Madwifi in Mandriva

Today I installed the madwifi wireless driver in Mandriva 2008 Spring and it was very easy with no surprises.
What I did came from this guide (Guide One) but I don't agree that it was well written as the blurb contends. So, I'm just going to outline the exact steps I took to get wifi up and running in Mandriva on m MacBook.
First, make sure Subversion is installed in Mandriva (from repos) and then use su to get into root on the terminal. Let's go:

1.

urpmi kernel-source gcc cvs

2. Change directory to wherever you want to download madwifi (I just use ~) and then

svn checkout http://svn.madwifi.org/madwifi/trunk madwifi

3. Then compile the driver

cd madwifi
make clean
make
make install

4. Now load the driver

modprobe ath_pci

and then reboot.
5. Now go to Menu>Tools.System Tools>Configure your Computer and add your root password.
6. In the Mandriva Control Center that opens, select Network & Internet>Set up a new network>wireless
7. You should now see your wireless card listed as an available interface. Select it.
8. Now, if you see your network SSID, select it. However, if this is the first time you probably won't so just add the information asked for (SSID etc)
9. Next I like to select Auto IP and manually select my DNS servers and hostname
10. Finally, I always choose to start wireless connection at boot and allow roaming
11. Finish and it should connect (assuming your ethernet cable is NOT plugged in.

Mandriva looking a whole lot better on MacBook--eliminated error due to 64-bit iso

I've mentioned that the new Mandriva Spring 2008 install wasn't performing well at all -- e.g no desktop icons, startup error when setup for 3D effects and many others.
Today, however. when updating my system I noticed the number 64 occurring too frequently for comfort in the terminal readouts.
Had I inadvertently installed a 64-bit OS on my 32-bit computer?
So, I downloaded Mandriva Linux Spring 2008 i586 and installed where the 64-bit was. Not only did this boot without any problems, but it immediately had 3D effects, icons on the desktop, much more complete menus and many others.
I really don't know how I made this silly error of trying to install a 64-bit iso on a 32-bit system but, yes, I did try!!!
Interestingly, because I had downloaded the new iso to the Mandriva desktop, but couldn't see the iso icon to burn it, I had to look for how to do this from a terminal.
The answer is here and the command is:

cdrecord dev=/dev/cdrom driveropts=burnfree -v -data cd_image.iso

This worked perfectly on the MacBook and the only thing I had to change was the name of the cd_image.iso. Seemed to burn at around 20x but I'm not sure how to reduce to a slower speed were it necessary.
Worth knowing this for emergencies.

Mandriva on MacBook

Well, it appears that trying the 3D effects (MCC>Hardware) just leads to the OS refusing to start or crashing immediately. The error given is something to do with IceWM that I still don't understand.
I think I'll have to post to the forum on this as it cannot be anything I've done as I've just started out and have a clean install.
Incidentally, you can avoid having to re-install Mandriva when this happens by just choosing the Drak session option and then signing in.
This immediately brings you to the 3D effects selection page. Select 'None' to get Mandriva operational again.
This is very strange.

Mandriva 2008 Spring on the MacBook (from usb HDD)

I had always had problems getting Mandriva to boot (from usb HDD to Dell). The only version I ever got to work for me was MCNL which is/was a dutch version meant for use on a usb flash drive or LiveCD or something.
But when I retried that recently, even this didn't work.
So, I decided to try what's called the mini version of Mandriva 2008 Spring.
Downloaded to CD (696 MB) and installed to Seagate drive (sdb12=/, sdb11=/home).
As was the case with PCLOS, in the /boot/grub/menu.lst in Ubuntu, I had to use /dev/sda12 for the Mandriva partitions rather than the expected /dev/sdb12.
Nevertheless, I didn't have to make any similar changes in /etc/fstab to get Mandriva to boot (possibly because it uses UUIDs rather than /dev/sdax type configuration).
In any case it did boot fine but gave a very minimalist setup.
No icons on the desktop, none of my favourite packages available to download, downloaded and extracted Opera 9.50 and installed, but wouldn't start (problem may have been due to lack of jre.
So went to Mandriva Control Center (MCC) and updated my stuff.
When this was finished and it took about 30 minutes, I was able to ask for 3d desktop to be installed.
Then I rebooted but it wouldn't start. Kept giving me the old "your session lasted less than 10 seconds". However, this was nothing to do with a missing $HOME directory but was some problem with IceWM which I didn't understand.
So, I had to reinstall Mandriva...............will continue.

Number of partitions on sata HDs limited to 15 by libATA

Well, I learnt something today.
The older Pata HDs apparently could be divided into unlimited partitions but the newer (and soon to be exclusive) Sata drives limit you to a maximum of 15 partitions.
Yes, I knew about the 15 partition stuff but didn't know that there are still some distros that support non-libATA stuff and therefore let you go higher than 15 in the number of partitions.
From what I can see, openSUSE 10.3 and Mandriva 2008-1 are in this group.
It is suggested by ardent multibooters that you should put swap partition and the / and /home for all distros that use libATA on the first 15 partitions. Then put the non-libATA OSes on the higher number slices.
I learnt a lot from this thread and, indeed, this seems a useful forum for multibooters although the few threads I read involved some heavy detailed stuff.

Mandriva 2008

I tried this guide which is very detailed. I know I had tried this before some months ago an it didn't seem to work then for reasons i can't remember or couldn't understand.
This time, I ran into the problem that I couldn't loop mount the initrd.img file. The reason for this is that 2-3 years ago, initrd files became cpio archives which don't support loop mounting. Instead a different technique is needed which is described here ( as is the older version).

Note that this line

# cpio -idv < ../initrd-2.6.9-42.ELsmp.img.gz

in the cpio method should in fact be

# cpio -idv < ../initrd-2.6.9-42.ELsmp.img

Anyway, having opened the unzipped initrd file and looked through its /lib directory it seemed to be missing two drivers that the first guide had insisted were necessary for usb booting. These were ohci-hcd.ko and usb_storage.ko.
So, I got both of them from the mandrive /lib/modules/kernel version/kernel/drivers/usb/ directory and copied them to the unzipped de-cpio'ed initrd module.

Then I zipped it up again as directed in the second guide and copied it as appropriate to get it to boot from the mbr on the Ubuntu root partition.
Then I tried to boot Mandriva. However, it kernel panicked exactly as it had done before suggesting that what i fixed wasn't the problem.
It really seems like it goes through the boot process in less than 5 seconds which seems so much faster than for other OSes. Not sure if this means not enough time is available for the usb drive to start up.
Anyway, I'll keep looking.

Linux Mint 4.0 KDE Daryna

OK, today I had intended to try to see if I could encourage Mandriva 2008 to boot from the Seagate ext drive to my MacBook with the only thing I could think of trying was to increase the "sleep" function in mkinitrd from the default 8 to 20 seconds.
Honestly, I'm not at all confident this is going to do the trick. Other than that it might just be that some usb drivers are missing from the kernel. Might look at this soon.

I also tried to see if the dell 9200 would allow me to install WinXP (modified for usb support) to an external drive. However, once again I get the same BSoD I got on the E520.
The Stop: error (0x000007b) seems to be attributable to a number of things but the most likely here is that the usb drivers are missing and the installer sees a HDD it cannot install to.
However, I had though that the ngine hack had got over this but apparently not.The next thing to try might be to try to get the drivers for the Seagate ext drive and pt them on floppy and use F6 during the install to install these.

Anyway, I decided to try Linux Mint -- new version 4.0 Daryna (still in Beta) with KDE.
This is a 1 GB download which I put on DVD. Thereafter, absolutely everything went extremely well.
Installation was very quick (~10 mins) and getting it to boot from the Seagate was totally straightforward -- worked first time.

Compiz-fusion is already installed but its default settings are such that wobbly windows and cube rotation are disabled by default. So you have to go into ccsm to make changes before you see anything.
Also, the fusion-icon is not included but you can get that very easily from here

Madwifi I installed from the Ubuntu MacBook wiki and again this worked first time.

Then I got AWN installed very easily from here.

All-in-all a very pleasant first-time experience with Linux Mint.

Mandriva

Tried various times to get Mandriva 2008 (just downloaded to CD yesterday) to boot from Seagate ext drive but can't get this to work. I remember I had the same unresolved problem with Mandriva 2007.
So, as there doesn't seem to be an updated version of MCNL2007, which worked well for me (last July), I decided to try it again.
Could get it to boot OK, but ONLY by using the full vmlinuz and initrd.img numbers in the menu.lst. When I used vmlinuz and initrd.img it didn't boot.
However, I seem to be running into exactly the same problems as the last time with no Internet connectivity and problems with Beryl giving totally white cube sides (but caps are visible).
Here's a long thread I made with MCNL forums last year where a lot of detail is provided.
Another useful Mandriva thread that I had used the last time is here (including it here, as if I need it, I probably wouldn't be able to find it).