Replace RedHat9 with Mandrake10

[valentine 0]

What's up guys/gals,

 

I have a question.

I'm running a dual-boot system with WindowsXP and RedHat9.

I want to replace The RedHat9 partitions with Mandrake10.

I am using the GRUB boot-loader.

 

Last time a tried this, It completely lost my WindowsXP boot information, so i had to completely reformat. Is there a way to do this without these adverse affects? If so, how?

 

Thanks in advance for any help,

-valentine

 

btw, i wan't to wipe my RedHat slate clean, i'm not worried about saving any of files.

[danleff 0]

This has come up a few times. The issue is also noted in Fedora installations, where the XP partition is affected. Something to do with parted and kernel 2.6, from what I have gathered.

 

Of course, back up any important data on the XP partition.

 

Use a partitioning utility like PartitionMagic to reformat the Redhat partitions to ext3. Since you are not worried about the data on these partitions, this is fine. DO NOT use the Mandrake partitoning utlity to format the partitions.

 

Do an expert install of Mandrake. After booting with the first Mandrake cd, type in expert at the command prompt. This allows you to have the most flexability in choosing options.

 

When you get to the partitioning section, choose custom partitioning. Assign the partitions as you wish to root, home and whatever. DO NOT choose to format the partitions, but to assign designations the already existing partitions only.

 

Allow the install to complete and choose grub as the bootloader. You should not have any problem with Mandrake picking up the XP boot, unless you have Windows assigned to anything but the first partition on your drive.

 

If everthing was functional before you began, there is no need to reformat XP, if grub does not give you an XP option. You can add xp to the grub.menu file if it is not there, but this should not be necessary.

[Dapper Dan 0]

My two cents worth for you since I've used RH 9, and Mdk 9, and am now testing Core 2 and Mdk 10. My feelings so far is that Fedora Core 2 is more refined and less buggy. It's still early though..

[valentine 0]

Excellent thanks guys. Now, I've got a ver noobie question for ya.

 

I have the AMD XP 2400+ processor. What class is that, ie i386, i486, or i586?

 

-valentine

[Mel 0]

My AMD Athlon XP 2000+ works fine with all those plus i686.

I don't know what changes were made in the 2400+, though.

[valentine 0]

Nice thanks, i've been doing a lot of research, and i found that the processor archetecture stems from an old class. I used to have an old 286, and after 486 they started using fancy names like pentium etc. As far as i can tell the AthlonXP 2400+ is an i686. Does that mean that a i386 distro won't run as well as say an i586?

[valentine 0]

K, i installed mandrake. All went well as far as maintaining my Windows partition, and being able to boot to it. However, I installed Mandrake and it will not boot into the Xwindow server. Everything boots ok green all the way (except for eth0, but that's to be expected) then i get the blue screen with the black x outlined with whit, and that's it. Doesn't progress from the and my cpu led is dead. Can anyone help?

 

System specs:

AMDXP 2400+

80gb hdd maxtor

160gb hdd wd

asus motherboard

nvidia nforce chipset

nvidia geforce fx 5200 agp card (which needs to be set at 72fps if anyone knows how)

 

thanks for all your help guys,

-valentine

 

EDIT: It has to do with my agp video card, because i switched back to my nvidia geforce 2 integrated video card, and it loaded up fine. Any suggestions? Note, i haven't installed the nvidia drivers yet, but am about to do so.

[danleff 0]

Did you try disabling the onboard video in the bios? Then try the agp card.

[Mel 0]

Originally posted by valentine:

Quote:

Nice thanks, i've been doing a lot of research, and i found that the processor archetecture stems from an old class. I used to have an old 286, and after 486 they started using fancy names like pentium etc. As far as i can tell the AthlonXP 2400+ is an i686. Does that mean that a i386 distro won't run as well as say an i586?

Although my experience is limited to Intel and AMD processors,in my experience all the processors appear to be backward compatible.The compatible issues appear to be in the OS kernal.So ,in effect,the i686 kernal is designed to take advantage of the newer features and speed of the i686 processor class but is incompatible with older processors.

Although you can use,say,i386 version,it will be niether as fast nor effecient as the i686 version because it can't use the more recent features of the i686 processor.

.

NOTE; The model number at the end of the processor name is misleading,since many users think that is the processor speed which is substantialy slower.

For example,my AMD Athlon 2000+ is actually rated somewhere between 1600 - 1700 mhz.

Yours is probably a little faster.

.

Oh,yeah, The answer to your question is,yes,the i686 version will be faster and more efficient than the i386 version with your i686 processor.