Apparently made a mistake in initially trying to install 12.3 by trying to start it as with pae; my laptop doesn’t support that so got all sorts of issues and of course never loaded.
Tried a full new install using only standard options and avoiding the pae options, but when came time to reboot from the install, and even using default (recovery) option, would only load to end of scroll page where says “Reached target Graphical Interface” and then just has cursor keep blinking there at left corner of bottom, but goes no further [occasionally – very randomly – will start the five icon display, but never gets further than the third icon].
Is there something I should try as to kernel or driver options or something else which might get it to complete start-up?
I know there are newer versions out, but I can only use 32-bit and am trying to get this 12.3 [a usually very reliable version] to function for me.
System finished boot but failed to start graphical drivers. Alt-F1 should give you text mode login prompt.