Mailinglist Archive: opensuse (4570 mails)

["Matt Stamm" <mattsl@xxxxxxxxx>]

---------- Original Message ----------------------------------
From: Bruce Marshall <bmarsh@xxxxxxxxxx>
Reply-To: bmarsh@xxxxxxxxxx
Date:  Wed, 2 Nov 2005 09:51:08 -0500

>On Wednesday 02 November 2005 09:39 am, Matt Stamm wrote:
>> I'm recent pruchased a new PC with a single SATA drive.
>> I was unable to install SUSE to this PC using the default
>> install. Every install attempt resulted in a GRUB error
>> on the initial boot after the first CD. Changing the
>> bootloader from GRUB to LILO fixed the problem and
>> resulted in a successfull install.
>>
>> I'm concerned that I could not install SUSE with the
>> default settings. It appears that SUSE, and the Linux
>> community prefers GRUB and that GRUB is a more powerful
>> bootloader than LILO. I do not plan on having any other
>> OS on this PC other than SUSE.
>>
>> Should I be concerned that I could not use GRUB?
>>
>> What is the downside to using LILO instead of GRUB ?
>>
>> Any advise or comment would be appreciated.
>>
>> Matt
>
>I have installed 10.0 on a machine with a SATA drive... an Intel motherboard 
>-- so the problem must lie either with your hardware situation or possibly 
>your BIOS settings for IDE/SATA.
>
>It is possible that the SATA drive switched position (numbering) when the 
>system rebooted..  and that a grub setting might cure the boot problem.
>

Bruce,

I'm sure the BIOS setting is a possibility. I purchased
the PC from Monarch Computer Systems. They offer PCs with
Linux pre-installed and they just (last week) started offering
SUSE 10 pre-installed. So I called them to get advise and
they too are having problems. They have a single order for
a SUSE 10 system and, as of Monday, have yet to get it out
the door due to install problems. They sound much more GRUB
experienced than I so they said they are working on a GRUB
work-around.

Concerning the BIOS setting, its a Phoenix BIOS. In order
to access the SATA info you have to hit <TAB>. When you
hit <DEL> to enter the normal BIOS stuff there is no mention
of the SATA drives. The <TAB> section displays two channels,
with nothing on channel one and my 80 gig drive on channel 0.

Does this tell you what you need to know?

Matt