INSTALLING MANDRAKE 10.1 OFFICIAL
( General instructions )
- Preparation
If this is your first Linux install, check out
Basic Rules for Install
If you are replacing a previous Mandrake Install back up:
- Your
browser plugins located in /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins
- The ~/evolution directory ( When I restore it, I chown (change ownership) it back to "chown -R bruno:bruno evolution" )
- The ~/.galeon/bookmarks.xbel ( or other bookmarks )
- Personal things in your /home directory
- Your /etc/lilo.conf ( if you are booting mutiple distros )
- Your /etc/hosts, /etc/aliases, /etc/rc.d/rc.local, ~/.bashrc, ~/.exrc if you made any modification to these files.
- Set your BIOS to boot from CD and disable PNP aware OS.
- Put the first CD in the CD-ROM drive and boot your computer.
- Install
1st screen: The welcome screen.
Press Enter
Before the GUI comes back, the installer is loading into memory and devices are being configured.
2nd screen: Language selection

<-------
Click to enlarge
The default is US English,
Press Next
3rd screen: License agreement

<-------
Click to enlarge
Select "
accept" and
Press Next
4th screen: Is this an install or an upgrade ?

<-------
Click to enlarge
Tick the box of "
install" and
Press Next (
Advice: NEVER use Upgrade !!! )
5th screen: Security level

<-------
Click to enlarge
Fill in "root" or your email address and
Press Next
6th screen: The DrakX Partitioning wizard found etc. etc.

<-------
Click to enlarge
- If you have your partitions already made: tick the box "
use existing partitions" and
Press Next
- If you still have to make partitions, or want to change the size of the existing ones: tick the box "
Custom Disk Partitioning" and
Press Next You will be taken to the very intuitive and easy partitioning tool.
Make a 4G partition for / and a 2G for /home.
7th screen: Choose file Mount points

<-------
Click to enlarge
Chose the partitions where you want / and /home and
Press Next
( Everybody using partitions for /tmp and /usr too . . you know what to do )
8th screen: Choose the partitions you want to format

<-------
Click to enlarge
. . Leave the /home box unchecked if you want to keep your mail addresses and personal settings
Press Next
9th screen: Packages

<-------
Click to enlarge
Do like in the screen shot: tick all the boxes on the left, and only the last 3 on the right and
Press Next
NOTE: Including Gnome will also give you all the gnome programs you can also use in KDE . . so even if you intend to never use Gnome it is better to install it anyway.
Now the install really starts. It takes about 16 minutes and you have to change CDs twice
10th screen: Root password

<-------
Click to enlarge
Fill in your root password twice and
Press Next
11th screen: Adding a user

<-------
Click to enlarge
Fill in name twice and password twice and
Press Accept
12th screen: Adding a user ( again)
Press Next
13th screen: Auto login

<-------
Click to enlarge
De-select the box, you do not want this, and
Press Next
NOTE: It is safer to not use this feature, and it makes sure that you can choose at boot what window manager to start. Also if you ever get a corrupted /home directory the non-autologin makes fixing a lot easier.
14th screen: Boot loader,

<-------
Click to enlarge
Select "
First sector of drive ( MBR )" and
Press Next
NOTE: It will automatically include your Windows partition for dual boot
15th screen: Summary, . . . . This is very important . . check all the settings, look at the difference I have in the two screenshots:

<-------
Click to enlarge
Before configuring

<-------
Click to enlarge
After configuring
16th screen: Updates . . . say NO and
Press Next
NOTE: This feature rarely works, you will have to do the updates in the MCC after the first reboot
18th screen: Complete . . remove your CD and
Press Reboot
After the reboot you absolutely have to install: Anacron, and get the Updates ( see and subscribe to
This thread )
Additionally you can add: xmms, xmms-alsa, aumix, galeon, gkrellm, kedit, mplayer, xine etc. etc.
Please read the NOTES at the bottom of this post

Bruno
IMPORTANT NOTES:
1). EVOLUTION: If you replace your current Mandrake install and want to keep your mail and addresses in Evolution: Do NOT format your /home partition !!
If you have no separate /home . . backup the evolution directory, and after the install place it in /home BEFORE starting evolution . . . the new directory will be called .evolution ( hidden ) and uses another format for mail and addresses . . . only the procedure above will start a script to transform mail and addresses to the new format. If you miss this chance to save your data, there is no way back. . . . . only starting the full install from scratch.
2). NVIDIA: There was a bug in the nvidia drivers ( version Linux-x86-1.0-6111-pkg1 ) regarding kernel 2.6.8 and up, BUT recently Nvidia released a new driver ( version ) the install of it should no longer be a problem. See Announcementnew drivers and Tip Install Nvidia Drivers
3). UPDATES: Update problems ? No updates available ? Have a look
Here
-- Dec 7 2004 --