynch

[stevemu2]

retail box

cd rw works fine with windows

Steve

[krohnjw]

Ok, you will need a PATH here that works.

Open up your shell login file and look for a line like so
(.bash_profile if you use bash)
PATH=$PATH:$HOME/bin

Change that to something like PATH=$PATH:$HOME/bin:/bin:/usr/bin:/usr/local/bin:/local/bin
(Add the sbin too if you are doing this for root) You should be able to either boot to rescue mode off of the CD or use the absolute paths to launch programs (as the path is where linux looks for the executeables when you type in a command) so /usr/local/bin/pico to launch pico, or wherever pico is found. This hsould have all been set during the install, but it seems that your install didn't go too smoothly

[stevemu]

Hi,
i contacted mandrake support and they suggested reinstalling using expert mode...
I did this and at one point it asked me if I had disk 2 then did exactly what it did before, it never even asked for second disk and would not allow me to reject disk one before the new instalation which was never going to work was already doomed to failure had dropped me back to where I was a week ago.....only difference now
don't even have the "dead " front end and am back where I started

only difference i noticed was that at no time has the instalaton allowed me to assign security level either and still skipped the point i shouls have been ablle to decide on what type of application i wanted e.g. desktop / multimedia/www

back to WINDOWS which currently works

thanks for all your help folks but I guess this is just not going to work

had enough ... even open source out of the (retail) box should install the basics on a modern laptop

rgds,
Steve

[lynchmob]

What laptop do you have? Did you check here to see if anyone has had any success installing Linux on your model? It's worth checking out.
lynch