Hi I Have A Question About A Friends Laptop

OK so my friend had windows but it kept screewing up his dell inperion 1100 laptop so i hooked him up with a knoppix boot cd. But that was slow and did not work well for him. SO last night We installled SUSE for him the installation went well and worked but when he boots it say it takes him to a terminal. so i dont know what to do

OK so my friend had windows but it kept screewing up his dell inperion 1100 laptop so i hooked him up with a knoppix boot cd. But that was slow and did not work well for him. SO last night We installled SUSE for him the installation went well and worked but when he boots it say it takes him to a terminal. so i dont know what to do[/b]

Likely his laptop has a problem with the graphics, ... or possibly power management. ...

Without that information, there is something you could try, which is this:
a. turn on laptop, and when Grub boot menu appears, type "level 3" in the options line.
b. loggin as user "jasonsfriend" (or what ever your friend's account happens to be),
c. type "su" to get root permissions, and enter root password,
d. type "cp /etc/X11/xorg.conf /etc/X11/xorg.conf.bak.today to backup the xorg.conf file,
e. type "sax2 -m 0=vesa" to configure the xwindows to a vesa driver,
f. test the graphics while sax2 is running. If successful, exit sax2 and go on to item-g,
g. type "exit" to get rid of root permissions, then type "whoami" to confirm you are back to user jasonsfriend.
h. type "startx". If that works, immediately exit xwindows, which will bring you back to the text prompt.
i. type "su" to get root permissions, and enter root password,
j. type "shutdown -r now" to reboot,
k. when grub menu appears, select SuSE but DO NOT enter "level 3" this time, but let it boot normally.
l. does that work?

If it doesn't, try the above again, but this time in "failsafe mode" from the grub menu.

Good luck.

it kept screewing up his dell inperion 1100 laptop so i hooked him up with a knoppix boot cd. But that was slow and did not work well for him. SO last night We installled SUSE for him the installation went well and worked but when he boots it say it takes him to a terminal.[/b]

There are many examples on http://tuxmobil.org/dell.html of linux users using this model of laptop. And getting x-windows to work could be a challenge for a newbie, and my VESA driver suggestion (above) may not work well. SuSE-10.0 may handle this laptop's graphic device with VESA, and it may not.

Surfing the net I found this SuSE-9.0 user's experience:
http://www.velofahren.de/e_dell-inspiron-1100.html
Quoting from that URL:

Configuring X11 was the only real challenge. This Laptop has a special (low end) graphics device that does not have its own memory, but needs to use part of the mainboard RAM. By default it uses only one MB and the SuSE tools do not change this. This means that I could run X11 only with 8bit color depth or with a small area of the screen in the center, neither of which is acceptable at all.

The solution come with a small tool written by Christian Zietz. I downloaded it: 845patch.tar.gz. [/b]

Now as in all cases on the web, one must make certain any piece of advice is not obsolete, so I recommend you and your friend surf/research this some more, and make certain there is not a BIOS upgrade needed, and also make certain there is not a superior approach, than what was conducted with an older SuSE-9.0 release.

By the way, reference live CDs, I find Kanotix (a Knoppix derivative) has newer drivers than Knoppix, and it is more successful in running with different hardware than Knoppix.

There are many examples on http://tuxmobil.org/dell.html of linux users using this model of laptop. And getting x-windows to work could be a challenge for a newbie, and my VESA driver suggestion (above) may not work well. SuSE-10.0 may handle this laptop's graphic device with VESA, and it may not.

Surfing the net I found this SuSE-9.0 user's experience:
http://www.velofahren.de/e_dell-inspiron-1100.html
Quoting from that URL: Now as in all cases on the web, one must make certain any piece of advice is not obsolete, so I recommend you and your friend surf/research this some more, and make certain there is not a BIOS upgrade needed, and also make certain there is not a superior approach, than what was conducted with an older SuSE-9.0 release.

By the way, reference live CDs, I find Kanotix (a Knoppix derivative) has newer drivers than Knoppix, and it is more successful in running with different hardware than Knoppix.
[/b]

if you first post does not work,
how can i download the file? and install from the command line? You cannot get into the graphical mode

if you first post does not work,
how can i download the file? and install from the command line? You cannot get into the graphical mode
[/b]

How can you surf now? Download the file using the same PC. Copy to floppy or USB stick, and take over to laptop. You should be able to access the floppy or USB stick from the command line. In fact, you can access the Internet from the command line, in run level 3. Its actually possible to update one's software packages (from Novell/SuSE) from the command line.

how do i open a floppy from command line. never used it on command line. This is how the setup works. friend has laptop, i have two computers. one on suse linux now and one on windows

how do i open a floppy from command line. never used it on command line. This is how the setup works. friend has laptop, i have two computers. one on suse linux now and one on windows[/b]

I think its been 4 years (or is it 5) since I last did this. You first need to insert the floppy, then mount the floppy drive (which likely will require root permissions) and then access it like any other drive. After you are done, unmount the drive.

Assuming the floppy is mounted under /media/floppy (which I believe is the default SuSE location), and assuming your friend's laptop has a floppy drive:

Something like this:
oldcpu@linux:~> su
Password: oldcpuspassword
linux:/home/oldcpu # mount /media/floppy
linux:/home/oldcpu #

Then get rid of your root permissions with 'exit'. ... ie.
linux:/home/oldcpu # exit

To copy a file, do something like this:
oldcpu@linux:~> cp /media/floppy/file1.txt /home/oldcpu/.

And "file1.txt" will be in the /home/oldcpu directory.

When you are done, unmount the drive by something like this:
oldcpu@linux:~> su
Password: oldcpuspassword
linux:/home/oldcpu # umount /media/floppy
linux:/home/oldcpu #
Then get rid of your root permissions with 'exit'. ... ie.
linux:/home/oldcpu # exit

Of course, your friend's directory won't be /home/oldcpu, it will be something else, which you need to determine.

You know, there are a LOT of tutorials on this on the web. ... Plus lots of tutorials for directory navigation commands, tutorials for untaring a file from the command line, for running rpm from the command line, etc .... I am an "oldcpu" and my memory is not perfect. ... Sometimes a good surf to get an answer is a good thing. ...

where is the options line?

when it boots it gives you three options suse linux 10.0 floopy suse linux10 failsafe

and f1 help f2 other options

where is the options line?
when it boots it gives you three options suse linux 10.0 floopy suse linux10 failsafe
and f1 help f2 other options[/b]

I can't recall. It typically shows up immediately on my PC. When the Grub menu shows, move the selection back and forth from those 3 selections. Does that make it appear? Try pressing ESC or F2. Does that make it appear? It should be on the lower 1/3 of the screen.

NO it just appeard automaticaly on my computer. but on his from what he tells me it does not appear if you press escape it says do you want to go to text boot.

f2 does nothing on my comp but he says that on his computer it goes languages.