installed from live cd, no GDM

[rejean]

Hi all!
I installed Mageia from the live cd and near the end I was told that no GDM could be installed because a mirror could not be found. The rest of the installation went well;bootloader,administrator and user password etc.
Now when I boot into Mageia all I get is a blue screen full of grapes with the name Mageia at the bottom right.
If I Ctrl-Alt-Del once I get a terminal where I am logged in as root (#). If I type "startx" then I get a red-orange blank screen.
So I tried "apt-get install GDM" ( KDE, or what not ) and I am told that apt-get is not allowed. If I try yum same thing. If I try "install kde" then I am told I am missing an operand after kde.
In OpenSUSE all I had to do was type "yast" and I could proceed from there.
So could someone show me how I should go about installing either Gnome, KDE or LXDE, whichever, from a command line? Please.

[martinw]

In Mageia, the equivalent to "apt-get install" is "urpmi". To install GNOME, log in as root and type

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urpmi task-gnome


"task-gnome" is a meta package that pulls in all the packages for a full GNOME installation. Similarly, there is "task-kde" and "task-lxde". If you want a more minimal installation, there is also "task-gnome-minimal", etc.

Once you have your DE installed, you can then use the GUI interface to urpmi inside the Mageia Control Centre.

[djennings]

I installed Mageia from the live cd and near the end I was told that no GDM could be installed because a mirror could not be found.

That is strange. The Live CD does not need a mirror to install Gnome

I think what you have done is install from the 'Dual-Arch CD' and selected 'Gnome' at the screen where it asks what kind of install you want.
The Dual Arch CD contains a minimal install for both 32 and 64 bit. Used on its own it will install an LXDE desktop, but if near the start of the install you declare an online repository it is capable of doing a full Gnome or KDE install and so it shows the option for installing KDE and Gnome.

[rejean]

Thanks martinw and djennings!
I greatly appreciate your input! I'll give it a try later tonight and let you know of the outcome.

[rejean]

Unfortunately whatever I try doesn't work.
If I try "#urpmi task-gnome" without the "#" of course I am told that "no package named gnome". Same with kde, lxde,kdm.
If I try "urpmi --fuzzy kdm " I get a list such as "--download-all" and if I try "urpmi task-gnome --download-all" Then I am told again "no package named gnome".
What should I do?

[rejean]

I think what I need is to connect to a mirror.
I need details because;

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#urpmi.addmedia --distrib -mirrorlist 'MIRRORLIST'

Unknown option: mirrorlist
bad <url> (for local directory, the path must be absolute)

[Ken-Bergen]

I think what I need is to connect to a mirror.
I need details because;

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#urpmi.addmedia --distrib -mirrorlist 'MIRRORLIST'

Unknown option: mirrorlist
bad <url> (for local directory, the path must be absolute)

Try

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urpmi.addmedia --distrib --mirrorlist

[rejean]

no luck Ken;

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urpmi.addmedia --distrib --mirrrolist
mirrorlist not found
could not find a mirror from mirrorlist $MIRRORLIST

[Ken-Bergen]

no luck Ken;

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urpmi.addmedia --distrib --mirrrolist
mirrorlist not found
could not find a mirror from mirrorlist $MIRRORLIST

Typo?
mirrorlist
not
mirrrolist

[rejean]

typo in my rely ken because I tried several times and couldn't have made the same mistake so often.

[djennings]

Do you actually have a working ethernet?

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ifconfig

If not you may as well just reinstall, but this time when it asks if you have additional media select 'FTP'.
It will bring up the network and find its own mirror to download from.
Use a wired Ethernet connection. The installer does support wireless connections, but not all makes.
(Ignore any message about failing the connectivity test. It always does that even when the connection is good.)

[Ken-Bergen]

Do you actually have a working ethernet?

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ifconfig

If not you may as well just reinstall, but this time when it asks if you have additional media select 'FTP'.
It will bring up the network and find its own mirror to download from.
Use a wired Ethernet connection. The installer does support wireless connections, but not all makes.
(Ignore any message about failing the connectivity test. It always does that even when the connection is good.)

I just tried and you get a different error message without an internet connection

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[root@localhost bin]# urpmi.addmedia --distrib --mirrorlist
...retrieving failed: aria2 failed: exited with 19

unable to access the distribution medium (no media.cfg file found)
unable to add medium
[root@localhost bin]#

Also he's using the live CD which I don't believe will ask about additional media, it just dumps what's on the CD to the hard drive.

[djennings]

Also he's using the live CD which I don't believe will ask about additional media, it just dumps what's on the CD to the hard drive.

I am not so sure he is using the live CD, or else he would not have had any problems.
If you look at the first post the installer said

no GDM could be installed because a mirror could not be found.

The LiveCD would not need a mirror to install GDM, but that is the message given if trying to install Gnome without LXDE using the Dual CD without a mirror. I tried it out for myself to confirm before raising Bug 5773

[Ken-Bergen]

I am not so sure he is using the live CD, or else he would not have had any problems.
If you look at the first post the installer said

no GDM could be installed because a mirror could not be found.

The LiveCD would not need a mirror to install GDM, but that is the message given if trying to install Gnome without LXDE using the Dual CD without a mirror. I tried it out for myself to confirm before raising Bug 5773

I missed your post about it likely being the Dual CD not the Live CD and you're probably correct.

[rejean]

Ok!
Sorry for having wasted your time guys. At least I didn't wasted mine totally since I learned quite a bit.
I tried reinstalling at least 4 times today and couldn't pass the reboot stage. I even had some "kernel panic -no sync, blablabla" messages, same as I did when I was trying installing PCLinuxOS Zen so I went for Ubuntu 10.04 and part way during the installation I got the following message:

The installer encountered an error copying files to the hard disk:

[Errno 5] Input/output error

This is often due to a faulty CD/DVD disk or drive, or a faulty hard disk. It may help to clean the CD/DVD, to burn the CD/DVD at a lower speed, to clean the CD/DVD drive lens (cleaning kits are often available from electronics suppliers), to check whether the hard disk is old and in need of replacement, or to move the system to a cooler environment.

This explains a lot because I knew it couldn't be the internet since using the Dual CD (as Ken so aptly pointed out ) or WinXP I could and still can right now access the internet.
On my own computer (which is actually out of commission because of a fried motherboard) I will install Mageia but from the DVD ( this machine has only a CD-R ) when I get it back. I have been using Mandriva and previously Mandrake and will continue using the Live (pardon Dual CD) for the next few weeks.
Thanks again for your patience. I'll be back. Don't worry!
Rejean