[ale] Bad Install with both Mandrake 6.1 and RH 6.1

[Paul Fisher]

Help. I got my first home computer on July 23, 1999 and I like to
customize things. So I got Linux Mandrake 6.1 (Macmillan Distro from
CompUSA) on October 16. It doesn't work very well. I am using dual boot,
with 1.2 megs for the Linux partition. I am still technically a newbie
and have never used DOS.

Here is what I have: Windows 98 second edition
 Proteva 4.4 GB, 60 Meg of RAM, AMD K6 3D,
SIS 530 Graphics Driver, ESS Solo-1 Sound Card--have to get from ALSA or

OSS, Pixie 15" Model 550 Monitor, Winmodem-[phooey I have to get a new
one]
Aztech MSP3880-U and oh yes, a Xerox XJ8C Docuprint Inkjet Printer
(emulation HP 550C).

So no sound, no internet. I will get a new modem and download the files
for the sound. Okay. Video is pretty good. No mouse or keyboard
problems.

Printer doesn't work. Have used printtool dozens of times with all
possible combinations. Have used the terminal and lpc and stat and up,
down, enable, restart etc. Can never get past "printer not ready
(offline?)".

On Sunday I tried dmesg and got idea to try changing one more time from
lp1 to lp0 and finally it said in lpc stat that the printer was ready
and online. Tried 3 times to do the printool test in ASCII and then once
to print a jpeg file. Wouldn't print. I did get a test print once to
work in windows ms/dos. (They don't have real dos anymore on Windows
98.)

Then I did something stupid and decided to change the background in
Gnome Enlightenment and there went the online. I couldn't get it back.

Now from the beginning I have weird things going on. I have installed
the Mandrake 6.1 thirteen (13) times now. And it gets worse each time.

Terminals won't open sometimes in Gnome when I click the icon in the
panel, takes 3 times. Enlightenment theme GTK won't work and I had to
reinstall twice just to get around it. Cannot get the cdrom to mount to
read the 5 pdf books that Macmillan provides. There are 3 videos on the
cdrom which partially load so the cdrom seems to work though the videos
won't have sound. I have used the "mount /dev/cdrom -t iso 9660 /mnt
/cdrom"  directions in the Mandrake manual. When I try to open one of
the pdf files it won't and tells me to edit the mime properties
application.pdf but I don't know what it wants me to put there.

The floppy drive used to mount and work just fine. That is how I got the
jpeg into Linux. But then the floppy menu skipped half the files on the
disk. I went back to windows, the files are still there. Back to Linux
and the floppy drive menu started scrolling by itself and wouldn't
stop-- I couldn't open anything. So I reinstalled and have no floppy.
Found it and it still scrolls in permanent loop. Reinstalled again same
thing.

Someone from this group has been helping me and yesterday sent me a cd
with Red Hat 6.1 which I installed last night. It isn't any better and
has all the same problems as the Mandrake 6.1 plus it crashed:  "Error
Application "gtop" (process 875) has crashed due to a fatal error
(segmentation fault)." Funny thing though it didn't hang or lock or
anything. So I setup what I could and played a game of solitaire, which
is all I have ever been able to do with Linux since I installed it.

Anybody know what to do?

TIA, Paul Fisher

PS, I live in Atlanta and plan to attend the meeting tonight. It was
suggested I might bring the computer--have never done this, what part
would you need, is the Hard drive enough?