A Penguin in the Orchard

Mandrake Install - I

The lava lamp’s fired up. The mp3 are playing randomly. And I’ve switched from espresso to Mello Yello. All’s ready for the Mandrake 9.0 install.

First things first. Mandrake ProSuite 9.0 includes a DVD install disc. Since I swapped all the parts a few weeks ago from one machine to the other, the test machine now has the DVD CD-ROM. I haven’t yet done a DVD install, so that’s the path for this afternoon.

The first install screen notes that I can select [enter] for a normal install or [F1] for other options. Again, proceeding down a different path, I selected [F1]. I get several install options: vgalo for a low resolution graphical install, text for a text-based install, linux for a standard graphical installation, and expert for an expert graphical install at normal resoltuion. The DVD install also serves as a rescue disc.

Type in linux and we’re off …

Mandrake sets the console resolution at 791. It’s very tight and nice looking. I’ve altered Lilo in the past to allow for this resolution, but Mandrake’s the only distro I’ve seen that does this by default. BTW, if you want to do this in your current install, add the line “vga = 791″ to your Lilo script and recommit Lilo [/sbin/lilo]. I’m not exactly sure how to make this change in Grub, but I’m sure it can be done.

The install screen is the trademark Mandrake blue, with a progress indicator along the left side. This indicator denotes each step of the install with the current step highlighted in yellow. Steps to be completed are in red.

The license agreement, unlike LindowsOS, is completely in compliance with the GPL. There’s no language prohibiting copying or modification, and the intellectual property rights of third-party software authors remain entirely intact.

I’m choosing an Expert install. If this is consistent with other OTB distros, I’ll be able to pick and choose the install type and the packages.

Before probing for devices, Mandrake asks if I have any disck/scsi interfaces. I don’t, so that’s no problem. It also asks for mouse type. On this machine, I’m using a Microsoft IntelliMouse with wheel on the PS/2 port. There’s no option specific to the MS mouse in the PS/2 area of the configuration screen, so I’ll select “Generic PS/2 Wheel Mouse.” We’ll see if it configures it properly.

Nope. That threw the cursor dancing off the configuration screen. I tabbed to the cancel button and let the installer configure for the default. The mouse is working, though I won’t know until I actually get to the desktop whether the whell is configured properly.

Mandrake includes a security level option, as do most major distros these days. The options are Standard (” … recommended for a computer that will be used to connect to the Internet as a client.”), High (” .. some restrictions, and more automatic checks are run every night.”), Higher (” … security is now high enough to use the system as a server which can accept connections from many clients.”), and Paranoid (” … similar to the previous level, but the system is entirely closed …”). I’ll take the standard security configuration. I’ll test that with nmap later on.

Partitioning is via an easy to use graphical tool, as well. For this machine, I’m going to set a 30 Mb /boot partition, an 8 Gb / partition, a 256 Mb swap partition, and leave the balance to /home.

Selecting the partition type in the left menu on the partition screen reveals that Mandrake supports a huge range of partition types. It’s safe to say that you could put this distro to work with any filesystem you need. I’m going to use ReiserFS for this install. It’s listed as “JournalisedFS:ResierFS.” It’s formatting the partitions now.