My Final Linux Conclusions~

[storm2k]

don't fret. my thoghts on linux are well known (and most likely well disliked) by people here.

i've found the most stability so far with redhat 7.2 (i downloaded it from red hat). it detected all my hardware, was a breeze to setup (i found it easier than mandrake's setup and they say mandrake's setup is the easiest there is), was easy to configure, and just works. mandrake had a heart attack and keeled over on me right after i tried to download some updates for it (i mean, the stuff mandrake reccomends you download). heck i even got it to dual boot with win2k successfully. my only complaint (aside from not knowing how to install some rpms i downloaded) is that mozilla seems to have a buggie in it that just sits and stares at ya when you try to subit a reply to something here on techimo!

so for right now i won't dismiss linux. yet.

ps - i don't know about anyone else, but my rage128 based card (xpert2000 32 mb) worked flawlessly. setup detected it, and x works fine with it even at the resolution i like to run (1152 x 864 x 24 bit).

[BobViper]

ALOHA~storm2k
I was wondering what other hardware was on your system with the ATI card
and did you do a setup with all hardware installed or strip it down first?

Also what if any is the best way to start install in HD w\no formating whatsoever or does it matter?

Aloha

[pbharris]

hi Storm2k - good to here you are finally having luck with Linus, for rpms you can use kpackage, gnorpm, or of course the command line in a terminal. The link below should be able to let you know how to at the command line... i am not trying to plug my own work, just trying to spread what stuff i know.

http://www.linuxjunior.org/cgi-bin/p...T=Display&id=3

[storm2k]

bob: i had all kinds of hardware in my system actually. my sysytem has:

* 30 gig wd hard drive (runs 2k and also my files + mp3s)
* 6 gig maxtor hard drive (runs redhat)
* generic 52x cdrom
* tdk velocd 16/10/40X
* internal zip 100
* netgear fa311 nic
* maxtor ata100 card hosting both hard drives (the hpt366 has issues so i avoid it -- besides it can only do ata66 and i want all the thoroughput i can get)
* soundblaster live! mp3+ 5.1

i left it all in there and let redhat try and figure it out. make sure that you set "plug and play" os in your bios to NO so that linux wlil read your irqs and whatnot off the bios, not try to do them itself.

also, it doesn't really matter what state your hard drive is in. disk druid can format the partitions for you (you tell it where you want it, it puts it there). i installed redhat right over mandrake 8.1 (deleted the mandrake partitions and made my own).

hope that helps...

pbharris: tried the package manager, but it ddn't seem to work. i wish it would provide a bit more feedback. i will try the command line. seems like the easiest way.

[BobViper]

ALOHA
I just tried RH7.2 again.Disabled Pnp support in bios.
It goes through 2 setup screens then says it doesn't see the Rdhat setup files anywhere.
Lost my CDROM.

Any ideas short of changing my CDROM?

[storm2k]

that's darn peculiar... how do you have your ide channels set up?

best would be to have the hard drive on the master by itself and the cdrom(s) on slave... so they're not colliding trying to send across the ata bus...

just a thought...

[pbharris]

try to disable DMA in your BIOS, i know this has caused some problems, that is kinda wierd.

[BobViper]

ALOHA
Thank for the ideas~But no Go !

Disabled DMA inbios.
Shut down my LS120 and put only 1 HD on system as
Primary master with CDrom as Secondary master.

All Errors the same.

Results~
RH7.2 The NEW one still Lost the CDROM after 2 screens.

RH 6.2 Ran SAME Cdrom OK~7.2 Lost everytime. The OLD one Went all the way through
setup and auto killed and rebooted by it self with the following Error at
Reboot off Harddrive:
Kernal Panic:Attempted to Kill the idle Task!
In swapper task-not syncing

Also Retried mandrake 8.1

Results All installed auto Reboot following error:
could not uncompress second stage ramdisk~
Locked Up system.

Guess it just doesn't like this system.I'll have to try my other system SomeDay when I feel Lucky!

Thanks for Advice~

Aloha~BobViper

[Mike]

Some people are just not meant to run Linux/Unix. Stick with windoze guys.

Hey now..You wanna back off?! I'm trying, i'm trying..What else can I say?!?

[CMonster]

Last night my son went over to help a friend install Linux, SuSE and Redhat failed to install -almost always some kind of corruption during or right after install.

This system was a home built SCSI system for a Linux only server and had no OS running at all. After several failures to install Linux I got a phone call and suggested a few things - finally I suspected a hardware problem.

When my son got home he said that they had tried an ATAPI CDROM instead of the SCSI and when that didn't work they went out and got a 60GB ATA100 hard disk to use instead of the SCSI -and that worked. Then it occurred to me -was the SCSI bus terminated? -somewhat dumbfounded my son replied, "No."

-sometimes we overlook the obivous