Stupid Mandriva question.

[Tophinator]

This is probably a stupid question but how do I get Mandriva to work? That is, I installed it today and its on the same partion that my windows is on(i know its dangerous) and it boots up and stuff and I get to a DOS looking login screen. So I enter in my name and password it just does nothing. I type in help(still in DOS looking mode) and it gives me a list of commands. How in the world do I use the actual OS with the GUI?????? Its the free edition, also known as the "tree" edition so I hope that means that there is no major programming I have to do.

When I try running startx, startkde, or start gnome it just gives me a bunch of errors on how the directories and stuff cant be found. What happened?

[Dangermouse1]

You say it is the free version did you down load it yourself and if so did you check the MD5Sum the info can be found at http://www.linuxiso.org/viewdoc.php/verifyiso.html

Also I do not think you can have Linux on the same partition as windows normally if you only have one partition on your hard drive before you install Linux it will make another partition for you.

[Tophinator]

Im pretty sure you can install it on a windows partition but you have to seperate it. Anyway I ended up uninstalling it and putting it on its own partition. I then figured out what my problem really was. When ever I entered the command "startx", "statekde" or "startgnome" it would always give me an error about how it couldnt load a screen or something. Turns out it was because my video driver wasnt loaded correctly. But it all works now. One problem I do have now tho is that it will only display a 1024x746 or whatever when my monitors natural res. is 1280x1024.

[dragonxx4]

Just a simple questin, but what graphics chip are you using, I was having some of the same problems and would like to know.

[Tophinator]

im running a saphire 9800 Pro.

[kilgoretrout]

You are likely to have problems with that card. You are booting to a command line login which indicates that the gui has not been properly configured. In linux, the gui is built on top of the system with a package called the X windows system which is maintained and devleoped by an organisation called "X.Org". Unfortunately, mandriva shipped mdv 2006 with a development release from xorg in which the open source ati drivers are broken. This was done because the development release included centrino support.

You can try reconfiguring your graphical system from the command line by logging in and running:

$ su
[enter root password]
# XFdrake

Linux is case sensitive so note the capitalization.

That brings up the mandriva graphics config program XFdrake. Navigate using the arrow keys and you can reset the graphics card driver, screen resolution, monitor, ect and test your changes to see if you are getting graphical output. Keep going until you get something that works. Minimally, you should be able to get into a gui with the vesa driver.