[Wylug-help] Slackware9.1/Mandrake9.2 for a linux newbie

[David Noble]

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As a 74 year old linux newbie I would appreciate opinions and help.  I have
both
these distros from LXF cover discs.  Each is on a different hdb ( win98 on
hda).

The two drives are swappable ( outside the box on extended leads  ) PC is P233
with 192Mb  Ram .  Slack I boot from a bootdisk, but when I installed Mandrake
somehow I missed the opportunity to create a bootdisk.  I have tried using
DrakFloppy (Control Centre) but it fails with 'not enough space' error. It
seems to copy the kernel but fails with initrd.img (Whatever that is)




   Using the Slack bootdisk
allows me to start Mandrake but the 'supermount' facility fails and
probably other things as well!  I would much prefer to start Mandrake from
a bootdisk as when, inevitably, I have to re-install win98 the LILO will be
lost.

Slackware recognised my soundcard Aztech 2320 and my external modem ( on
COM2 ) and I can print to my Epson 580.    Mandrake found neither sound
card nor modem, but does find the printer.

 So questions :-
   1) What files is Mandrake trying to put on the floppy, can they be
copied  individually to floppies and transferred to my other PC that has a
CD writer and then burnt to a CD for
booting Mandrake ?   Why does Mandrake have a bootdisk making facility that
can't make one?
   2) Is it possible to get Mdk to see my modem ? and possibly soundcard (
although I do
accept that is pretty ancient )
   3) After no mouse activity for about 1 minute the screen blacks out and
on moving the
mouse root password is requested,  presumably some power saving program but
I can't find where to change it.
   4) Why do I want to try Mdk anyway ?  well all that I read seemed to
promise much and I
liked the idea of the availability of RPMs as against the Slack packages.

   As an old DOSser I'm not put off using the command line but don't yet
know the more
esoteric comands, only ls, dmesg  and other basic stuff.

                 Hope you kind folks out there can help maintain my
interest,
                                      David

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