Nix n00b, Mandrake not booting into GUI

Z

Zxcs

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Sep 11, 2004
Messages
2,007
Well, I thought I'd install mandrake linux 9.2 on my 2.4 celeron POS. The installation went successfully but when I boot the machine, all I get is the console asking for login name and pwd.

After inputting the correct user/pass info, it goes on to the console, basically the whole screen is just a big console with the mandrake logo in the background. I can type/execute commands but I cant get the GUI (with the taskbar, windows etc).

After getting the same distro to run on my 800 p3 lappy, I don't see why its bugged on my celeron.

Any ideas?

Thanks, Zxcs
 
DoMeHardR said:
Try start x
Click to expand...

Thanks for the reply, too bad it didnt work :(

Also note starting eth0 failed on boot, could that be the problem?

Thanks again, Z
 
omg I r teh stoopid. After looking through the manual for about an hour I found the command WAS startx. Thanks DoMeHardR.

However the thing still won't boot since it seems to have problems with my Geforce 4. It says failure to initiazile the NVIDIA kernel module.

Any suggestions?

Teh *nix noob, Zxcs
 
Zxcs said:
omg I r teh stoopid. After looking through the manual for about an hour I found the command WAS startx. Thanks DoMeHardR.

However the thing still won't boot since it seems to have problems with my Geforce 4. It says failure to initiazile the NVIDIA kernel module.

Any suggestions?

Teh *nix noob, Zxcs
Click to expand...
linux nvidia drivers: get the package from the first link, follow the instructions
 
Is there any way to actually download the drivers via the console or will I have to write them to CD and move them that way?

Thanks
 
I also tried wget but every webpages comes up as "not found." I have DHCP enabled on my router and have my computer hooked up to it, is there any other configuration I need to do with it? And if so, how?

Thanks for the help
 
Zxcs said:
Thanks for the reply, too bad it didnt work :(

Also note starting eth0 failed on boot, could that be the problem?

Thanks again, Z
Click to expand...


Your only option is to burn them to CD and install from command line.

If you don't have your ethernet working, you wont be able to use any of the automated download/update methods for your distribution.....
 
Before doing anything else, try just this as root:

modprobe nvidia

then startx as user.

For reference, is this a purchased or free version of Mandrake?

Other things to tinker with are XFdrake (Mandrake's graphics configuration wizard) and drakconnect (network setup wizard). They both run from console. If you have Nvidia onboard LAN (just a guess), it won't work with 9.2 until you install Nvidia's proprietary network driver. From Mandrake 10.0 onwards it works out of the box as between MDK 9.2 and 10.0 the forcedeth driver was written, that's the free software driver for nvidia onboard networking. Why not obtain and install a more recent version of Mandrake, actually? I didn't like 9.2 that much, it was a bit of a pants release. 10.0 is well-regarded, and 10.1 is doing quite well so far, although for some people it's a step back from 10.0.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top