Well, recently I decided it was about time I venture into the world of Linux and hearing Mandrake was a good distro for beginners I downloading a copy of Mandrake 9.0 off www.linuxiso.org. However I got sidetracked for a few months till yesterday when I decided I would definately install Linux. I found out Mandrake 9.1 had been released so I download the new ISO of cd 1 (install). I had an ext3 partition ready and partitioning went ok. However about 40% into the install, I got a popup saying it failed to install a package, do I wish to continue. I said yes, slightly disheartened but it was worse, at least 20more packages failed and in the end I gave up. I answered no and it skipped to POST-install and eventually I entered Linux. It may just be lack of experience and being a n00b but it was hard to navigate, I was missing many applications etc. So earlier today I re-downloaded the ISO and even ran an MD5 checksum to check it wasn''t corrupt. I installed, and again the same problem. I was really starting to get annoyed by now. So an hour ago I dug up my old Mandrake 9.0 ISOs and tried that, but to no avail, packages fail to install AGAIN. Among those I remember OpenOffice and GTK+ fail to install, and pretty much all packages after that. I have 3gb free on that drive, could that be the problem? Any ideas on what could be wrong. I may repartition to allow more space if that is what is needed but it''s getting tedious. Any help is greatly appreciated. (Oh and I''m intending to dual boot it with Windows XP)

I don't really know how much space a fresh mandrake install needs, but it could eventually be over 3gb. More important: check if your cdr's are not corrupted.

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[edited by - SwSh on July 5, 2003 3:59:40 PM]

I don''t know about Mandrake personally as I am a Redhat man myself, but if it share any similarity in general size of installation, expect anywhere from 1.3-5GB+ depending on what packages you want to install. With Redhat there are many many packages bundled and many you may very well never use. But the plethora of bundled software and online downloads is part of what makes Linux beautiful. I advise you to get an additional hard drive, doesn''t have to be very big, but with 3GB of space, you''re pushing it with a Dual OS system.

Well at the moment:

Primary HDD:
C:\ 6gb (winXP)
E:\ 74gb (data)

Secondary HDD
d:\ 3gb (Linux)
f:\ 37gb (data)

So I''m about to increase the d:\ partition to 7gb and try again, be back soon (hopefully in linux) otherwise I''ll try redhat


I walk through hell, with red kisses from murderous gods blistering my priestly flesh. Walk with me, for I am Raven. Walk with me, through paths of hatred. Walk with me, through paths of cruelty. Walk with me through Raven''s clockwork orange house of fun.
Quoth the Raven, nevermore...

Okay then that spells it out, a repartition should be in order. You definitely have the reserves. I went with 10GB, yet that is just a preference. Unless you just want Redhat badly, try increasing the partition like you said and re-burn the ISO''s once again.

I''m not using the ISO''s off CD, I am booting using a boot disk with the hd img and then isntalling off my hard drive, the first time I extracted the iso and gave it teh directory, the second time I tried giving it the ISO, both had the same result. You think I should try it off CD?
I''ve repartitioned now so I''m gonna install in an hour or so.

I walk through hell, with red kisses from murderous gods blistering my priestly flesh. Walk with me, for I am Raven. Walk with me, through paths of hatred. Walk with me, through paths of cruelty. Walk with me through Raven''s clockwork orange house of fun.
Quoth the Raven, nevermore...

Sorry for the late response, but I only have done it through CD''s and it worked well for me. Since you have had problems doing it the other way, I would certainly recommend using the CD images as an alternative method.

Also, please note that Mandrake comes on 3 cds, while you only downloaded the first (if I understand you correctly). Some of the packages will be on the other ones.