Hi TechnoSlick, Just last night I loaded Mandrake 9.0 on two Dells, one, an Inspiron 8100 which has a swap cd-rom/floppy and an Inspiron 2600.
With the OS at the 9.0 level and above....(even 8.2, my previous install was OK).it has become a total no-brainer to load this Mandrake. I did not have to do any extra tweaking. Started with the cdrom from boot to completion of installation, and then rebooted cleanly. Then shutdown again, switch to floppy, reboot, (it harddrake2 or whatever it was will recgnize it immediately as a new device, and ask to configure it). After it comes all the way up, created a boot disk from the floppy drive for emergency times....although i trust more the same CD booting into rescue mode.....fulfils more that way, but a few gives and takes here and there. What else? I have a 30GB drive. So i used partition magic (there are freewares out there i believe that can achieve the same, like "parted" http://www.gnu.org/software/parted/ but i have not used them)...well, i used partition magic, since it came with factory installed XP Professional. I have it 10GB NTFS for XP, 10GB FAT32 for shared file system btwn Xp and Mandrake (Both can see and write to this partition, this is where i have my files, not installed programs) and another 10GB for Linux, Mandrake 9.0 (Setting up 9.1RC2 as we speak over the 9.0) In this mode, XP has acccess (rw) to 20GB. Linux has access (RW) of 20GB, and (RO) of 10GB. Yes!! Now we can read NTFS partitions. I did let Lilo take control of the boot process. It overwrote the XP bootloader without destroying it.....and it gives me a choice to boot either. I did not loose anything in this case from the install Dell components, since i did not format the XP partition, just resized it. Another good reference just incase u dont want to touch your XP boot partition for the Dual boot scenario is http://www.poopoccurs.com/linux/dualboot.html Only catch here is that u will need a boot disk, and u cant create that if u have to swap btwn cd-rom and floppy during installation. But if u have separate bays for them, it wont be a problem. Guess i have given u enough info....feel free to ask for more. My configs...on Insipiron:: Graphics ...Nvidia Ge Force (and yes, 9.0 has its drivers included, I had to install them myself with 8.2) Ciao..... Richard Mollel --- Technoslick <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > I am replacing the 20 GB hard drive in my 2-1/2 year > old Dell Inspiron > 4000 laptop that was running Win 2K (under > warranty). This seems like > the perfect opportunity to try installing MDK and > converting it > permanently to Linux. However, I have never > installed Linux on a > portable device. As with many laptops, this one has > a built-in 56K Win > LT modem, which could be a problem. I am also > concerned about > hot-swap-ability for the floppy/CD-ROM bay. > > I would appreciate any comments, suggestions and > experiences in loading > MDK 9.0 onto this particular make and model laptop. > If you would prefer, > you can contact me off-list, as well. I will do the > necessary research, > but I would feel better having some real-life > accounts to go with what I > find. Pointers to URLs that have specific and > relevant data to the > project will be greatly appreciated. Experience in > working with this > make and model, though, is what I am hoping to find > on this list. > > As a second part to this request for help, I would > ask for opinions as > to whether I should wait for 9.1 to be released and > become publicly > available before installing 9.0. I don't want to bog > it down, if this > new release will have more overhead to it. The > laptop has an Intel > Celeron 600 MHz with 128MBs RAM, ATi 3D Rage Mobile > with 8 MB RAM, ESS > sound, XGA LCD screen. > > Thanks for any help in advance. This is an important > project for me, so > any advice or experiences will be greatly > appreciated. > > T > -- > Technoslick <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > > > Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? > > Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com > ===== __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Platinum - Watch CBS' NCAA March Madness, live on your desktop! http://platinum.yahoo.com
Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
