[Sussex] I swear, bloody Linux will be the death of me !

[John D]

Well, I've done it again. What you may ask? Kill my bloody linux 
install(s). AAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH

Just when I thought I was getting a handle on "matter's 2.6" I managed 
to balls it all up.

I started out by trying to use the KDE "konstruct" facility to get and 
install the KDE 3.2 only to discover that I didn't have the faintest 
idea of what I was doing (again).

Then John D's "good idea's club" kicked into action when I spotted that 
mandrake have released mandrake 10 beta 2 (with a 2.6 kernel and KDE 
3.2) - "It doesn't matter if it's a beta, afterall, I can always boot 
back into my gentoo install if things go pear shaped". WRONG

After downloading and burning the mandy 10B2 disc's, I did the install, 
which wouldn't boot, then I got a kernel panic (I've heard of these, but 
don't really understand what they are), then when it did seem to boot, 
the KDE wouldn't start/hung on a blue screen "a la windows", finally I 
realised how much of a monumental cock up I'd made when the bloody 
mandrake install wouldn't even recognise my graphics card (though this 
may be something to do with the 2.6 kernel and nvidia driver 
incompatibility ???)

So, I've just spent the best part of 8 hours, re-installing mandrake 9.1 
from scratch, with all the respective updates/bugfixes/security patches.

Phew! What a sucessful weekend this ones turned out to be!

Oh, and I can't get back into my gentoo install, because I haven't got a 
clue how to find out what the version/kernel/initrd etc etc are called 
to include them in my lilo.conf

Presuming the worst with the gentoo install, if I do a total re-install, 
does anyone know how I'd be able to do this with a 2.6 kernel from the 
"live CD" version - as a stage 3 install ?

Ho Hum, back to the drawing board!

regards

John D.