[TriLUG] Mandrake frustrations

[Tanner Lovelace]

On Sun, 26 Dec 2004 19:36:51 -0500 (EST), William Sutton
<william at trilug.org> wrote:
> Mandrake experts (particularly Lovelace), I started installing MDK 10.1
> today (downloaded from a mandrake linux mirror site, 3 CD isos, all burned
> to 700 MB CD-R disks under Red Hat 9 via command line (sorry, exact
> utility escapes my pea brain at the moment but it's a standard CLI
> CD-writing tool).

Hi William, sorry for the late reply, I've been out of town.  You've 
probably gotten better advice, though, from the others as I haven't
even had a chance to upgrade to 10.1 yet.  I do have a few comments,
though, so see below.
 
> Install has been somewhat painful to this point.
> 
> The good:
> - MDK installation automagically recognized my video card (Matrox G450)
> and provided a chance to configure it as such, including Xinerama, as well
> as for my two ViewSonic E90fb monitors.  Easiest time I've ever had doing
> that, especially compared with Gentoo where I actually had to write a
> Gentoo FAQ on the subject...
> - mp3 playing works (hurray)
> 
> The bad:
> - During installation, 3 different packages were reported as being unable
> to install, one of which was XScreensaver (didn't make a list, but the
> reports were the same during two separate and differently customized
> installation processes (first one I tried deselecting individual packages,
> when that didn't work so well, I installed a second time (fresh install)
> by starting small and adding extra packages))

I've seen this happen when I had slightly bad media.

> - On initial boot and graphical login, I discovered the mouse didn't work.
> Investigation revealed that the XF86Config file was referencing /dev/mouse
> but the only mouse device MDK had created was /dev/mouse0.  This was
> rectified by the simple expedient of editing the XF86Config file (simple
> if one knows where to look, a real pita if one doesn't; fortunately I do)

Hmm... ooops.

> - On logging in after setting the mouse up, I discovered that there's no
> configuration option for the printer (!) (so I didn't select office
> productivity...geez ya think it would still be a default item!) so I
> tried to "install" the files from CD...woops, message 'Please insert the
> medium named "Installation CD 1" on device [/dev/sr0]'.  Unfortunately I
> have no /dev/sr* devices in my system...(what's going on here?)

It sounds to me like you don't have all the needed modules
installed.  Earlier versions of mandrake used devfs and I've
heard that 10.1 uses udev, but the principle is the same.  
Device files will only appear when needed.  Unfortunately,
this translates to "when the drivers are installed".  Try running
(as root) "modprobe sr_mod" and see if that fixes it.  For a long-term
fix, add that to /etc/modules.

> - To get around the /dev/sr0 problem, I went to download the various
> dependencies from rpm.pbone.net (google search for the various file names
> from the rpmdrake gui tool)...found the ones I wanted but about every
> other search I did crashed mozilla....

Easy URPMI - http://easyurpmi.zarb.org/

> - once I had the various dependencies I (thought I) needed, I installed
> CUPS...logged out of X, logged back in....still no gui configuration
> options (!)

Cups is configured through a web browser.  Go to http://localhost:631/
and configure it from there.

As far as the mouse/kvm is concerned, I've seen the same problem
and have been able to deal with it by making sure nothing is happening
before switching back to linux and then pausing for a few seconds
after switching for things to sync up.  If that doesn't work, switch
back and try again.  

The ssh issue:  Since you setup msec (mandrake security) at a high level,
ssh is most likely set so you need to be a member of the "ntools" group
to use network tools.  Try running "usermod -G ntools william" and then logging
in and out.  There is also a separate group for use of compiler tools (ctools)
and X (xgrp) iirc.  There used to be a great page on the mandrake website
that explained all that, but it got removed in a reorg. :-(  I have it saved
somewhere, though, so I'll see if I can dig it up.

Good luck,
Tanner