Mandrake 10 install freezes during package installation

[MikeWrite 0]

I seem to have a somewhat different Mandrake 10 installation failure than others here, who report freezes during the initial boot off the CD.

 

My disc 1 boots fine, and I am allowed to plod all the way through partition setup and package selection. Installation of packages then begins fine, and the various splash screens appear. But when installation reaches a point where some 20 to 15 minutes remain, the process freezes. It's a hard freeze: I can't even eject the CD, but must hit the reset button on the box.

 

As Linux always screws up partition tables, I thought perhaps this might be the cause. But I have tried twice: first by using Mandrake to partition unallocated HDD space, and the second time (after again repairing the destroyed table) by first using Partition Magic in Windows to create ext2 boot and root partitions, as well as Linux swap. (In both cases, I attempted to install Mandrake entirely on logical partitions.)

 

Fedora Core 2 installs fine on this system. Is there something other than alleged badly burned ISOs at work here? I've burned dozens of ISOs on this burner, including Windows and Fedora OS CDs, with nary a hitch in any of 'em, so it seems unlikely that I'd happen to burn a bad Mandrake CD, particularly given so many reported Mandrake install freezes - unless there's something inherently crappy in the Mandrake ISOs themselves, requiring kid-glove treatment.

 

Again, assume it isn't the way the CD was burned. What else could it be?

 

NF7-S v2

XP2800 Barton 200x10.5

3x256mb Mushkin 2-2-3-11

Maxtor DM 40gig via PATA-SATA adapter

Radeon 9100

Asus 52x CD-ROM

LiteOn 52x24x52 CD-RW

Sony SDM-X73 via DVI

Antec TruPower 380w

Cable broadband (no router - yet)

 

[Dapper Dan 0]

Just throwing out an idea here.

 

Does it freeze in generally the same place? If so, it may not be a bad burn, but rather just a bad cd either from the begining, or you could have accididently scratched or smudged it somehow. I found even the smallest injury to a disk can cause big problems.

 

I had Mdk 10 Community burned and it worked fine, then suddenly I started getting a freeze at a certain location on subsequent installs. The face of the CD looked fine, still it wouldn't work. I still had the ISO's on my HD, so I burned another, and everything was fine after that.

[MikeWrite 0]

It wasn't the CDs - although just to be sure, I redownloaded the ISOs, md5 checked them, and reburned them at a slower speed. Still froze, at the same general spot in package installation.

 

Based on other posts I've seen, I tried removing my USB mouse and reconnecting it via a PS/2 adapter. Voila - installation then proceeded normally, passing the place where it had always frozen.

 

After inexplicably being asked for CD 4 - CD 4? - I moved on to post-install configuration. Got past installation of the bootloader; I seemed moments from successful completion.

 

Until, that is, a screen appeared that said "configuring printer Canoni560." And there it froze, again. No, I don't have the printer connected via USB; the mouse is my only USB peripheral. Just an ordinary parallel port printer connection.

 

At this point I have attempted to install Mandrake 10 some four or five times. That's enough. This thing is way too crappy for prime time: an OS installation that chokes on long-established, common hardware configurations? No thanks.

 

Into the trash with this one. Good thing CD blanks are cheap these days. On to another distro to see what happens.

 

Linux remains a boutique OS for a reason.

[martouf 0]

I hear your frustration, but keep in mind Mandrake reliably serves a substantial user

population world-wide.

 

When you say "freezes", do you mean the mouse pointer won't move and when you tap

the Caps Lock button, the CapsLock LED doesn't change state?

or do you mean some progress indicator window just sits there unchanging?

 

Have you typed Ctrl-Alt-1 and logged in as root to see what your system is up to?

 

It sounds like you've got flakey USB hardware.

 

 

[Dapper Dan 0]

Sorry to hear of your problems. I'd be pissed too. I installed Mdk 10 twice to have a look at it, and although I had no problems with my USB mouse, it did do crazy things with my HP Deskjet 5550. Every so often it would just spit paper out for no reason. On two seperate installs this happened!

 

If I may make a suggestion: Fedora Core 1. With the updates, it is very stable. In fact, It is more stable than Mandrake 9.0 was for me, and I bragged on it too!

 

I've looked at Core 2, and though it is impressive in many ways, my personal feeling is it ain't quite ready for prime time, but I'll give it a few months.

 

I just don't know what's happened to Mandrake. I know a lot of users like it a lot, and I'm not taking pot shots, (I'm still a member of Mandrake club), but 9.1 and 9.2 were a huge disappointment for me after the stability of 9.0. 10 seems a little better, but in my opinion Fedora has it beat by a mile!

 

If you are thinking Debian, you might want to have a look at Mepis. It's install is very easy, and it has good hardware detection. Knoppix is also a fast and easy way to install Debian.

 

Sorry I couldn't help more..

[danleff 0]

Looks like it is a Abit bios bug with the nForce chipset and linux kernels. See the brief post here.