epp
May 6th, 2009, 03:54 AM
I have a desktop (Compaq Presario) which was dual-boot with Windows XP and (what was) Mandriva Linux.
Upon attempting to install the new version of Mandriva, the installation media (a regular installer CD and also a separate LiveCD) both failed to work as intended. The regular installer displayed I/O errors while trying to copy the packages from the CD and the X server loaded from the LiveCD kept crashing. Windows XP boots up fine though and there are no problems with Windows.
Here is the dilemma. When I installed Ubuntu 9.04 on my laptop, which also had Mandriva previously installed (Linux-only on this, no Windows), upon logging into the account for the first time after the installation (using same login name as used under Mandriva), I had a corrupted GNOME desktop. Both the top and bottom panels were empty (no menus, clock, etc.) and just below the top panel, there was a short 1/2" long panel displaying only the Terminal icon. The only way to fix this, was to reinstall Ubuntu while also formatting the /home partition the second time around, losing all of the data on it (which was not much).
On the desktop, the /home partition has a lot more data which currently cannot be accessed due to the failed Mandriva installation.
Is there a way to successfully install Ubuntu on this desktop, saving the data in /home while also not corrupting the GNOME desktop upon first login? If the results would be the same as what I experienced on the laptop, then it would be best to simply leave Windows on the desktop and not bother with Linux on it.
The desktop's specs are:
CPU: AMD Athlon 600 MHz (i686 architecture)
RAM: 512 Mb (maxed out)
Video: S3 Savage-based video card (8 Mb video RAM on the card)
Thanks in advance for any advice and/or suggestions.
Upon attempting to install the new version of Mandriva, the installation media (a regular installer CD and also a separate LiveCD) both failed to work as intended. The regular installer displayed I/O errors while trying to copy the packages from the CD and the X server loaded from the LiveCD kept crashing. Windows XP boots up fine though and there are no problems with Windows.
Here is the dilemma. When I installed Ubuntu 9.04 on my laptop, which also had Mandriva previously installed (Linux-only on this, no Windows), upon logging into the account for the first time after the installation (using same login name as used under Mandriva), I had a corrupted GNOME desktop. Both the top and bottom panels were empty (no menus, clock, etc.) and just below the top panel, there was a short 1/2" long panel displaying only the Terminal icon. The only way to fix this, was to reinstall Ubuntu while also formatting the /home partition the second time around, losing all of the data on it (which was not much).
On the desktop, the /home partition has a lot more data which currently cannot be accessed due to the failed Mandriva installation.
Is there a way to successfully install Ubuntu on this desktop, saving the data in /home while also not corrupting the GNOME desktop upon first login? If the results would be the same as what I experienced on the laptop, then it would be best to simply leave Windows on the desktop and not bother with Linux on it.
The desktop's specs are:
CPU: AMD Athlon 600 MHz (i686 architecture)
RAM: 512 Mb (maxed out)
Video: S3 Savage-based video card (8 Mb video RAM on the card)
Thanks in advance for any advice and/or suggestions.