Simply Doesn't Work

English Install/Boot/Login
1

I admit I’m no power user, Guru, or whatever you ultimate Geeks are calling yourselves these days, but yet again; I thought the very philosophy of the Linux nowadays is to absorb as much users as possible in order to grow the Open Source movement… in other words, I believe you don’t necessarily have to dedicate your life to a distribution and still be a user with your choice over windows or any other OS. Well, I fall in that category; while I’ve been using Linux since RedHat4, until recently with Ubuntu, then again I have a job not in IT industry, and I have a life beyond swimming in depth of Geekialogy.

Having that said; looking for a better distro, I’ve downloaded the Live CD version (11.1) and tried to boot it up several times on my both machines (my business class Vaio laptop, and a pretty decent AMD desktop);

on both occasions it SIMPLY DOESN’T WORK; after choosing for Live to boot, Kernel loads, and after a couple of seconds everything goes dark.

I tried anything I could think of; While even on VESA mode I can’t have any graphic more than a blank black screen, I tried text mode(I admit finally I got a prompt, Yay), I tried Yast, and tried, tried, tried…

I know, for a master technician there must be a simple way to solve such problems, however, I believe in mid2009, expecting a so called advance OS to recognize a brand new laptop’s…

I have no idea how you guys would defend such broken OS! (perhaps that you could compile the whole OS from the very scratch and that gives you freedom! or something; well freedom is great and everything, but most of the times you simply want it to work instead of laboring you like it’s 1995 again and good luck with introducing your hardware to your new OS!) But I’d say; What a shame, What a waste of time.

2

Before burning the CD, did you do an MD5 sum on the .iso file that you downloaded?

What sort of burner and at what speed did you burn ? My experience has indicated it best to burn the CD at a slow speed. Also, if the age of the CD/DVD drives in the PCs is different, that can also mean a live CD may work in one PC and not in another.

I’ve also encountered cases with a new PC where the live CD would run, but then kick me out to a text log in because it struggled with my graphics. At that point it was a simple matter of running “sax2 -r -m 0=vesa” (or run sax2 with some other command line option) and it would work.

IMHO for Linux to be user friendly, close to that of an MS-Windows machine, requires one to have a knowledgeable friend in Linux, who is willing to spend a lot of time holding one’s hand. Else one will run into problems that are blocking, yet simple to solve, if only one knew the solution.

3

I’ve burned the CD step on step based on instructions found on this very website. also, I used the very software recommended in order to burn. not to mention I verified the burn process afterwards.

Ironically, I have such friends, and I asked them to help. One in particular who’s a cross platform pango something developer, tried his best unsuccessfuly. then again, mid2009, for a live CD to boot, for a medium user, on an almost brand new 2000$ Vaio machine, should not require Rucket Science degree in geekialogy; and that’s my exact point; while you’re saying I have to have a friend in NASA in order to dare to boot the Live CD!!!

Another interesting thing is, that I used to have Ubuntu(8.10), and Mint(7), on these both same machines.

4

read this carefully, follow all media check hints, and try again:
http://tinyurl.com/6jwtg9 (Suse-11.1 Pre-installation guide)

if that does not work, try the real documentation:
http://tinyurl.com/579ftj (step-by-step installation guide)

oh, and for a first ever posting here, having never asked for one
second of help: you sure are acting like one who just wants to
complain (rather than try)…

if you wanna try, why don’t ask something like:

openSUSE 11.1 KDE LiveCD on _________ [fill in make/model of laptop].
with a _________ processor and _____ RAM: I checked the iso before i
burned the CD, firmware test is good, the media checks good, memtest
shows my memory is good then during attempted boot up the kernel
loads, and after a couple of seconds everything goes dark.

What should i do next? (i’ve tried F3 to set the video, and tried
kernel switches for vesa…etc)

please help…i want to see what i’m missing.

try that maybe.

–
brassy

5

This is a flame or i am very lucky because i installed Suse then opensuse on a variety of different Hw.

6

It is interesting how often when something doesn’t work it is said that Ubuntu has been used. Ubuntu has a great compatibility though i haven’t used it for a long time. I wonder why didn’t you post your problems here when trying it but you complain NOW? You can’t say anything unless you tried the community help and without that it is simple ranting.

P.S. I have a theory that some ubuntu users create such threads and then look for it with google so that it shows up on the top but it’s just a theory.

7

What was the question, I didn’t see one. Rants like this generally get moved to Soapbox forum.

When you got to a prompt did you login, if so as what? IIRC as root, you could try entering:

sax2 -r -m 0=vesa

You can replace vesa with other installed video drivers e.g. fbdev

8

You did not answer my question about the MD5 sum. That suggests to me you did not do it. Saying you followed something on this website (where this is a massive forum) means nothing. I can’t read your mind as to what you specifically read/followed. If you did not do the MD5sum, then thats a mistake. A potentially big mistake (in the context of trying to successfully burn a CD with an OS on it).

Glad to read that about Ubuntu and Mint, but if you did not do the MD5 sum on the openSUSE iso file to prove it downloaded correctly, that is a meaningless observation about Ubuntu and Mint. Meaningless.

One additional thing about openSUSE, which you probably read, but also probably had NO IDEA as to what it mean, is the name, openSUSE. Note the emphasis on “open”. What does that mean? It means Novell/SuSE-GmbH with openSUSE are more committed and more careful in their implementation of providing non-compromised open source software than either Ubuntu or Mint (using your examples). Now that approach means that openSUSE will NOT provide proprietary drivers (re:graphics/wireless…etc … ) , nor proprietary codecs (for multimedia) nor does it provide the same sort of semi-automated installation hooks into propreitary drivers that Ubuntu provide (I can’t speak for Mint here as my familiarity is less). Why is that? Its because Novell is a signficantly larger juicy fat target for law suits than Ubuntu, and those with proprietary software would likely enjoy the opportunity to launch a law suit on a juicy target. Ubuntu/Mint are simply not as big a target.

And what does that mean ? It means some graphic hardware which requires proprietary drivers won’t run well on an openSUSE live CD without some tuning. It means users like you (assuming you did check the MD5, assuming you burn the CD correctly - which is not clear to me) who still have such problems don’t have the openSUSE specific knowledge (and not just advanced Linux knowedge, but openSUSE specific is need) will have problems, and IMHO they should simply not waste their time on openSUSE if they do not want to learn the openSUSE way of doing things.

Nor should they waste their time. They probably dislike the openSUSE philosophy of more pure openSource. They probably dont’ care/believe Novell will get sued. Hence openSuse is not for them, and from my perspective, that is FINE!!

Linux is Linux. The beauty of Linux is choice, and there are other choices than openSUSE Linux.

But I did my best (re: md5sum and speed in which you burned the CD) to point out where you went astray.

If you choose not to answer that, but instead rant, then thats fair game. OpenSUSE is NOT the only game in town, and from my prespective, the freedom to choose other Linux distributions is one of the things I like about Linux. … for example, when I want to use a LiveCD , I use Sidux and NOT Ubuntu, and NOT mint, and NOT openSUSE. I use Sidux. Its because I believe Sidux live CD has the best hardware detection in Linux.

9

I admit, I probably chose the wrong distro, considering. I had no idea about the meaning of the Open in the name; I always thought it’s the basic version compared to the enterprise versions.

oh, and Yes, I’ve tested the media.

Regarding our friend’s theory; I have no Bios toward Ubuntu or any other distro for that matter. not to mention if I was satisfied with them in the first place, I wouldn’t look for something else.

Also, I apologize for mis-leading you; it was a complaint, or I would provide a full description of my problem;
As a strategic expert, I simply believe, Linux has much more potential held back by this very approach of Nomadic computing.
As a simple user a.k.a human being, I believe at the end of the first decade of the 21st century, it is ridicules for a person to step by step diagnose and repair simplest things that computers are easily capable of doing. It is embarrassing for an advance OS to be unable to provide such basic services, and it will bound to fail in the long term… and claiming such inabilities as advantages, or freedom will not change these facts.

and finally, I tested the CD on another machine and it worked (an HP tablet)… I guess I wasn’t very lucky, but then again this community is probably better off without me anyway. :smiley:

and thanks for answers anyway. If I decided to give it a try later, I’ll use your advices.

10

Funny … if I had to have guessed, my guess would have been the PC where it will not work will be the HP tablet/ :rolleyes:

Give the Sidux live CD a try. Its not a distribution that I would use on a regular day-by-day basis (as obviously I’m an openSUSE believer) but for a live CD that I occasionally run on a desktop, its clearly my choice due to its superb hardware detection. Its also KDE3 desktop based, and I like KDE3.