Installed Mandrake 9.1... a breeze!

[barneyt]

Hi All,

At the risk of boring all you jedi-linuxes, I installed the newest version of Mandrake (9.1) on three separate machines with vastly different configurations. Each went flawlessly. The only hitch was (you guessed it..) the PCI modem. I had to get a serial modem before it was recognized. Then, all was well.

Downloading updates, security patches, and the like went smoothly. Thn I configured the desktop, sound, and "look and feel" aspects to my personal liking.

One benefit that I found.... if you have some previous knowledge of DOS (like changing directories or making directories) you will have a much better time with Konsole. I always look at the README files on any download and follow it implicitly. I have had only minor errors (due to my own lack of experience). I downloaded Flash Player, Wine, MPlayer and they all seem to have been installed without a hitch.

So far all of the packages that came with the Mandrake 9.1 CDs that I installed work well. Again, the times that they didn't were due to my own inexperience. CD Burning software was especially good.

So, that's it. My 2 cents..... and I am happy to be aboard here!

Barney

[wichmann_uwe]

Glad to hear it's so easy!

I might try to do the same to my Mandrake 9.0 installation now.

Btw, by which criteria did you choose your serial modem?

Uwe

[barneyt]

Hi,

Not much criteria....... I tried to use my installed PCI modem with no success. Went to http://www.computergeeks.com and got a serial modem that was labeled as linux compliant. When I got it, I hooked it up and ran the hardware manager in Mandake Control Console. It was detected and I ran the modem conection configuration utility. Worked like a charm.

Barney

[BigCletus]

I would have to agree than Mandrake 9.1 is the easiest distro ever to install and get up and running. I have migrated from slack (years ago) to caldera, then Red Hat (5.0 - 8.0...all in between releases), then debian (what a waste of CDRs) and now mandrake. Mandrake is my favorite so far.

[wichmann_uwe]

Thanks go to Barney for the tip on computergeeks - it seems a really useful site.

Uwe

[anothereffengee]

Can I just insert "ditto" here? Purchased 9.1 (power pack edition), and everything worked without a hook (so far)! If I knew it was gonna be this easy, this would've happend a long time ago. Now all that's left is learning linux.
I'm excited!

[barneyt]

Congrats FNG!

I have found some pitfalls along the way, but that is what's so good about this....... you learn as you go along. Don't get frustrated..... you'll learn a lot along the way!

Happy Trails,

Barney

[noidea]

Problems with PCI modem? Laughable!

Ehm, I had problems to get my Appache modem running nder LINUX also.

One nice gentlemen gave me the hint to check this site (http://www.linxant.com) . It has a list of Connexant modems. Murphy's law of course prevented me from finding my specific modem on the list. So I just dled any driver for HCF I could find - works like a breeze with those drivers.

good luck!