[TriLUG] Mandrake frustrations

[William Sutton]

Mandrake experts (particularly Lovelace), I started installing MDK 10.1 
today (downloaded from a mandrake linux mirror site, 3 CD isos, all burned 
to 700 MB CD-R disks under Red Hat 9 via command line (sorry, exact 
utility escapes my pea brain at the moment but it's a standard CLI 
CD-writing tool).

Install has been somewhat painful to this point.

The good:
- MDK installation automagically recognized my video card (Matrox G450) 
and provided a chance to configure it as such, including Xinerama, as well 
as for my two ViewSonic E90fb monitors.  Easiest time I've ever had doing 
that, especially compared with Gentoo where I actually had to write a 
Gentoo FAQ on the subject...
- mp3 playing works (hurray)

The bad:
- During installation, 3 different packages were reported as being unable 
to install, one of which was XScreensaver (didn't make a list, but the 
reports were the same during two separate and differently customized 
installation processes (first one I tried deselecting individual packages, 
when that didn't work so well, I installed a second time (fresh install) 
by starting small and adding extra packages))
- On initial boot and graphical login, I discovered the mouse didn't work.  
Investigation revealed that the XF86Config file was referencing /dev/mouse 
but the only mouse device MDK had created was /dev/mouse0.  This was 
rectified by the simple expedient of editing the XF86Config file (simple 
if one knows where to look, a real pita if one doesn't; fortunately I do)
- On logging in after setting the mouse up, I discovered that there's no 
configuration option for the printer (!) (so I didn't select office 
productivity...geez ya think it would still be a default item!) so I 
tried to "install" the files from CD...woops, message 'Please insert the 
medium named "Installation CD 1" on device [/dev/sr0]'.  Unfortunately I 
have no /dev/sr* devices in my system...(what's going on here?)
- To get around the /dev/sr0 problem, I went to download the various 
dependencies from rpm.pbone.net (google search for the various file names 
from the rpmdrake gui tool)...found the ones I wanted but about every 
other search I did crashed mozilla....
- once I had the various dependencies I (thought I) needed, I installed 
CUPS...logged out of X, logged back in....still no gui configuration 
options (!)

frustration is beginning to mount...

I can put the CDs up online as iso images (I think...if I can figure out 
httpd under MDK) for inspection & verification but I don't think the 
problem necessarily lies with the images themselves...

I've got a lot of issues listed above and would dearly appreciate some 
help and a sense that I'm not completely stupid here.

William