ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I just spent the last 2 days recovering from Mandrake Linux 8.2 fucking up my master boot record and boot sector on my primary hard disk. I had moved everything from my backup drive onto my primary drive to install Linux. Then it was just one problem after another.... (in POST, my mobo even said that Linux was a virus, btw)

Linux 8.2 doesn't like my video card/monitor combination. I tried all three of my video cards on both monitors, and while they recognized, the colors are all mucked up. The colors seem reversed (black is white, etc.).

Then it decided not to default gui mode. Ugh.. no printed documentation to look at. Spent 6 hours guesing the name of the utility to change that.

Finally got back into KDE, colors still reversed. Damn pc started squeeling really loud. Discovered my secondary ide cable was half fallen apart. Then my secondary hard drive was doing some weird crap -- like the gears were messed up.

So, I disconnected everything but my primary drive, only to get a screenfull of zeros and ones when I tried to reboot to XP. Reconnected the secondary drive to boot to Linux, only to find that LILO wouldn't load, and my boot floppy wouldn't woork.

Then I spent all of today trying to figure out what to do to recover. Finally got the guts to try using XP Recovery and running the fixmbr and fixboot commands, cringing at the warnings about loosing parition data.

Wheww... thank god it worked or I would have been screwed for sure. I have 6 years of email, databases, few thousand dollaars worth of programs installed, and essays on that sucker..

All better now Smile Gonna invest in a couple new hard drives and a raid controller just to be on the safe side from now on.

[edit]brewt: oops, sorry, i didn't mean to edit your post.[/edit]

--Philip
Links 2.0 moderator

Probably because you have the so called virus boot protection turned on. It treats anything that attempts to modify the boot record a 'virus'.

What video card do you have? Monitor shouldn't make a difference as long as it's setup properly in the X conf.

ewww, gui as default.

raid won't help you at all in situations like this. It will help if one of your hard drives dies (if you're using some form of redundancy), but if you screw up your partitions, delete your files, etc , raid won't help. You're more in need of a backup system (tape, cdr, etc).

Adrian

Yeah, I found out I have "Trend Chip-Away Virus". It's turned off now. I need to proofread my posts a little ;-) I meant it didn't default to loading in gui. arrg. I'm not a fan of text mode.

Configure-X is annoying. If you change the graphic card, you have to set your monitor, resolution, and graphic depth all over again. The graphics cards I have are ATI Radeon 32MB SDR (pci), ATI XPert 128 (pci), and Ttrident 3Dimage 975 (agp). My monitors are the NEC MultiSync C500 and a KDS VS-190is. Under Mandrake 7.2 I didn't have this reversed color problem. Any ideas?

I do have a CDRW, but I can't get a single freaking CDR to burn completely. I always get buffer and speed errors no matter the speed setting. I'm using Nero Burning Rom 5.5. XP's builtin burning software bites (no options to burn an image, etc.). CDRW's seem to always work fine for some reason, but I'm not about to spend a lot on a cake of disks when I can get a 30GB HD for the same price. I don't have the patience to try to break my HD down into 650MB chunks to write to CD.

Would you consider this a decent pc?
Tyan S2460 Dual Socket A DDR ATX Motherboard ($206)
Antec SX-1040 Case (10-Bay) w/400 PS ($150)
2 * AMD Athlon XP 1900+ Processor ($175 ea.)
2 * Maxtor 80GB EIDE 7200 / 2MB / 8.0 / ATA-100 Hard Drive ($140 ea.)
TDK veloCD 40x12x48x Internal IDE CDRW W/48x RIP ($150)
2 * PC2100 DDR 512MB ($103 ea.)
(don't care about monitors, or glue parts (video adapters, etc.)... got enough of em already)

total price: $1342
prices are from pricewatch.com and tigerdirect.com.

--Philip
Links 2.0 moderator

hmmmm .... granted that's about 1/3 of similar setup for a dual G4 from apple but since you program and what not ... OSX is still a decent system now with Adobe almost completely UNIX based software.

Draw backs of OSX ... a bit expensive ... roughly 1.2 (figuring you have to dink around with M$ / LINUX .. worry about registries, viruses, cheap hard ware is ... cheap) so after maintance and what not you are only spending about 1.2 more than on a similar 1000 mghz more machine by DELL or someone else.

Benefits, stability, lot's of "good" apps, ability to program, host, regular work (burning CD's is a snap not to mention good sound ability with a great tune's app) and play games off of 1 system.

I do admit that a vaio notebook with XP would be great but the idea of having apache and UNIX running on my machine with ADOBE products is just too much not to pass up. I don't need the snazzy hardware either but ... hehe ... a new iMac at work would just knock the socks off the other teachers.

Although, if M$ were to buy Mandrake and rebuild itself (some talk of this has been on the net) like Apple did I definitely would think twice and really consider M$ products.

oh well ... I'm still in the minority here

---

openoffice + gimp + sketch ...

Can't believe you used God in the same thread as using such other foul language.

To bad this forum doesn't have a bad word filter installed.

Unoffical DBMan FAQ

http://creativecomputingweb.com/dbman/index.shtml/

[aetheist rant]

How many gods does it take to screw in a lightbulb? One, you multi-deity believing SOB

[/aetheist rant]



Cheers - Dan

----
Cheers,

Dan
Founder and CEO

LionsGate Creative
GoodPassRobot
Magelln

>>using such other foul language.<<

It is only foul because we are brought up to believe it is. In reality it is just a collection of letters just like any other word in the dictionary....and IMO as long as it isn't directed at a person (ie you f***** idiot)....then I don't really have a problem with it....thats not to say Im condoning it or saying you should believe what I believe...I was just adding my 2p.

I'm pretty open minded in general...nothing much phases me.

.....infact there are several variations in my English dictionary such as "fuck all" meaning "nothing".

I think words can have different meanings in different countries...the one that cracks me up that the USA use is "fannie".....that means your bottom or butt right?.....you really don't wanna know what it means here in the UK

Tyan S2460 Dual Socket A DDR ATX Motherboard ($206)

- might as well go with the newer S2466 board, I believe it's about the same price

Antec SX-1040 Case (10-Bay) w/400 PS ($150)

- i don't know about you, but i prefer the SX-830/840 as it has enough drive bays and i really don't like stupid doors covering my 5.25" bays! (i have a SX-830 )

2 * AMD Athlon XP 1900+ Processor ($175 ea.)

- i can't remember if you can actually use XP's in dual configs or not (i'll do a little search later), but you might need to go with MP's for dual. do you really need dual's? sure they're cool and all, but will you be putting them to full use?

2 * Maxtor 80GB EIDE 7200 / 2MB / 8.0 / ATA-100 Hard Drive ($140 ea.)
TDK veloCD 40x12x48x Internal IDE CDRW W/48x RIP ($150)
2 * PC2100 DDR 512MB ($103 ea.)

- sounds good... make sure you get some quality DDR, so you don't get plagued with memory errors. also iirc, the tyan boards can be picky with the ram they use.

Adrian

actually, note that if you wish to put more than 2 dimms on these mobo's, you're going to have to use registered ddr, so you might want to consider going with registered in the first place.

you might want to consider ASUS' and MSI's MPX mobo's since they're more geared towards the desktop.

also, the XP's *should* run in dual configurations, but this is bios dependent, so a new bios could change this behaviour...

Adrian

NOW, if you eliminate the need for a second CPU. A similar setup with "1" CPU by Apple would do you just Jim dandy.

Besides with some MO Boards in the intel world you have to worry about "bad and cheap" memory problems. Apple makes it harder on the memory manufacturers formt he beginning and "really cheap" memory is just not really advisable ... therefore the slight jump in prices for memory used in Apple machines.

ahhh ... forgot to mention that "sadly games do come out later" on the mac platform. But, that's still ok since the companies have had the time to debug them more while the pc gamers find all the bugs.

oh well ... either way ... I'd still look at the platform which would fit your needs and make you the most proficent at what you're doing. Going with a mac cuz they're cool OR going with a M$ compatiable machine cuz they're cheap ... aren't really good reasons.

---

openoffice + gimp + sketch ...

Lois, I'm sorry if you were offended by my post. I'd change it, but do to the 30 minute limit to edit posts imposed on this forum that's imposible.

Carsten, still trying to sell me a Mac so your Apple stock will go up? Sorry.. not gonna do it. I'd have to drive 50 miles to find a shop that sold Mac software.

The reason I'm going for a dual processor system is that I want to have a pc that won't need updating for a couple years... seeing how software is requiring more and more power.

--Philip
Links 2.0 moderator

Why do you think I keep mentioning macs .... my G4 is going on 4 years old and what not! I'm expecting at least another fruitful year of use out of the machine.

50 miles for a shop to find a shop that sells mac software .... hmmm ... you're forgetting OSX is BSD basically.

hmmm but you better think about the dual CPU idea. Lot's of software don't/won't support a second chip.

Nope, I missed the sweet spot for buying Apple stock. I didn't have the extra cash at the time cuz I was busy drinking and chatting with the ladies.

---

openoffice + gimp + sketch ...

Makes no difference. Local shops sell the operating system and that's it.

--Philip
Links 2.0 moderator

I'd recommend a Plextor drive for your CDR/RW, especially if you've had problems burning lots of 'coasters'. And as Brewt says, go with a reliable motherboard manufacturer. I like ASUS.

Also, I'm not sure you're saving yourself any money on future upgrades by going dual processor. Why not stick with a single AMD processor that you can upgrade more frequently? You could probably get two processor upgrades out of one motherboard setup per upgrade cycle.

Myself, I upgrade motherboard/cpu about every 12 to 18 months - just because I can...and it's pretty cheap. Biggest cost comes when you do a complete cpu/motherboard/memory upgrade.

Okay... got things working on my 8th Linux installation attempt this week. This time during installation I figured out for sure that my primary video card was at fault. Since the card has TV out, I turned on my TV and set it to an AUX channel so I view the installation for the heck of it. When I got to Configure-X, I set the screen resolution above 800x600. Doing that caused the monitor to black out and stopped recieving a signal, while the TV showed a screwed up picture. Appearently the video card optimizes the output signal for the TV out port rather than the monitor. In WinXP that wasn't a problem because you could turn off the TV-out, but when it was on, if the resolution was set above 800x600 you simply "scrolled" the desktop like you would in a browser.

Changing the card to one without TV-out before installation fixed the problem.

I still don't understand why when I changed the video card after prior installations none of the changes I made in Configure-X helped any, or why I was getting reversed colors in the first place.

--Philip
Links 2.0 moderator

I sympathize with you... If I had a dime for every time I ran configX (or Xconfig or whatever - it always takes me twenty minutes just to remember what it's called) I'd be rich. I finally found a custom setting that would let me use my older Trident card, but it was still a bit funky.

The problem I had was my monitor's sync rate was not within the specs listed so I had to hack around until I got the combination of the two right.

It seems to me though that if your machine will run XP, it should be backwards compatible, since you should have some fairly modern equipment (unlike me).

Good Luck!

Hm... now that you mention it, Configure-X did the same to me. My monitor handles 1600x1200 @ 75Hz, but I was only given options for 28Hz to 34Hz. I don't dare go and see what I have it set at now cause Configure-X wipes out your settings every time you touch it.

Well, I've learned a few things from this.

1) just because cd 2 and 3 are required during install, doesn't mean they aren't required after installation. I'm missing quite a bit of stuff, and I can't upgrade to KDE 3.0 without first downloading and burning the third IS0 because of some single missing file that exists on that cd.

2) For me, Mandrake seems only as stable as win98. configuration tools seem at about that level as well.

3) install in "expert" mode. there are some settings you should configure yourself.

4) During install, put the bootloader on a floppy as a backup. Losing Linux will wipe out the bootloader and leave you pulling your hair out trying to fix things.

5) it's very annoying to have to log in as root to change things all the time.

I'm happy with how things are set up overall. I'm using Galeon browsing, Mozilla for my mail client, and Gaim for instant messages. I don't plan to do much on Linux so I've only alotted 500MB for a FAT32 partition for passing files between XP and Linux. That could all change if I get the hange of how to use shell scripts, RPMs, and all those Unix command line programs. And seeing how I just chucked up $200 for XP last month I think that "free" is gonig to be the way to go next time around too if MS can't impress me enough.

--Philip
Links 2.0 moderator