danleff

This is a common problem with this motherboard. Support for the nForce chipsets and nic is very limited out of the box. There have been quite a few posts on this problem. If you have no or little experience with installing drivers in linux or altering the bootloader, the easiest thing would be to go out any buy a Realtek pci nic card ($10-15) and forget the onboard nic card. if you decide on this, disable the onboard nic/lan in the bios. If you know what you are doing in Linux, you could try installing the NVIDIA chipset drivers, not the video driver and give it a go. If someone would donate one of these boards to me, I would give it a go!

I found the following thread that might shed some light on the issues. It seems that the driver has not been developed for thre 2.6 series of kernels. See; http://linmodems.technion.ac.il/archive-third/msg02931.html Also see the referenced link; http://linmodems.technion.ac.il/resources.html

For simcity, see the following link fr a description of the issue; http://www.mandrakeusers.org/index.php?showtopic=10753

This will assume an install on a Mandrake system. Directions for Fedora would be similar, but differences will be noted. 1.Get the NVIDIA package from the web site. Assuming you have a 386 – 586 based system, get the latest Linux IA32 based package, which will be 1.0-5336. Download this file to your home directory. Take a look at the install (README) directions on the download page, while you are there, for reference. This is always a good idea. 2.Make sure that you have the kernel-source package installed for your kernel version. The latest driver will work for both the 2.4 and 2.6 kernels. If you can't find the kernel source on your Mandrake install cds, or you have installed an updated kernel-image rpm, the NVIDIA installer will attempt to find the needed files from the web. 3.Go to a konsole signed in as root. Type in init 3 and you will exit KDE to a command prompt. The NVIDIA drivers need to be installed at a command prompt. The init 3 command works in Mandrake, but not in Fedora. In Fedora, I found that I had to change the /etc/inittab file by hand to init level 3 and reboot to get a command line to do the install. 4.If you downloaded the NVIDIA file to your home directory, you are ready to type in your command to open the run file. If not, navigate into the directory that you saved the driver file to. Type in sh NVIDIA-Linux-x86-1.0-pkg1.mun and hit enter. The installer will guide you through the process. If this is successful; 5.This is where experience comes in. I used vi to edit my XF86Config-4 file to change settings. So, vi /etc/X11/XF86Config-4 opens up the file for editing. In Mandrake 10 CE, the only setting I needed to change was the video card. Under section “device” “driver” you will see the entry “nv.” Change this to “nvidia.” Save your changes. 6.NOTE: In other distros or versions, take note that you may need to comment out the entries in XF86Config-4 (or XF86Config, if your distro does not have the XF86Config-4 file), such as “load DRI” and “load GLCore.” Fedora, for example, uses a LOAD DRI entry that needs to be commented out (by putting a hash mark # before the entry, on the line that the entry resides on. 7.Once you exit vi and are back at the command prompt, change to regular user. I typed in “login” at the command prompt and logged back in as normal user, not root. Then, I typed in startx. If you are lucky, you will see the NVIDIA splash screen and kde will load. Your done! The only catch, is that when you log out of kde, you will be back at the command prompt and need to change to root to execute the halt or reboot to get out of the init 3 session. If the gui fails, just go back into XF86Config-4 or XF86Config and edit the "nvidia" entry that you changed back to "nv" and uncomment “load DRI” and “load GLCore”, if applicable.

Yes, in Kde, right click on the kde start button and open the menu editor. In my case, I have Dreamweaver MX linked to Crossover Office. In my home directory, I have a shell script linked to the wine exe file and to the directory where the Dreamweaver.exe file resides. I made the script exacutable and added the exe script to the command line under the new item created for Dreamweaver in the menu editor. Let me know if you need more information. The shell script should work for wine as well.

I just installed the NVIDIA drivers on my Mandrake 10 test box in under 30 minutes. The process is actually very easy. The new run files are a snap to install and if you do not have the proper modules installed, the installer will search the web and find them for you. I can write a short how-to, if anyone would like. BTW, the NVIDIA site clearly states that there are no rpm´s written, as the new installer is independent of this need.

Let's distinguish between RedHat and Fedora. They are two different versions. You can expect the newer version (Fedora) to possibly have more support for NTFS. This support has been in development for some time. READ support, not write support. True, historically RedHat may have problems with auto-mounting NTFS, but one should expect this...it is an older release. Some XP users have fat32 partitions, some NTFS. It depends on what you specified during the install. The default is NTFS, especially on pre-installed systems. I too had some auto-mounting problems with NTFS in a couple of distros. Surprise, I just did an install of Lindows Laptop Edition on my Thinkpad (which has 2 NTFS partitions) and Lindows can read them both, auto-mounts them as well. I would not have expected this, since Lindows is a little behind the times, I thought, for this support.

I think you are all correct, we have a few issues here. There have been a number of prior posts with the A7N8X-X board. As I see it we have; 1. Mandrake CE's partitoning utility mangles the partitions, as evidenced by my problem in a non-sata/nForce install. partitioMagic could not read the drive until I used it to delete the Mandrake Partition and re-format the partition, then do the install of Mandrake again. Mandrake booted fine with grub, but PartitionMagic saw the drive as "bad." 2. Sata drives were not supported in previous versions of Mandrake and apparently there are still some issues with some of these drives...or 3. The nForce chipset issue. I will try an install on my nForce board this weekend (it has a non-sata drive), using PartitionMagic to format the partition. Interestingly, my prior install of Mandrake 10 beta went fine on the nForce system. Something has changed.

You may want to take a look at Scribus. http://www.scribus.net/

Tha MaxBlast software can be found at the following link; http://www.maxtor.com/en/support/downloads/maxblast3.htm

It depends on what you mean by it's "original state." Do you mean wipe the hard drive and start over, or repair Windows and/or Linux? If you want to wipe the disk and start over, sure. Each hard drive company has a utility to do this for their respective drives. But, be careful. If you have a system that came with everything pre-loaded, or a Compaq/HP system, it's best to use the recovery disks, since there may be bios/system information written to the hard drive in a hidden partition. The other question is, what are the symptoms that you are having, before you take such a drastic step, if this is what you want to do?

That's what I was wondering. You are still installing to a hard drive, so if the drive is not writing correctly, you experience the freeze problem.

That was the point I should have mentioned. When using the cd version, your cd IS your hard drive. Think of it this way...if you run Windows and disconnect the hard drive, what happens? Be careful! The new versions of Knoppix do not support the knx-hdinstall method anymore. From the Knoppix hard drive install faq's; "Note: Do not use "knx-hdinstall" anymore. "knx-hdinstall" is no longer maintained, use "knoppix-installer" instead." See the following link; http://www.knoppix.net/docs/index.php/HdInstallHowTo

Same here. Just installed a Dlink DWL-G650 in my Thinkpad. Found madwifi .deb drivers and will give it a go in Lindows Laptop Edition. If you get it going, let me know!

Maybe I an wrong, but if you are running Knoppix from the cd, the cd needs to be mounted so that data/apps can be loaded from the cd to ram. Rather than pulling data from the hard drive, you are only using the cd. Why would you want to unplug your cd?

Shadowmatrix, are you using this for dvd burning? If so, do me a favor and let me know what version of wine and nero that you are using. Also, are you using the directions, as noted on the Frank´s Corner web site?

First, it is a god idea to have a boot floppy, which hopefully you have already made, say during the install. If in doubt about any of this - stop and ask. If you are sure that you have multiple/duplicate entries, there is actually an easy way to do this in the Mandrake Control Center. It could be Lilo or Grub, mine is Lilo and is a blue screen, as well. ***Note - these directions are for Lilo entries*** 1.Do to start--> system--> configuration--> configure your computer. After you put in your root pasword, this brings you to the Mandrake Control Center. 2. Pick boot--> bootloader 3. You will see what bootloader you have. Under ¨bootloader to use¨, mine says Lilo. Yours will say whichever you have. Under ¨boot device¨ it should say /dev/hda1, assuming you have it installed to the first partition on the master hard drive. 4. Click ¨next¨ 5. Now you will see the entries in Lilo or Grub. You should have at least three entiries for Mandrake, such as (for Lilo); linux (/boot/vmlinuz)* This is the current default bootloader entry, which you want to keep - notice the * which designates the default entry. Linux-nonfb (/boot/vmlinuz) Linux-failsafe (/boot/vmlinuz) windows (/dev/hda1) floppy )/dev/fd0) You want to keep these. If there are older entries, and you are sure, use the remove button to delete the entry. There should only be one extra entry, in your case. 6. Click finish. If you have Grub, the entires should look somewhat different. If in doubt, back out (cancel) and post back. Final note - I hope that you made a boot floppy, just in case!

Did you look at the RedHat/Fedora compatibility database on their site? If possible, stay away from USB..it's still a problem. Do you have a router, or straight connect to the cable modem?

I can give you one; NERO (for burning DVD's) -> K3b.

Are you using Grub or Lilo as the boot manager? Be careful. Are both installs to the same partition for root/boot?

On another post, a user is seeing random freeze problems with this board. See; http://www.linuxcompatible.org/thread564-1.html I am going to guess that it is a hardware issue. I wonder about the sata drives. Anyone have experience with these drives? Mandrake 10 is supposed to have support for the drives, but I wonder. How did you format your partitions? Did you use the Mandrake partitioning tool or another, such as PartitionMagic? In terms of the install freeze issues, often..take your guess...it is due to incompatible hardware or a bad burn of the cd's. You got to burn the cd's at 4X or 8X speed. Iso files are fussy. Do not burn them at the top speed of your cdrw drive.

OK, now I am getting confused. Are we still installing Mandrake? If so and SoulNothing is correct about the nic card detection in nForce boards in Mandrake 10 CE; When you start the install process, you will get a window that asks you what additional cd's that you have cd1, cd2...At that window, uncheck cd4 if you do not have it (which you will not have if you are using the downloaded version). Allow the installation to proceed. Toward the end, you will see a summary window, outlining the hardware and settings. Pay special attention to the Network entry. If it shows that the network is configured...good! Skip the next paragraph. It may say Network...not configured." If this is the case, click the config. setting button for this and try to configure the network card. See if it is detected. This is where the last post comes in. If you are on cable, like Roadrunner, the ip address is auto assigned. Use dhcp and choose to allow dhcp to be assigned at boot. Don't worry about any ip values and such, unless you are on a service that assigns static addresses. You should know if this is the case, such as maybe a school network. DO disable the checkmark on "network hotpluging" as you navigate through the menus. If the card gets detected, but on re-boot to the system there is no internet connection, let us know. This happened to me in Mandrake 10 on my system. There is a fix for this on notherboards that misbehave with acpi (Advanced Configuration and Power Interface) and Linux. More on that later, if the lan still does not work.

The first thing to ascertain, is if your system is a 64 bit processor. Consult the system's user manual. If you installed the processor yourself, you will know. The second link you showed is for Mandrake 10 Release Candidate 1. This is not a final edition version. The first link is for Mandrake Community Edition. This is more or less the pre-final edition. This one does have the kernel that you should need to run your nForce board, hopefully the nic will be recognized as well. The install lock-ups are probably a hardware issue, or a bad cd burn. It can also be a processor issue (hardware). When you burn your cd's, lock-ups on install can also be a bad cd burn issue. Burn the cd images on good quality cdr media. If possible stay away from cdrw media, as they can be problematic in some cdrom drives. Burn the images at a slow speed, not over 8X and better at 4X. Make sure that there was no problem with the download, as well. Did the download stall out or fail, then you resumed it? Do you have broadband to download the images? What burning software are you using, as well? Nero? Post some of your system specs. and we will look at it.

Also, consider a NVIDIA based card and stay away from the ATI models. The ATI's can cause some issues in Linux, especially assuring that you have them set up properly for gaming.

I just had this exact same problem re-installing Mandrake 10. Probably a hadware issue with the cdrom drives/bios accepting the cdrw or dvd as a boot medium. First, don't use the dvd drive, try the cdrw drive only. Make sure that the first boot device in the bios is cdrom. Insert the second disk and boot. When you get the error message about the disk not being a Mandrake install cd, switch to the first disk (disk 1) and hit the enter key. You may have to hit the neter key again if it fails. Where did you get the Mandrake cd's from? I assume that you dd not burn them yourself, since you have all 4 disks?