Hi All! I took the plunge and reformatted my IBM Thinkpad (A20M) and installed Mandrake Powerpack 10.1. Initially had some quirks but once I downloaded all the available updates, etc., it runs beautifully. I had some experience with Mandrake on my desktop about a 1.5 yrs. ago (9.1, I think?). So I chose it since they have available documentation and all. I have one problem I am experiencing. It plugs in OK at home on my network. But whenever I move my laptop around, I have a heck of a time reconnecting to the existing connection wherever I am. I use the network monitor/configure applet on the taskbar, configure to auto on DHCP, still no joy. Same at home. It seems that when I use the 'configure your computer' menu option, I go to the network area and reconfigure my connection, and then reboot EACH time. It is getting a bit annoying. I enabled 'hotplugging', and trace (laptop recommended), and 'boot' start. Anyways, is there a command line option/command like windows's 'ipconfig" /release and /renew? I administer a small company's network so I am a tad familiar with this method. Any help would be immensely appreciated. Thanks, Tony :good:
Yeah, I don't know why you can't get new DHCP-granted IP's when you wander though. Usually the network hotplug feature works perfectly. The best way I can think of off the top of my head to get a new IP on a strange network would be to restart the DHCPC service, but that's a dirty workaround. I wonder if we can track down the problem instead of treating the symptom? -AT
AT, I know it's a bit strange. DHCP should just give the laptop a new address. But I shall give the ISP a call tomorrow and speak to tech support. Maybe the problem is the DSL modem. Right now we have not received the router I plan to put behind it to act as the router/firewall/DHCP. I felt a bit safe hooking up my Linux Laptop to it. So far I absolutely love Linux's security. Maybe Microsoft should come up with a distro (hehehe). I shall try and bring in an old linksys router I have and see if that alleviates the problem. I am beginning to suspect the modem now since, hooking up at home is absolutely painless. DTM, thanks for the input. I have been wondering what the ipconfig equivalent in Linux was. I will let you know what I find guys. Thanks for all the input. Tony :good:
Take my advice, and try and steer around the word "Linux" or even "non-Windows" while talking to tech support. Most of these guys don't even have a proper idea of what Linux is, let alone how to help you with Linux problems. You'll save yourself a coronary by just keeping things as general as possible. -AT
Hey, AT. Okay, the modem was crap. They replaced it and lo and behold No problems with DHCP! Arghhhh. Now I can really muck around with Mandrake and see what she's got. On one of your posts, you said that Suse 9.1 is good as well. What do you find as the strong points between Mandrake and Suse. I plan to stay away from Fedora, though. I tried Fedora Core 2, had too many hassles with dependencies, etc. So far Mandrake and Suse (i have 8.2 Pro Retail) are best (in my opinion and experience) with regards to a distro to migrate to from Windows. Thanks for the help AT, DTM. Tony :good:
Hey guys, the tech came in and determined the modem to be toast. He replaced it and whoopiee, DHCP works. Now I can really put mandrake to its paces on this laptop. Thanks for the help guys..... Tony :good:
It's more personal opinion about linux distributions, i personally like SuSE and Red Hat the most... Red Hat for Servers and SuSE for desktops/laptops... I have tried mandrake also but preferred suse because of little things that make life easier, for example suse detected my external harddisk without the next for manual configuration / fiddling about... although Mandrake and Suse are both good... if you wish to simply try out SuSE while you have Mandrake installed i recommend you to get the SuSE live ISO from http://www.linuxiso.org/ This enables you to boot a full working copy straight from CD..
Glad to hear that was the whole problem. I'd never had any trouble with hotplugging myself, as long as I remembered to turn it on. Suse is a very good OS and does have its strong points. I prefer Mandriva (AKA the OS formerly known as Mandrake) for home or SOHO desktop use though, because frankly the urpmi package tool is even better than Debian's 'apt'. Also, it ships with *TONS* of multimedia software and codecs, and has ability to grab more quite easily with the contrib and PLF repositories (go here to learn how to set up repositories). It also has some very good management tools, and they've really done an excellent job of organizing the menus in KDE (something that goes a long way with me). All the best, -AT
