Mandriva Free Spring 2008 64 Bit OS

[Abarbarian]

Having played around briefly with several linux OS's and liking what I have found I have chosen to play with Mandriva for a while .
As I am running a AMD 64 bit cpu I wanted to make full use of its talents . After all I did pay good money for it so it seems a waste not to use it to its full capability .Looking around for a 64 bit os narrowed the field quite a lot . Windows wanted bagfulls of loot for their offerings XP and Vista . I may have been tempted by 64 bit XP but there was no way I would pay Microsoft for Vista 64 bit . Another of putting point about going the Microsoft route is that to make use of a 64 bit os I would need to buy 64 bit software , as I have not won the lottery lately I decided to pass up the opportunity to contribute to Bill's pension fund Looking at the linux offerings I came across the Mandriva Free Spring 2008 64 Bit version .This distribution had a few decent write ups and some good walkthroughs on some of its older distros which I hoped would be of help to me as I tried out the latest version of Mandriva .
One thing to remember about the following walkthroughs is that I have only been playing linux for 3 months or so and had never typed any commands in DOS or a Konsole befor I started to play . So this will be a little bit like the blind leading the blind especially if you are a newbie like me to linux playing .

So with the intro out of the way I'll take you on your first step in this entertaining journey of enlightenment .

I downloaded my dvd .iso by way of a bit torrent , I'm a fan of bit torrenting , its rooted in me hippy past I think this idea of openly sharing ideas and information and such like . At 349K it is a smallish download and its dated the 09-05-2008 so it is pretty new and up to date .

http://torrent.mandriva.com/public/

Burn the .iso with the appropriate program and you are ready to rock and roll .

As this is an ongoing thread for a while I will be adding some mini walkthroughs on stuff that I think may be of interest to newbies like myself . See below for easy access to them .
Enjoy.

Main Install ------- Post 2 Page 1
First Up-date -- --- Post 8 Page 1
GKrellm -- -------- Post 12 Page 2
Boinc install -- --- Post 13 Page 2 In my opinion a must have for any pc user.
KAlarm ------------ Post 15 Page 2
ATI Drivers ------ Post 23 Page 3
Word Viewer ---- Post 25 Page 3 --- Microsoft Office Word 2003 Viewer and more.
Flash Player ------ Post 26 Page 3 ---- Getting flash to work.
KODO ----------- Post 27 Page 3
Beginers manual - Post 29 Page 3 --- Excelent starting place for newbies, wish I had read it weeks ago

 

[Abarbarian]

I like the options given here at the first screen you see .

You can guess which option I went for .

You then go to the serious stuff . Partitioning !!

You can let the system do its stuff automaticaly ot take any of the options given . I went for the custom option . Here is a handy tip , I had already formated with Acronis whilest in Windows XP , this was very fast and easy to do . I am dual booting on my pc so this was an option for me . Formating from the Mandriva CD takes quite a while so have a good supply of tea and buiscuits handy if you follow this route . Althougfh I have formated the drive beforhand I still need to run through this part of the program so that it will set my "MOUNT" points .

I set my first partition at 15 Gb , This will hold the main OS . I may have made this too large , 10 GB would probably have been plenty big enough .

I could swear blind that I made this partition 23 GB This is my " home " partition , where I will keep my files and also I need some space here to do stuff with .avi files etc etc .

I made the disk 15 GB , 23 GB and 2 GB for the Swap space . Seems like computers are sentient beings after all and can do as they please as you can see by the results shown . Oh well I'm not complaining , just

I have been reading up on Swap Spaces and it looks as though I do not need a Swap Space at all as I have 4 GB of memory in my system . I put it in as an example and I can always integrate it into my /home partition at a later date .

I did some further reading on Swap Spaces . This is from the Red Hat site , Mandriva originally evolved from Red Hat.

http://www.redhat.com/docs/manuals/linux/RHL-9-Manual/custom-guide/ch-swapspace.html

Here is a detailed article on swap space.

http://www.xenotime.net/linux/doc/swap-mini-howto.txt

From what I can gather if you are running with more than 2 Gb of Ram then a swap space is not really needed .

This is the sort of screen you see next . This is from a previous install so the drive numbers will not make any sense for this current install . I put it in as an example only .
The previous screens were just letting you see how your choices would look on the hard drive . The screen above is where you actually tell the programe to do it's job . As I had already formated my drive I left the boxes unticked . If you tick the boxes even if you have formated the drive beforehand the program will format again , and it is a fairly slow process . ( thats an old picture so ignore the drive numbers shown)

Your next step is to decide whether to install the entire contents of the CD or just to do a simple install . Installing the whole CD will take up some space on the drive but will make all the content easily available . I do not know if this will have any impact on the speed at which the os runs . I chose to not install the CD . This means that when I want to run some of the programs . I will have to put the CD in a drive and install some components from it to the hard disk . I am hoping this will keep my drive cluter and bloat free and run a little sweeter .

I have just realised that I have been talking about a CD for the install when I should have been talking about a DVD for the install . At this screen if you are like me installing from a DVD then your choice is " NONE " . Some distros come on several CD's or are installed via network which is why you have a choice here .

I like the KDE look so I have stuck with it here .

Finaly we get to some serious stuff . The install has started .

 

[Urmas]

Here's a little something to keep you busy:

http://www.howtoforge.com/the-perfect-desktop-mandriva-one-2008-spring-kde

 

[Abarbarian]

Here's a little something to keep you busy:

http://www.howtoforge.com/the-perfect-desktop-mandriva-one-2008-spring-kde

Thanks Urmas , I have seen that walkthrough before and it is very good . However it is for a 32 bit OS and also it is not the FREE version , as in it contains some stuff that has DRM restrictions in some countries , I think I got that right . Still it has some good stuff in it .

Here is a link to the same persons walkthrough for the 32 Bit Mandriva Free 2008 Spring version . Once again a very good guide .

http://www.howtoforge.com/the_perfect_desktop_mandriva_2008.0

 

[Urmas]

.Here is a link to the same persons walkthrough for the 32 Bit Mandriva Free 2008 Spring version

Oops... sorry... THAT'S what I meant to post. Two brain calls and all that.

As for 64 Bit support, you can't beat Mandy.

 

[Abarbarian]

Oops... sorry... THAT'S what I meant to post. Two brain calls and all that.

As for 64 Bit support, you can't beat Mandy.

Thats ok , folks now have several good quality links to slightly different versions of the same distro .

 

[Abarbarian]

Ok . Enough chit chat only 17 mins to go and I can play with me new toy .

Twilight Zone time again , make that 25 minutes . I knew I should never have clicked on that " DETAILS " button .

It is a good job I fueled up with tea toast and home made jam . As we are now at that awfully hard part of OS installs , the think up yet another password hurdle . More tea and toast before I can face this I think .

You have several choices here . I think that the best option for most users is the one I have shown . This is the option advised by the Acronis site whe using their OS Selector program so thats why I'm sticking with it .

This is a lot easier than some setups and very user friendly .

Here you have the oportunity to customise your install . Clicking on the boxes on the right hand side will bring up windows where you can select the options you prefer .
From the Howtoforge link I gave earlier I noticed that the " SECURITY " section is set to HIGH as standard . This they recomend lowering to STANDARD for most users .
Once you are happy with your settings , move on .



Here we have a missing screenshot . Use your imagination .
This will ask you if you want to update your sytem . If you choose to do so you will need more than tea and toast as it will take a longish amount of time . It is best to say NO here and update later on from your desktop .

Open the champagne and fly the flag . You now have a new toy to play with .

What a hero .

Take out the DVD and re-boot the pc .

Enter your name and password click " ENTER " and you will have arrived in.........

Your new luverly home .

Enjoy .

 

[Abarbarian]

The first UPDATE of your new OS

So you have had a little play around . Found a pretty picture for your desktop . Now its back to serious stuff .

Concentrate on where we are going . Yes I know its quite a nice picture .

Remember them pesky passwords . You can remember them ? Can't you ?
Here you need the "ROOT" pasword .

See the highlighted in blue option , thats where we are going .

Polite and clear . Click "YES".

This is what you have onboard at the moment . But we can do better than that . Oh yes , much better .
Click on the "ADD" button on the right hand side .

Go for the full monty here.

Polite and clear again .

Take the mirror that is best for you .

You get a shed load of sites here . Some are just for brave experts . Some are redundant .
I unchecked the CD-ROM for safety as this is new territory for me and it seemed like a good thing to do at the time . You can get rid of them by highlighting each in turn and clicking on "REMOVE".
Look at the first "MAIN UPDATES 2008.1.1" thats the third one down , go to the ninth entry down and you will find "MAIN UPDATES 2008.1.6" . I'm sure that you can work out which one to REMOVE . Keep the highest numbered entry for each of the different sources . Also get rid of all entries that have "TESTING" anywhere in the title , these are for our brave and experienced pioneering friends without whos efforts this wonderful free os would not exist .
A five minute silence for all the folks sent mad by testing or a $10 Pay-pal contribution to the cause might be appropriate here .

If your screen looks like this you can click on "OK" . If you haven't found the pretty wallpaper yet do not panic , I was talking about the windowed section of the screen .

Halfway there folks but at least when you do update all of the latest stuff will be at your disposal . See there is method at work here , honest .

 

[floppybootstomp]

Thanks for showing us your experience there AB, interesting stuff.

I first tried installing a Linux Distro back in '99, it was a free Red Hat CD with a magazine, never did get it to work.

A year or two later, Mandrake was the very first Linux Distro I ever got to boot straight into a GUI (without having to use 'startx').

Mucks sent me the CD's for that one cos at the time he had Broadband and I was still on dial up.

But I managed to bork it within 3 days

I've dabbled with several Linux distros but I still don't know Jack, I really don't. Konsole commands leave me cold, although oddly enough I managed DOS quite Ok.

I am really fond of PC Linux OS 2007 and I like Suse, although I'd like Suse a whole lot better if they included all the media Codecs instead of making us download and install them all seperately.

I don't like Ubuntu much, maybe it's just me.

And one last thing.

If you're able to (Irfanview or The Gimp) would you please size all posted pix to 800 pixels wide.

Your pix are a tad on the large side which not only makes them hard to view (have to scroll side to side) but it also takes forever for them to load for dial-up forum members.

Thank you

 

[Abarbarian]

The first UPDATE of your new OS

If you have got this far without seeing any ghosts or cats you are very lucky

No time for tea and toast . Not just yet anyway .

See the blue highlight . You guessed it , time to update .

Nice and clear and still polite .

This being your first time it has this extra step in the process . Click "UPDATE" .

Rpmdrake is the tool that handles your updates so it updates itself first . On an ordinary update this step will not occur .
Click "YES" and let it do its stuff .

You should get to here . You know what to do here .

If by some chance all boxes are not ticked , click "SELECT ALL" and then "UPDATE". Feeling as though your blood sugar levels are running low ? Fear not tea and toast and jam are just a click away .

If you do not have the strength to click "YES" here . Panic .

Make tea and toast with lashings of jam . Coffee is a good alternative choice .

Finally the last screen . Time to "QUIT" An mebees some more tea and toast with honey , perhaps . Well you do deserve a treat after all that hard work .

So thats this little adventure over with folks . You now have an upto date state of the art FREE OS up and running on your pc and loads of loot still in your pocket .
Will it be as good as Windows ? The coming weeks will tell . However I am not looking to compare like to like here as that would not be fair to either side . I am looking to see if this free offering will do everything I need and end up as my main os .
As far as installs go I did not find a great deal of difference between Mandriva and Windows XP . I quite liked the look of the linux but XP installs are ok too . Maybe the XP install brags a little too much about its ability's , understandable as it is an american product . Whilst I did not time the install I think that the Mandriva install is quicker to get to a fully updated state , maybe about 25% quicker .
One last question remains to be answered . Have I got time and room for more tea and toast ? Hmmm it is 01.00 am after all . Now it will take three minutes for the kettle to boil and four minutes ...................................................................................................................................................................

 

[Abarbarian]

Hi flops . These new versions of linux distros must be easy peasy to install and use if I can cope with them . Why not have another go at one . I noticed a difference in Ubuntu's Gutsy Gibbon and Hardy Heron and thats just one release on . I recon a lot of problems have been brought under control and now we are into a final tweaking stage with linux as a whole . Once folk feel confident about the new distros and work out a way to make money from offering support for them along with games that work on linux , then Microsoft will have real competition to contend with .
Gimp should be no problem once I have figured out how to use it . I can resize and reload all the pics in this series if that is possible to do . Should not take long , well thats if I don't take me eye of the ball that is . Let me know .

 

[Abarbarian]

Gkrellm - Temperature monitor and more .

I'm a bit paranoid about temperatures especially on a new build . So one of the first programs I install on a new OS is a temperature monitor . This is invaluable for peace of mind if you intend to install and run Boinc . You are going to run Boinc aren't you ?? There are several different monitors to choose from for a linux os and I have chosen GKRELLM . I like the look of the program and it has loads of funky add-ons which appeal to me . For the Mandriva OS this program comes as a RPM so is easy to install . GKrellm can be installed manually and I have done this on a Kanotix os .
This will not take long so backup supplies are not really necessary . Can't be too careful though . So I have a jug of freshly ground coffee and a small plate of home made scones with last years home made pear jam standing by
.

Click here .

Them pesky passwords again . You need the " ROOT " password here . If the task has stressed you out then partake of the backup supplies .

I forgot to take screen shots first time around so here I'm showing how to add a single program . To see what GKrellm programs are available you can type in "gkrellm" in the "FIND" box alongside the binoculars and click "ENTER" . This means that you do not have to scroll through the entire list of available programs as you are only shown the gkrellm programs . If you are installing GKrellm for the first time you would tick several of the boxes shown on the left hand side . You will notice that with a box unticked there is no arrow shown on the right hand side of the window , when you tick the box a " ORANGE " arrow appears , when you have installed the program or for a program already installed a " GREEN "arrow will show . Once you have made your choices click "APPLY" .

A window will appear telling you what will be installed and you are asked if you wish to proceed . Make a choice here and move on . If you chose "YES" then several windows will show briefly on screen telling you that the various modules you have chosen are being downloaded . Then more screens telling you that the modules are being installed . Finally you will end up .............

Here . This shows you that the tasks are completed . Notice on the bottom left near the "APPLY" button , you are given information as to how much space you have left on your hard disk drive , a nice handy little touch . Click "QUIT" and lets get on with playing with the new program .

First we will check that the program has been installed . Well it shows up in the menu so lets click it and see if it will fire up .

Seems like we were sucessful . You get a handy pop up with some information the first time the program runs .

I do not want information on memory usage so I have unticked this box . You get a lot of different options in the setting up section so have fun exploring . You will notice I have installed my favorite plug-in , the Moon Clock . The plug-in's do not show in the list until you have chosen them which helps to keep the list clutter free .

Plenty of funky looking themes on offer along with the different ways of setting up the program . If you noticed I have shown several .

This is my final choice for the moment . As you can see I have shrunk the gui to only show the bits I am interested in , I might get rid of the time and date as well to make it even smaller and leave me with just the cpu usage , temps and total time in use for this session .
Thats all folks . I'm of to recharge with the backup supplies , ready for the next install which will be , Boinc . You are going to install Boinc aren't you ??

 

[Abarbarian]

BOINC install and some info on useage .

Now that a temperature monitor is at hand I can install Boinc . See here for more info on Boinc ,

"Use the idle time on your computer (Windows, Mac, or Linux) to cure diseases, study global warming, discover pulsars, and do many other types of scientific research. It's safe, secure, and easy:"

http://boinc.berkeley.edu/

PC Review has a team that donates their spare cpu cycles to The World community Grid . The team is called "The PCReview Crew ll" . More info on these here ,

https://www.pcreview.co.uk/forums/thread-2350494.php


http://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/

"World Community Grid's mission is to create the largest public computing grid benefiting humanity. Our work is built on the belief that technological innovation combined with visionary scientific research and large-scale volunteerism can change our world for the better. Our success depends on individuals - like you - collectively contributing their unused computer time to this not-for-profit endeavor."

Of course after reading all the above information and all the information in the links you do want to join the Crew and crunch to save the world . You do don't you ??

So here is how .It is quite simple if you take it one step at a time . Take plenty of breaks for backup supplies , make that a large jug of coffee or a big pot of tea and several different types of munchies . All prepared ? Lets begin , go to here,

http://www.joescat.com/boinc/

Follow the instructions . Remember my advice above . One extra snippet of information , you can "COPY and PASTE" from the instructions to the Konsole . This will save you loads of time .

Here is how to find a "KONSOLE"

Here is my "BOINC" user accounts desktop . See the GKrellm monitor . It is showing both cores at 100% usage , temperatures are 11 C and 10 C for the cores . The desktop is clear except for the stuff I downloaded for Boinc's install and a shortcut to bring up the Boinc gui . I must find out how to change shortcut icons at some point .

An here is my normal users desktop . As you can see GKrellm is showing both cpu's running at 100% , this tells me that Boinc is running and as the temps look to be ok there is no need for me to open up the Boinc user account .
I did run Mandriva and Boinc for several weeks whilst I was testing various programs out in a temporary install and I had no problems with Boinc at all . I think I logged into the Boinc account three times and that was just to be nosy and to cleanly close the program down . So I can not foresee any problems with this install and will rarely visit the Boinc user account , my biggest problem will be remembering the pesky password for the account .

This is a very informative part of the instillation instructions and well worth reading again .

I'm going to add some extra information on running Boinc here later on , but I need some backup supplies to recharge my batteries . So in the words of that famous actor " I'll be back "

 

[Abarbarian]

BOINC install and some info on useage

It seems that Boinc runs in a slightly different fashion on a linux install than a windows install . Something to do with the nice factor it seems , no surprise there then I have not noticed boinc interfering with anything I have been doing on this install on this pc . It is a dual core pc so that may have something to do with it or it could be that I am running a linux os . On my last pc , a single core cpu and running windows I did notice boinc affecting the running of programs under certain conditions . It is easy to tweak boinc to run the way you want so this was not a problem for me . Now I know that this is a linux walkthrough but I do like to encourage folk to run boinc , the more hands helping the faster the work gets done , as me dad used to say .

Two important things to remember about boinc ,


Running Boinc will not destroy your pc .

You do not need to run Boinc at 100%.

In the same way as a charity collection for money , it does not matter what the size of your contribution is , one penny or one million pounds , every penny counts . Its the same with boinc , every single unit processed counts .
On m,y old pc I found that boinc affected my dvd playback , so when I played dvd's on my pc I simply shut boinc down for a while . Boinc also affected my pc performance when recoding and burning vidoe files so I simply set boinc to run at 30% for the several days that I was recoding . When the weather gets hot my old pc would run too hot with boinc at 100% so I would run boinc at 70% till the weather cooled down again .
Here are a few screenshots of boinc to help you out if you are a new user .

This is a shot of one of the windows you can view in the ADVANCED mode . Notice how little disk space is used by boinc . From the menu at the top you can access some very informative and easy to use help files . Also you can change over to the SIMPLE VIEW .

Click on "PREFERENCES" here.

You find all the options greyed out at first but tick the box and you can access the options for tweaking boinc to suit your needs .

This is how I usually have boinc set up to run . Flat out , all the time I have the pc running . I have very good cooling on my pc , it is a reasonably powerful cpu and I do not use a great deal of power hungry programs so this set up works for me .

Here is an example of how you might set boinc up to run in different circumstances .

Mr X has a older less powerful cpu and uses his pc in his business for intensive graphic work . after work Mr X likes to watch dvd's on his pc and plays FPS games .
He found that boinc slowed down his graphics programs so during the day boinc is turned off .
Boinc running at 100 % also caused a bit of stuttering in some movies and slowed down the mouse reactions in games . With boinc running at 60% everything runs fine .
Mr X is on dial-up and needs to take calls up untill 11.00 pm for business , so to avoid any conflict with boinc he only gives boinc access to the internet between 11.00 pm and 09.00 am .
Now that Mr X has his boinc set up he never even notices that it is running in the background , yet his little old pc is crunch crunch crunching away day in day out for the benifit of all .

Well thats was a worthwhile detour . You are going to set up and run boinc ? Aren't you ?

Now I'm of to play with me new Mandriva . Mebees some tea and toast first though .

 

[Abarbarian]

KALARM ----- tea and toast reminder !

For those of you with busy lives and lots of important appointments and things to do KALARM is a very handy and easy to set neat tool . I use it as an alarm clock if I need to wake up and it gives me the opportunity to Bonk all night .

It can be found here ,

Or you can have a little applet on the task bar at the bottom of the screen .

To set a new alarm click here "NEW".

Open the drop down at "SOUND" .

An you can choose a suitable sound to wake up to along with settings for volume and repeats .

For those with a short memory span , or , if you set the alarm several weeks ago ! You can have a written reminder with or without sound . No more forgotten birthdays, anniversaries etc .

Click on "TRY" and a window appears with the message along with sound to show that everything is working and correct . Close both windows .

Your left with a small window detailing the set alarms . As you can see I only have the one . Must have been a busy month .

Close the window and your alarm is set .

You can import birthdays and such from KAdress book . Kalarm can also be incorporated into KOrganiser . It is a very versatile tool and the HELP file is excellent .

I have the pc running all night with Boinc so I can not say if KAlarm works if the pc is in hibernation or suspend mode . Maybe someone can supply us with that info .

Enjoy .

 

[Waynos_Face]

Hey Abarbarian,

So, have nearly finished building my new PC and microsoft won't let me use my Vista Home Premium 64bit OEM that i brought for the old one on my new PC, told them the old one blew up but they wouldn't have it.

So if i make a DVD.ISO of mandriva can i boot from this?

Or do i need to make a specific boot cd/dvd?

nice guide by the way, makes it look easy.

 

[Abarbarian]

Hey Abarbarian,

So, have nearly finished building my new PC and microsoft won't let me use my Vista Home Premium 64bit OEM that i brought for the old one on my new PC, told them the old one blew up but they wouldn't have it.

So if i make a DVD.ISO of mandriva can i boot from this?

Or do i need to make a specific boot cd/dvd?

nice guide by the way, makes it look easy.

You burn them as an image to disc. Double-check your burner software settings
before you start the burn to ensure you're burning an image to disc, and not burning
them as regular files to disc.

I nicked that techy explanation from some page on the net as my grasp of techspeak is rather vague .It is easy peasy and most things I have tried have worked straight out of the box , an I have a slightly out of the ordinary set up . Updating is the key , make that your first move and it will make life easier . Whatch out for my next instalement , all about Flash . Ta fer the compliment and feedback .

Partition your drive with some other program before starting the install as the in program formating and partitioning software takes forever .

Welcome to the other side . Out of the dark and into the light .

 

[Waynos_Face]

Okay cheers mate, yeah it burnt as a disc image on cd, i have used the disk management in vista on my brothers pc to reformat the hdd and made a 10GB partition, will start by adventure tomorrow when i get back from work.

Am on nights, yay.

Thanks for the reply.

 

[Abarbarian]

Okay cheers mate, yeah it burnt as a disc image on cd, i have used the disk management in vista on my brothers pc to reformat the hdd and made a 10GB partition, will start by adventure tomorrow when i get back from work.

Am on nights, yay.

Thanks for the reply.

It is very useful to have three partitions for linux installs , as the earlier part of my guide shows . There are good reasons for doing this .

 

[Waynos_Face]

But ithought you say later you didn't need the swap space partition?

I have 10GB set aside for the O/S and then 226GB for whatever else.

I have 8GB of RAM.