Win98 -- all kidding aside

[Jimmy Montague]

On Fri, 2008-08-01 at 01:08 +0200, Mario Vukelic wrote:
> I see from your mail headers that you use Evolution. When you press the
> Ctrl+L keys, it will reply to the list automatically ;)
> 
> On Thu, 2008-07-31 at 17:49 -0500, Jimmy Montague wrote:
> > Don't feel bad that the Kubuntu installer didn't work -- Next day I
> > burned a Mandriva disk from an image file and I couldn't make my system
> > read the Mandriva disk at all. My system refused to boot from that CD.
> > So I burned another Mandriva disk and got the same result.
> 
> > There's nothing whatever wrong with my hardware. 
> 
> Seriously, it does not sound like that. Maybe it's just that your burner
> or the blank discs you use are prone to burn errors. 
> 
> Over time, there were a number of discussions on the list because burned
> CDs would not boot, or would boot but behave funny, even though the CD
> check on the boot screen would find no errors. I remember that these
> cases were usually resolved by burning at minimum speed.
> 
> Linux distro CD images usually max out the capacity on the disc, which
> might contribute to these burn errors. RW discs also seem to be less
> reliable.
> 
> It might be worth a try to burn with 1x speed, even though it takes a
> long time.
> 
> 
> > I checked the bug list you linked to. Bug No. 3 "Gfloppy will not
> > successfully format a completely blank disk" sounds like the bug I've
> > got. I see it's been confirmed, as well.
> 
> Well I don't know, it says nothing about a lock-up.

No. It doesn't say anything about a lockup. It says the application
puked. I took it to mean a lockup because that's what happened to me
when I tried it -- twice -- once with sudo and once without before I
posted to the list about it.

> But in any case might be worth a try. 
> Despite your aversion against the command line, did you try the command
> that the report recommends?

Twice, as I said, with sudo and without. The only thing I did different
was "sudo setfdprm -p /dev/fd0 720/720" and I did it that way because my
diskettes are DD and not HD. Either way, floppy formatter pukes.

> By the way, you can simpy select the text on the web page
> and then paste it into the terminal by clicking the middle mouse
> button/wheel (or click the left and right buttons together if your mouse
> has only two buttons).

Yeah, I know about cut and paste into the Terminal window. It's one of
those nifty tricks that Linux knows. I wish it knew how to format
floppies.

I thought about burning at 1x -- but I'm already 60 years old and have
coronary artery disease, and I don't know if I'll live long enough to
see that burn finish. . . .

Good luck, my ass.