Yes!!! I've successfully installed Mandrake 7.2 after 5 attemps.. few questions..

[fallenang3l]

I've been trying since Friday to no avail, but today was my lucky day and Mandrake finally installed without a single hitch. I've managed to get into KDE and move around, clicking here and there. The first thing I noticed was that I could not connect to the net because my modem (internal, controller 56k modem) is on COM5 and when I tried to reconfigure, Mandrake gives only COM 1 through 4. How do I fix that? The second is that I have GeForce256 SDR and a 19" generic Micron monitor and refresh rate is too low. I can see very small flickering, nevertheless I hate that and it bothers my eyes. I know that my monitor can go up to 1280x1024 in 80 Hz mode (and possibly higher, but I didn't test). How would I force it to go into 80 Hz mode? Finally, where can I get Linux drivers for my Aureal Vortex SQ2500? Well, thanks for your time and help in advance.

[SubPar]

The second is that I have GeForce256 SDR and a 19" generic Micron monitor and refresh rate is too low. I can see very small flickering, nevertheless I hate that and it bothers my eyes. I know that my monitor can go up to 1280x1024 in 80 Hz mode (and possibly higher, but I didn't test). How would I force it to go into 80 Hz mode?

Hm. When I first installed Mandrake 7.0, it set up modelines for my TNT1 for all resolutions and refreshes. I still use them in XFree 4.02 because I can't stand the default 75Hz. Unfortunately, I've never been able to get the modelines to work with nVidia's drivers, only with the nv driver that came with XFree. The best advice I can give is to go to Freshmeat (http://freshmeat.net/) and look for modeline generators. Be warned: using bad modelines can destroy your monitor!

Finally, where can I get Linux drivers for my Aureal Vortex SQ2500?

http://sourceforge.net/projects/aureal

[fallenang3l]

I've just found out that HardDrake has another monitor setting - custom monitor. I've clicked on that and was presented with two text fields, one with horizontal refresh and the other one was a vertical refresh rate. I didn't change anything just yet, but horizontal refresh rate was set to 31.5 and vertical was 50-70. I've looked inside my 19" Micron 900Lx instruction booklet and it says that my monitor has a horizontal sync of 30-95 KHz and vertical of 50-150 Hz. Is that what I should set those textfields to? Pardon my newbieness.

[chimaybleue]

Yep, that's exactly the settings you need ...

[dukeman]

you lucky basterd...

Took me almost 10 different installs. It installed a bunch of times but kept giving damn errors...I lov my windows machine... :)

Dukeman

[chimaybleue]

To install my first Linux box (Drake 7.1 late november), I had to keep installing all week end long , processing about 17 installs (45 mins per install) to find the right settings ... XF86Setup didn't work and I had to reinstall to change X settings to have my graphic view ... Now I exactly know my settings and can reinstall (I switched to Suse) in text mode in 30 mins ... It's great to see the prog !!!

[LiNuts]

As for your Modem, unless it has a Lucent chipset, i dont think you will be able to connect,Thats one of the drawbacks with linux at the moment, not much support for Internal modems.
Cheers
LiNuts