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July 22, 2003

Linux Reinstall

Since I've been setting up linux on a spare machine simply as a way to explore linux from the point of view of a desktop user, and since I've been having problems with the RedHat 9 desktop environment, I decided to start all over with a clean install of Mandrake's linux distribution, including letting it redo the partitioning. Clean sweep, baby!

So far the installation has gone pretty easily (he said jinxing himself). I hit a bump at the beginning, but I can't blame Mandrake for that. I'd downloaded the CD images and burned them last night. They're readable in Windows and RedHat could see the files, but my linux machine wouldn't boot from them. (It also wouldn't boot from the Mandrake floppy booter I'd made. Odd.) So, I installed a new CD reader, and now it's working fine. (So far.) It does make you wonder if the instability of the RedHat install was related to the flakiness of my CD player, although I'd be happier about that if it were crashing when it was accessing CDs.

Anyway, Mandrake has asked me the expected questions. This time I'm not being stingy about which packages it's installing. It says I have 13 minutes to go...

Previous linux entry is here.

Posted by D. Weinberger at July 22, 2003 11:28 AM


Comments

For a confident user like myself, Linux still has a long way to go - my old, cranky PC won't work unless I download some drivers, which are completely inaccesible since I can't go online.
Nevertheless, I do prefer the linux bazaar than the chaotic and masochistic microsoft cathedral.

Posted by: Camilo | July 22, 2003 04:23 PM


Or, perhaps, the linux bizarre vs. the Microsoft catheter.

Posted by: dweinberger | July 22, 2003 05:03 PM


I was thinking about your problem when I discovered my windows woes were probably caused by the CD-burner going crazy. I used a tester boot disc and found that the CD-rom was flacky. Today I turned on the machine and it works fine. So I know I better fix/replace it before it happens again. The Post says I have harddrive errors when ever the CDrom tries to go crazy. I thought the hard drive was bad.

Posted by: Paul Benkovitz | July 24, 2003 08:29 PM


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