installing fedora core 5

[c0nst4 0]

hi everyone, i am new to linux and have no idea at all with the command line.

i want to install fedora core 5 on my second hard drive.

it wont work after all.

i had this message concerning with grub

error loading GRUB 1.5

error 22

 

and after some reboots it will change to error 18 then it can go back again. i cant access to my windows because of this. them i installed mandrake 9.2 (before move to fedora, i installed it but getting confused in installing the driver and it seems my dvd has corrupt file in the rpm packages)just to get the boot loader so i can access windows, delete the mandrake and fix the boot loader.

 

i try to use many third party boot loader but it wont work at all and when it comes to reboot, it will go straight to XP.

 

i also get confused with the partition manager in fedora, to me mandrake is easier to use the partition.

 

i follow installation guide in the net ( but avoiding the one that using the code, cause i dont understand at all) but still i m having difficulties.

 

mandrake is easier to install but i dont know why the system became weird. mouse cant be used in the middle of the process, some applications cant be turned off. thats y i think i changed my mind to fedora core 5

 

i installed it using dvd iso. but does it matter?

 

so now i downloaded the iso file for the cd which has 5 files iso, is there anything else i should download?

(because i have this message when the last time i updated fedora to install the boot loader saying: "no kernel packages were installed on your system........."

 

so anyone can help me? i m tired going over and over again with this not to mention i m having lack of sleep because of this

 

so right now my second HDD is empty, i think i will install it using all the guides you guys provide for me. i think i will have a sleep now.

 

 

ooh by the way here is my system

 

AMD Athlon XP 2000+

ASUS A7V333

Master: seagate 60G (Windows XP Pro)

Slave: Western Digital 160G (empty)

NVIDIA GeForce4 MX 440

ASUS DVD RW

1 GB RAM

 

thanx for the help.......

[danleff 0]

Folks are probably tired of hearing this from me, but, you need to have a plan. I suggest that you stop trying to install, uninstall and install different versions of linux.

 

Problem #1

 

You are trying to install two very different Linux distros, one older (Mandrake 9.2) and one very new (Fedora Core 5). Mandrake 9.2 is older and may not support all your hardware. Before installing any distro (flavor of Linux), you should check to see if your hardware is supported.

 

Problem #2

 

It looks like you have messed up your MBR, or not configured Grub during your installations correctly. Where have you been telling each distro to install Grub? To the MBR each time? If so, of which drive, your primary master drive (hda) or the second one, which could be hdb, or whatever, depending on how your system is configured with the hard drives and DVD drive. This, or course, depends on how your two hard drives are jumpered and cabled.

 

Realize, that you can't delete or change Linux partitions after you have installed Grub, as Grub needs to reference the root linux filesystem to boot properly. So, if you have Grub installed from say, FC5, and delete Fedora's partition, grub is broke. This could account for the error 22, which means that Grub can't find a valid partition where it is looking for the kernel to boot. Windows will not boot, because the reference files that were located on the Fedora root filesystem are gone.

 

 

Quote:

i try to use many third party boot loader but it wont work at all and when it comes to reboot, it will go straight to XP.

 

What boot managers did you try? Do they support Linux? Also realize that some boot managers, if installed on your hard drive, may alter the partition order, or overwrite the MBR. If they overwrite the MBR and don't support Linux, then Linux will not boot.

 

Problem #3

 

Quote:

i installed it but getting confused in installing the driver and it seems my dvd has corrupt file in the rpm packages

 

Quote:

i installed it using dvd iso. but does it matter?

 

Did you verify the integrety of the downloads (allow the installer to check the integrety of the iso burn, or check to see if the md5sum was ok) before trying the installation?

 

 

Also, what speed did you burn the iso to the DVD? ISO images need to be burned at a slow speed, say 4X or 8X, no faster, to burn to disk correctly. This can account for errors in packages on the disk during the installation. See my article here.

[c0nst4 0]

hi danleff thx for the reply.

 

as u said bout the plan yes i do have the plan and that is to install the FC5 because mandrake 9.2 is messed with my ethernet card and many more.

i do not know if my hardware is compatible with linux or so. but when i install FC 5, in the process it recognised my ethernet, mouse and everything perfectly which is good. it only messed up with the boot manager.

 

as your reply in problem 2, i did mess up in the mbr cause i did not fix it up the MBR for mandrake 9.5, i just straight away install FC 5. maybe thats why. but i already fix the boot manager using recovery console ( CD windows XP).

i havent try yet to install again the FC cause i have assignment from my uni.

 

ooh the boot manager is compatible with linux but wont work. i think i wont use it.

 

and i already checked the integrity of my dvd in the process of installing FC5.

 

about burning the iso dvd i use 16x, that was the speed in the dvd and my dvd rw rom also compatible to burn in 16x speed.

 

anyway maybe today i will try again and let you know about it.

 

thanx again danleff.

[c0nst4 0]

hi danleff thx for the reply.

 

as u said bout the plan yes i do have the plan and that is to install the FC5 because mandrake 9.2 is messed with my ethernet card and many more.

i do not know if my hardware is compatible with linux or so. but when i install FC 5, in the process it recognised my ethernet, mouse and everything perfectly which is good. it only messed up with the boot manager.

 

as your reply in problem 2, i did mess up in the mbr cause i did not fix it up the MBR for mandrake 9.5, i just straight away install FC 5. maybe thats why. but i already fix the boot manager using recovery console ( CD windows XP).

i havent try yet to install again the FC cause i have assignment from my uni.

 

ooh the boot manager is compatible with linux but wont work. i think i wont use it.

 

and i already checked the integrity of my dvd in the process of installing FC5.

 

about burning the iso dvd i use 16x, that was the speed in the dvd and my dvd rw rom also compatible to burn in 16x speed.

 

anyway maybe today i will try again and let you know about it.

 

thanx again danleff.

[danleff 0]

Quote:

as your reply in problem 2, i did mess up in the mbr cause i did not fix it up the MBR for mandrake 9.5, i just straight away install FC 5. maybe thats why. but i already fix the boot manager using recovery console ( CD windows XP).
i havent try yet to install again the FC cause i have assignment from my uni.

OK, the point is, did you install Grub to the MBR of hda when you installed Fedora? Did you install Fedora to your primary master drive, or the second drive?

Did you use the default partitoning settings, or customize the partition setings, say wipe the Mandrake partition first and install to that, or set up the partiton ahead of time, then do the installation?

The grub error is related to a partition that does not exist. Either the old Mandrake Grub file was on the MBR, or you did not install Grub from Fedora to the MBR of your primary master drive.

What I am getting at, is where did you install grub each time (the Mandrake installation and the Fedora one) and where did you install each distro, to the first or second (empty) drive?

Quote:

ooh the boot manager is compatible with linux but wont work. i think i wont use it.

...and what boot manager was this? If the boot manager that you used takes over the MBR, or changes the partition scheme in the process of using it, then this can potentually cause problems.

Quote:

about burning the iso dvd i use 16x, that was the speed in the dvd and my dvd rw rom also compatible to burn in 16x speed.

I think you missed the point. You used the correct media for the drive. Good. But, problems with installing from a boot disk burned at too high a speed can result in problems installing or apparently bad rpm files when the install progresses. ISO images need to be burned slowly, as I mentioned in the article and my above post. This could have been the problem that you mentioned with "bad rpm files."

[c0nst4 0]

hiya danleff.

if you see this posting i just want to let you know that my FC5 is working properly.

it is just as you said, i screwed in boot manager. but when i fixed that up, there s no problem at all in FC5.

 

all i can tell is FC5 is magnificent. i like it very much.

 

i just need to set things up which i havent know how.

like the boot manager showed up very quick like 1 sec or less than it access to FC right away. i want the boot manager displayed long enough. am i be able to do that?

 

i also confused about the other device such as dvd rom, floopy disc, digital camera, as i cant make them work. what is the logic on this system to make this work?

 

and should i install my video card (GeForce4 MX440) so i can have resolution of 1024x768. cause this is wont do.

 

and last question (for now) do i need to set things up other than this?

 

 

thank you

[danleff 0]

Great! I was going one step at a time, to see exactly how your system was set up. My next step would have been to tell you how to recover the bootloader, but you were able to do this on your own.

 

The one minor flaw in Fedora, for many users, is the lack of default utilities that "tweakers" would like to use. Your example makes the point. FC5 is set up for average users. It assumes that you will use FC5 as your main OS and forget about Windows, or other distros.

 

The isntaller does not, by default, install "everthing" unless you tell it to.

 

You can change the boot time fairly easily.

 

I also am just learning Gnome and usually use KDE as my desktop GUI, so my directions may have easier alternatives.

 

What you need, is an editor. Go to Applications--> Add/Remove Software. You will need your root password, that you chose during the installation. Once on the Add/Remove Software screen (it can be a bit slow to come uo), click on "search." Type in mc.

 

Scroll down to the mc - :1.46...."user firendly text console."

 

Choose to install this program.

 

When that is done, get to a terminal window, as root user.

 

Type in su hit the enter key, then insert your root password.

 

Applications-->Accessories-->Terminal.

 

Move to the grub menu file directory.

 

cd /boot/grub

 

Type in mc, then choose the menu.lst file and to edit it by pushing the F4 key.

 

Use your down arrow key to move to the Timeout= line.

 

Change that value to 50. It probably is 10 now.

 

Save the changes (F2), say "yes" and close the editor.

 

The next time that you boot via grub, the menu will stay open for a while longer.

 

In terms of your video card,what is in the system now? Is the MX440 installed now, or do you want to install it?

 

[danleff 0]

OK, on to the hardware, like floppies and such.

 

When you insert a DVD or CD into your drive, it should be mounted and a file manager window should come up after a few seconds. FC5 should be set up to do this automagically.

 

Floppies are a little different. They are not mounted on insertion.

 

Once a floppy disk is in your drive, choose from the menu, Places-->Computer-->floppy drive. This mounts the drive, Hit the floppy drive icon again (if the file manager window does not appear) and the floppy should be mounted and a file manager window should appear, displaying the contents of the floppy.

 

To look at another floppy, you need to unmount it. Close the file manger window that displays the current contents of the floppy. Right click with your mouse on the floppy icon and chose to "unmount volume." Wait a few seconds before removing the floppy for the unmount to finish.

 

A digital camera is also differnt. I have not tried this with FC5 yet, but let me do so and let you know how I think Fedora handles this.

 

In terms of adding things. What are you looking to add?

 

I found a few good resources for intermediate users. See;

 

Personal Fedora Core 5 Installation Guide and;

 

Fedora Core 5 Installation Notes.

[c0nst4 0]

hi danleff,

thx for the quick reply. sry i was just away from easter holiday. anyway happy easter for everyone.

 

danleff ur last reply was SUPERB!!!!!! it was working perfectly fine. i was astounded u kno so much. now people beside me at my house can use this computer and access XP.

 

yes about adding things. it s about driver maybe some application.

i found that many downloadable driver or software comes either with .rpm, .mun, .tar.gz. my question is for different extension file they have different way to install it right? even the same extension file has different way to install the file (e.g. a.tar.gz & b.tar.gz has different way to install) how is that possible?

 

i learned C++ and java previously, but i cant understand until now whats the logic for those extension.

 

all i can do is just follow the instruction to install but sometime it s not working. i found it very difficult. is that just me or everyone else experienced the same thing?

 

is there any standard command line which is used often to install software or driver? or maybe do u have article in the net just basic things to install things or give me uderstanding bout all this?

 

thanx for your time