[ltp] Newbie Mandrake 9.1 - T23

[Richard Neill]

Dear Sylvestre,

Sorry to hear you are having trouble. This might help a bit...
http://www.linux-on-laptops.com/ibm.html
has a list of what other people have done on a T23.

Worth reading all of them. Stuff that applies to RedHat applies quite 
well to Mandrake.

> I guess I need to download a graphic chipset driver, right ?

Probably - see above.

> How do I install it ? Linux boots fine, but I can't "do" anything since X
> Windows is all garbled up and unusable.

You have various text-consoles available - switch between them via 
Ctrl-Alt-Fx where x=[1,2,3,4,5,6] for text, and 7 for graphics.

To install an rpm, first become root (su), then use "urpmi 
packagename.rpm" .


> Can I install this driver from a W2K boot ? I guess not.

No, but if you have the driver on a Win partition, you should be able to 
copy it onto your linux partition - use:
cp /mnt/windows/path_to_file /home/xyz/
(This assumes that your win partition is mounted under /mnt/windows - 
type "mount" for a list)

> Can I install this driver from the Mandrake install utility ? I guess not.
> 
> But there MUST be some way to install it. Should I boot into Linux but
> without X Windows (ie : command line. But how do I do that ?).

Boot Linux, then use a text console (ctrl-alt-F1) to have a command prompt.

> And if I manage to do that, how do I take the driver from my Windows
> partition and put it in my Linux partition ? (my DSL modem only works in
> Windows and the winmodem isn't supported).
> And where do I put the driver files to make them work ?

If you can get an rpm file, then "urpmi" will do all the work you need 
here. Actually urpmi is very useful. It works on all .rpm files.
(If you see a .tar.gz or a .deb file, these are not designed for 
Mandrake - they can be used, but that's another story).

I hope that is of some use.

Good luck

Richard


P.S. Use http://plf.zarb.org/~nanardon/  to define your urpmi sources. 
Once you have a working network under linux, it will save you lots of 
time. (This isn't useful till you get your modem fixed - but that should 
be doable)