Fedora & Gentoo probs

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First off, this is more a rant than anything else, but if someone has a concrete solution to those problem, toss 'em my way, will ya?

So! First of all, Gentoo. I found a way to go around the very annoying black out of my screen, and running the installer in text mode. Everything is good so far, I manually partition the drives, set up my network interface, and stuff like that, then the installer unpacks the stage tarball, still no problem, but a bit later, the omnious "No more space available" pops up. Okay, I tried installing it on a 10GB, but I nontheless plonked 8.5 GB for the / partition, and roughly 1500 for swap (keeping the golden rule of swap space = RAM x 2), and then the installer just basically tells me to check I didn't do anything stupid or some such. Tried it again, same thing again and again. Blargh.

Following the Gentoo experience, I decided to do a fresh install of Fedora, core 6. Prior to (trying) to install Gentoo, I plonked in 256 more RAM, for a total of 768 MB.

With 512 MB RAM, Fedora ran like a dream. Since I plonked in the new RAM, it randomly brings me back to the login screen or sometimes simply freezes. Coincidence?

Okay, my old RAM and new RAM aren't the same brand - which I know can be problematic - but they have the same clock speed - 400 MHz - and operate in single channel. My bro tried it in his own P4, and Winblows runs as smooth as it possibly can, and never ranted about the new RAM.

So, Fedora, what's the deal with ya? Don't like my new RAM? Live with it - I'm tired of jumping between (X,K)ubuntu & Fedora.

As for Gentoo, well, BLARGH. Until I figure what in the nine hells is it's major problem, it'll stay in my CD case.

 

Regarding the Gentoo problem, I have had similiar problems myself, the culprint was broken hardware (one PCI slot) or hardware that the OS did not like for some reason (incompatible?). But you might find more help for both problems on the distros official forums, I think.

 

Another possible reason is outdated BIOS. My rig didn't even start up with a second slot in use.

 

Well, removing the new memory solved the Fedora crashing and freezing problems. I'm taking back the RAM to the place where I got it and I'll trade it in plus a few bucks against a 512 MB one, so it will run in dual-channel with my other stick of RAM. Hopefully, Fedora will live with it and remain rock-solid.

Gentoo-wise, the installation fails at the stage of mounting partitions. Try as I might, it just won't mount the f****** partitions. I'm tired of fighting with this HD, so I'll try installing on another HD to see if it's a HD problem or something else.

 

Or maybe it's just the OS. I remember having to fight with Mandriva for hours just to get it to work/look even remotely like I want it to. Hope you got more patience, because I simply switched back to XP.

 

I have yet to try setting up partitions in ext2 instead of ext3 to see if it makes any difference, and if it doesen't, then I'll stick with the tried, tested and true Fedora.

Wanted to give SuSe a shot too, but FIVE CDs...? I'm stuck with 1 gb download quote everyone, and I'm not paying 6,95$ per extra gb of download for Linux.

I guess I could do it at school, though.

 

Well, Gentoo installed properly - thanks to the CTRL ALT F1 trick, but after the install ended, I tried booting in the system... and BLACK SCREEN OF DOOM!!!

The partitions the installer didn't wanted to mount were my housemate's old HD NTFS partitions - unplugging the HD worked like a charm.

At least I believe I know how to fix the Black Screen of Doom problem by tweaking xorg.conf, but I'm not even sure it will fix anything... and I'm a little tired of formatting and reinstalling, so methinks I'll just suck up and live with Fedora. I have a day off tomorrow, so I'll check about swapping the 256 MB for a 512 to see if it will work better. Time will tell, I guess.

 

I read a little while ago that NTFS-G1 has become stable, so that might make it possible for you to use already existing NTFS partitions without problems. No need to create separate ones for Linux.

As to how, I would start by looking for a separate program or waiting for the OS to integrate it into itself.

 

Actually, I could care less about NTFS - once I get everything backed up to a couple of DVDs, this HD will completely swiped, reformatted to ext3 and serve as housing for my MP3 collection.

I'll try a final installation of Gentoo, including the tweaking of xorg.conf, and if it doesn't work, then whatever, I'll bring some DVDs to my friend and get SuSe, Debian and maybe some others - I got little else to do than mess around trying some other distros anyway, and I'm NOT going back to Winblows.

 

Well, a final installation attempt of Gentoo with the needed tweaking to xorg.conf didn't changed a darn thing, though there was improvement - the screen would black out when switching to X and I would have a nice graphic page of what is going on in the box (basically what's loading), and it now blacks out when this part is done... so f*** you, Gentoo.

Fedora doesen't like the new 512 MB stick of RAM I plonked in (basically the same than my origin stick, except for the brand) and it still randomly f**** up. *shrugs*

Fortunately, having no classes today allowed me to fully concentrate on getting another distro I happen to have on hand (in that case, Slack) and try to get my PPPoE connection up and running... and after some head-scratching, I got it to work... so if Xfce pulls out the vanishing desktop trick on me, it doesen't matter, I can switch to KDE or Fluxbox in a jiffy.