Linux Format forums

Marrea · Posted: Sat Feb 02, 2008 9:53 pm Post subject:

Rhakios

Just to let you know that I find I can now change the look of my clock and it sticks even after a reboot. I don't know whether one of the updates has brought this about or not. It could just be one of those little unexplained Linux idiosyncrasies I suppose. Confused

I have also managed to solve the "urpmi database locked" problem I referred to above by simply getting rid of the update applet with:

Rhakios · Posted: Sun Feb 03, 2008 1:10 pm Post subject:

Marrea
I might have a look, but Mandriva, which used to be such fun, hardly seems worth it to me these days.
I don't think this is the first time there have been problems with mdkonline either. Did it lock the rpm database permanently, or merely while it took (an excessive) time to fetch update info.
On openSUSE, there's no point in looking at installing packages while the updater is doing its thing, odd that it usually chooses to about the time I'm thinking of installing some new packages. Rolling Eyes

_________________
Bye, Rhakios

Marrea · Posted: Sun Feb 03, 2008 3:38 pm Post subject:

Rhakios

Once locked, it would indeed remain permanently locked.

I'd boot into Mandriva, it would do its searching, tell me there were updates, which I would then install. After that I would carry on working, typing documents, surfing the net, etc. and then suddenly notice that the icon had changed to orange with a question mark. Hovering the mouse over would give the database locked message. It would then remain like that, even if I rebooted, which meant I couldn't use Install and Remove Software to install anything.

The next day I'd boot in, it would do its searching, show the green tick icon and all would appear to be well. However, after a while, for no apparent reason, the icon would change to the question mark again.

I thought to myself, here we go - SuSE 10.1 all over again!

However I have decided to persevere with Mandriva this time instead of (as I have usually done in the past) giving up at the first hurdle, which in this case was the hosing of the MBR during installation. Wink

Goner · Joined: Wed Jan 30, 2008 8:19 am Posts: 13

hi,

I just allowed Mandriva Online to get the updates for the first time since installation. There were about 157 entries in the list, guess that's normal first time, and everything went fine (green checkmark icon). I notice that the mdkonline package description mentions 'registered users' but I never registered (yet) ... ??

I configured repositories thru the media manager (official updates & distribution sources) and also on Easy Urpmi (http://easyurpmi.zarb.org/).

EDIT:
the bad news is that after restarting, all of a sudden the default (1st) entry of Grub now starts a command-line Linux !! GUI (KDE) is gone ... !?
Entry is now :
linux (/boot/vmlinuz-desktop)

and there are 2 new entries :
desktop 2.6.22.9-1 (/boot/vmlinuz)
desktop 2.6.22.12-1 (/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.22-12-desktop-1mdv)

the first one gives me the old KDE ...

1 more of these features and I'm switching to Ubuntu ... Sad

Goner · Joined: Wed Jan 30, 2008 8:19 am Posts: 13

Looks like I locked myself out of Linux ... thought I would edit /boot/grub/menu.lst to get rid of the unwanted menu items and now all I get is a black screen with 'GRUB' in th upper-left corner.

Think I'm gonna give Mandriva a miss until I feel more masochistic ... Sad

Marrea · Posted: Mon Feb 04, 2008 9:07 pm Post subject:

Goner

I would hazard a guess that your problem was something to do with one of your updates being a kernel update - which requires the reinstallation of your nvidia driver afterwards. And before the driver will reinstall you would have to go through the edit to the /usr/src/linux/Makefile that you did before - but this time changing the EXTRAVERSION line to match the updated kernel.

Unfortunately now you have edited menu.lst I am not quite sure where this leaves you. I don't know whether Rhakios (or anyone else) can offer any advice here. I'm no expert on video drivers I'm afraid.

In case it helps, here is my current Mandriva menu.lst after updating my kernel a few days ago:

title linux
kernel (hd0,1)/boot/vmlinuz-desktop BOOT_IMAGE=linux root=/dev/hda2 resume=/dev/hda6 splash=silent vga=788
initrd (hd0,1)/boot/initrd-desktop.img

title linux-nonfb
kernel (hd0,1)/boot/vmlinuz BOOT_IMAGE=linux-nonfb root=/dev/hda2 resume=/dev/hda6
initrd (hd0,1)/boot/initrd.img

title failsafe
kernel (hd0,1)/boot/vmlinuz BOOT_IMAGE=failsafe root=/dev/hda2 failsafe
initrd (hd0,1)/boot/initrd.img

title windows
root (hd0,0)
makeactive
chainloader +1

title desktop 2.6.22.9-1
kernel (hd0,1)/boot/vmlinuz BOOT_IMAGE=desktop_2.6.22.9-1 root=/dev/hda2 resume=/dev/hda6 splash=silent vga=788
initrd (hd0,1)/boot/initrd.img

title desktop 2.6.22.12-1
kernel (hd0,1)/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.22.12-desktop-1mdv BOOT_IMAGE=desktop_2.6.22.12-1 root=/dev/hda2 resume=/dev/hda6 splash=silent vga=788
initrd (hd0,1)/boot/initrd-2.6.22.12-desktop-1mdv.img

Rhakios · Posted: Mon Feb 04, 2008 9:40 pm Post subject:

I thought nelz was the resident grub expert. If you get a grub prompt, you can boot the system by inputting the details manually, I'm sure nelz will be along soon to tell you exactly how.
If you want to modify the bootloader at a later date, it would be a good idea to use the tool in Mandriva Control Centre, as it will make it slightly more difficult to mess things up.
Of course, uninstalling old kernel packages (as long as you know the new kernel is functioning as desired) will also remove their entries from grub, in my experience.
_________________
Bye, Rhakios

Goner · Joined: Wed Jan 30, 2008 8:19 am Posts: 13

That's exactly how my menu.lst looked (after the updates).
I saw some kernel-devel & kernel-source packages in the liist of update/patches, but did not think it would actually update the working kernel itself.

When the first entry only gave me a command-line, I tried some of the others and the 5th (title desktop 2.6.22.9-1 ) booted me into my 'old' Mandriva !!
So I thought I could just change the 1st entry back to 'initrd (hd0,1)/boot/initrd.img', but that did not work.

Btw, I did try the boot config tool in Control Centre first, but it does not let you change the 'initrd' lines.

Goner · Joined: Wed Jan 30, 2008 8:19 am Posts: 13

OK, just did a fresh install of Mandriva 2008 ... I gues I'm one of those 'gluttons for punishment'.

Of course it trashed the MBR again (and guess what, Fix Windows Root in the Mandriva Rescue mode does not - fix it that is).

Marrea,

>Rebooted (don't know whether you have to do this or not, but I did) and ran
>sh NVIDIA-Linux-x86-169.07-pkg1.run
>and this time it installed OK.

which extra packages did you have to install for that ?? I remember I had to get both kernel-devel and kernel-source for the installer to compile correctly. is that right ?

Hima · Joined: Tue Feb 05, 2008 7:14 pm Posts: 2

my friends i'm sure that you are very good in that way
thanks alot for your help

Marrea · Posted: Tue Feb 05, 2008 9:31 pm Post subject:

Goner · Joined: Wed Jan 30, 2008 8:19 am Posts: 13

OK, thanks!
I am about to install the Nvidia driver. Looks like only the kernel-source is needed as installing that package creates the /usr/src/linux folder and the Makefile.
Latest version is 2.6.22.9-2mdv, so I changed the Makefile accordingly (might try 2.6.22.12 later when I feel really brave).

About the Mandriva rescue option ; it detected a Grub on /sda (MBR) and /sda5 (Linux EXT3 partition), so I told it to fix the /sda and 2 clicks and a reboot later, nothing had changed ...
Also it looks like the installation first by default installs Grub on the MBR and then later (in the Summary) asks where it should be installed and then installs Grub again ... but the MBR remains trashed.

OOPS! : had to install kernel-source-2.6.22.9-1mdv, not -2mdv !!

Goner · Joined: Wed Jan 30, 2008 8:19 am Posts: 13

Well, with the lessons learned the 2nd installation was a success ... spending more & more time in Linux!!

Any suggestions for useful software to install ??
Installed so far:
- Nvidia 169.09 drivers and Enemy Territory:Quake Wars (main reason to install Linux)
- Google Earth
- Thunderbird & ntfs-config/ntfs-3g to symlink the Mail folder already on Windows NTFS partition for reading/writing.

Does anybody know if one of the older Sun Java's will work with Firefox ? As mentioned 1.6 is a bit of a problem.

jalanb · Joined: Sat Sep 20, 2008 5:04 am Posts: 1