SillyDog701

[iJohnE]

Normally, I would have just Google'd my problem. But it happens when I am installing the OS.

When I install it I let it run on it's own for a couple of hours (Overnight), It gets to a point when it is setting the time. After that it does nothing. I reboot; and guess what. It starts to boot Windows 2000 (Which does NOT boot.)

I know there are many avid Linux users and this is the only way that I can think of to salvage this computer.

Thanks,

John

Moderator edit (Edward): Correcting spelling of "Mandriva" in thread subject.

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[Edward]

I cannot answer as to the Windows 2000 issue, but does the system have ATI-based video?

There is a known issue with a pre-beta of Mandriva 2008.1 One which includes proprietary video drivers from ATI and NVIDIA. In the case of ATI, the installation program hangs at some point, because the issue involves the ATI driver (fglrx).

If you want to install Mandriva, it would be best to install Mandriva 2008 Free which does not include these proprietary drivers. Free is available for download as one DVD or three CD's from here. This page also explains the differences between Free and One.

My laptop has an ATI Radeon chip inside it and because of this particular issue with the proprietary ATI driver, I removed One and installed Free.

2008.0 is the first release for 2008 (released last October), 2008.1 is scheduled for release in April.

If the system does not have ATI video, then one possible reason is that the installation media is bad, in which case you need to download it again, but when burning it to the CD or DVD (as the case may be), try burning it at a slower speed.

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[Edward]

Were you able to resolve your problem?

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[iJohnE]

I never was able to resolve the problem. And I believe it was just that particular computer. I no longer have it, as it was stripped for parts and sent to a recycling program.

It wasn't just Mandriva that I was having install problems with. It was also Ubuntu (Xubuntu as well), Fedora and Puppy. As well as Windows NT, 2000 and XP. I know it wasn't a hard drive issue, as I still use that hard drive in my main machine. It might have been a motherboard issue or a bad CD drive. The machine wasn't that great to being with 233Mhz P3 128MB of ram.

Also, the machine didn't have ATi graphics, it had a rather old Intel chipset for video.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.9.2.8) Gecko/20100723 Ubuntu/10.04 (lucid) Firefox/3.6.8

[Edward]

You might want to have a look at Debian, the link is in my signature below. It will also run on older computers (it also offers a kernel designed for 486-class machines).

I had Debian running on my AMD K6-2 box until recently, the BIOS on the motherboard failed and it would no longer boot up after that.

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[iJohnE]

I have used Debian. I used it on my Dell Dimension 8250 for a while.

I have the same machine again, same hard drive, and everything and it's working fine all of a sudden. (Not the same exact one, but the same model with the same specs.)

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