On Thursday 16 December 2004 7:14 pm, Vince Littler wrote:
Yes, this sort of thing is familiar to me. It hangs as described in the splash screen _before_ attempting to load the kernel, so the kernel is nothing to do with it. I have the problem on most versions with Adaptec SCSI. The workaround is to hold down a shift key while booting, starting just before leaving BIOS. IIRC correctly you then choose a driver. After this, normally the CD boot works, and the installed sytem boots normally.
I thought you'd cracked it, Vince, but not quite. Holding down the shift key pops me into an options screen, from where I typed "linux" at the boot prompt to do an install. Everything starts up, but coughs when it comes to "Starting YaST". After a failed attempt to do a graphical YaST, it puts me into the ncurses one. I did the install fine from there, but of course then there is a reboot before you get to the graphics setup with SaX, and at the reboot ... yes, you get the "Welcome" splash screen again, and there it hangs. So it is obviously something that SUSE doesn't like about the graphics subsystem on this PC, which seems to be an onboard 3dfx, with no AGP slot to choose anything else. I take James/Carl's point about Packard-Bells not being the best of PCs, but to give this one credit I think it would actually not be too bad for office-type stuff - it's reasonably snappy. It may indeed be some proprietary firmware to do with the onboard graphics, or SUSE being more stringent than other plebeian distros, but I can't avoid a slight feeling of disappointment. The reason I started using SUSE all those years ago was that it seemed to boot on any old stuff, where others failed dismally. But here it is turning up its nose at this PC, and when I have the chance of making a convert too! I'll try Carl's suggestion of another CD drive, and Leo's of the floppy images, tomorrow, but at the minute it's All Other Distros 1, SUSE 0. -- Pob hwyl (Best wishes) Kevin Donnelly www.kyfieithu.co.uk - Meddalwedd Rhydd yn Gymraeg www.cymrux.org.uk - Linux Cymraeg ar un CD!