I don’t know if this needs a response or is water cooler talk but here it is, I’ve encountered strange installation problems. My personal laptop (Dell inspiron 1525) is currently running Suse 11.4 Gnome. My wife’s laptop (HP Pavilion dv 1000) currently has Ubuntu 9.04. I’ve tried to install Suse 11.3 and 11.4 on her laptop. The 11.3 dvd is the same one I used to install Suse on my laptop, I used to have Ubuntu on mine. I set the boot order to boot from cd first. I’ve even disabled the ability for anything else to boot. 11.3 won’t even start. 11.4 in the hp laptop installs but when I reboot the system the background looks really strange and black boxes start to appear on the screen following my cursor, dialog boxes disappear, this is the same cd that I used to install 11.4 on my Dell. I burned Ubuntu 10.04 for a friends netbook Asus Eee and used that cd in an external cd drive to install on the netbook, it works fine, I also tried the same thing with Ubuntu 11.4 for the netbook and that was a disaster, applications were failing left and right. So the friends netbook seems to only like Ubuntu 10.04, The same cd won’t boot in my wife’s HP but the Ubuntu 9.04 will. Suse won’t take on the HP, but it will on the Dell. I didn’t want to try Suse on the friends netbook she’s 68 and this is the first time using linux. I’m an over the road trucker and wanted my wife to help her in any way she could with the Ubuntu. Personally I think something is wrong with the hardware on the HP. The 11.4 might have had corrupted files when the download happened. Don’t know its just weird.
On the machine that doesn’t even boot (Is that with 11.3 on the HP)
Try holding down SHIFT as you boot the DVD
Where it installs but then you have messed up graphics try booting the failsafe option from the grub menu
or add ‘nomodeset’ to the default boot
as seen here: SDB:Configuring graphics cards - openSUSE
The HP will only take Ubuntu 9.10, it wouldn’t install Suse 11.3. The splash screen doesn’t even appear even though you can hear the cd spinning. When I try to install Ubuntu 10.04 on the HP it gets as far as the splash screen and then that’s it. So I just left the HP with 9.10, its 6, 7 or more years old, it was my daughters when she was a freshman in college, well she’s already beyond that been through law school and has her own practice. Is it possible that the newer software is too advanced for the computer. I ask this because I see that my laptop is to old for Suse 12.1 when I look for hardware requirements.
Thank you for the help, and the advise. I like the Suse forums over the Ubuntu forums because the turn around time for an answer is faster. I looked at the ‘nomodeset’ jpeg and when I have time I’ll try that again, muchly appreciated.
The specs I found were not impressive, but looked OK.
If it has Ubuntu on it. Open a terminal post the result of
lspci -nnk
Drum roll, here the readout:
grace@grace-laptop:~$ lspci -nnk
00:00.0 Host bridge [0600]: Intel Corporation 82852/82855 GM/GME/PM/GMV Processor to I/O Controller [8086:3580] (rev 02)
Kernel driver in use: agpgart-intel
Kernel modules: intel-agp
00:00.1 System peripheral [0880]: Intel Corporation 82852/82855 GM/GME/PM/GMV Processor to I/O Controller [8086:3584] (rev 02)
00:00.3 System peripheral [0880]: Intel Corporation 82852/82855 GM/GME/PM/GMV Processor to I/O Controller [8086:3585] (rev 02)
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Intel Corporation 82852/855GM Integrated Graphics Device [8086:3582] (rev 02)
Kernel driver in use: i915
Kernel modules: i915
00:02.1 Display controller [0380]: Intel Corporation 82852/855GM Integrated Graphics Device [8086:3582] (rev 02)
00:1d.0 USB Controller [0c03]: Intel Corporation 82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-L/ICH4-M) USB UHCI Controller #1 [8086:24c2] (rev 03)
Kernel driver in use: uhci_hcd
00:1d.1 USB Controller [0c03]: Intel Corporation 82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-L/ICH4-M) USB UHCI Controller #2 [8086:24c4] (rev 03)
Kernel driver in use: uhci_hcd
00:1d.2 USB Controller [0c03]: Intel Corporation 82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-L/ICH4-M) USB UHCI Controller #3 [8086:24c7] (rev 03)
Kernel driver in use: uhci_hcd
00:1d.7 USB Controller [0c03]: Intel Corporation 82801DB/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-M) USB2 EHCI Controller [8086:24cd] (rev 03)
Kernel driver in use: ehci_hcd
00:1e.0 PCI bridge [0604]: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge [8086:2448] (rev 83)
Kernel modules: shpchp
00:1f.0 ISA bridge [0601]: Intel Corporation 82801DBM (ICH4-M) LPC Interface Bridge [8086:24cc] (rev 03)
Kernel modules: iTCO_wdt, intel-rng
00:1f.1 IDE interface [0101]: Intel Corporation 82801DBM (ICH4-M) IDE Controller [8086:24ca] (rev 03)
Kernel driver in use: ata_piix
00:1f.3 SMBus [0c05]: Intel Corporation 82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-L/ICH4-M) SMBus Controller [8086:24c3] (rev 03)
Kernel modules: i2c-i801
00:1f.5 Multimedia audio controller [0401]: Intel Corporation 82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-L/ICH4-M) AC’97 Audio Controller [8086:24c5] (rev 03)
Kernel driver in use: Intel ICH
Kernel modules: snd-intel8x0
00:1f.6 Modem [0703]: Intel Corporation 82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-L/ICH4-M) AC’97 Modem Controller [8086:24c6] (rev 03)
Kernel modules: snd-intel8x0m
02:00.0 Ethernet controller [0200]: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL-8139/8139C/8139C+ [10ec:8139] (rev 10)
Kernel driver in use: 8139too
Kernel modules: epl, 8139too, 8139cp
02:06.0 Network controller [0280]: Intel Corporation PRO/Wireless 2200BG [Calexico2] Network Connection [8086:4220] (rev 05)
Kernel driver in use: ipw2200
Kernel modules: ipw2200
02:09.0 CardBus bridge [0607]: Texas Instruments PCIxx21/x515 Cardbus Controller [104c:8031]
00:00.0 Host bridge [0600]: Intel Corporation 82852/82855 GM/GME/PM/GMV Processor to I/O Controller [8086:3580] (rev 02)
Kernel driver in use: agpgart-intel
Kernel modules: intel-agp
This is your graphics
Can’t say I have come across it before. Intel is common but this version is not one I know.
But that doesn’t mean it’ll not work! It may be great.
But that you don’t see anything is rather odd, because even the trickiest of graphics usually work on boot.
So you are able to use DVD’s? (I mean it has a DVD drive, yes?)
And the DVD’s and CD’s are confirmed good? (Maybe on another machine)
On a SUSE DVD if you hold SHIFT whilst booting the DVD
See if you arrive at a prompt
linux:
If you do, just type: linux
and hit enter
In the mean time - How much memory do you have?
Because usually under 1GB is a struggle for live CD’s
But you should see this, as it might help too: Text mode install from liveCD
The Suse Cd’s were used to install Suse 11.3 and 11.4 on my laptop (the Dell). The DVD/CD on the HP its good because after all the screwing around I put the Ubuntu 9.10 into the drive and it began to load right away. Text mode install from liveCD only happened on the 11.4 CD for the (HP) nothing happened on the 11.3 CD the splash screen didn’t even come up. When I tried to install Ubuntu 10.04 on the HP only the splash screen came up and then the install quit. I typed sudo lshw on the hp and system memory on motherboard size is 512M, capacity 2G bank 0 256 and bank 1 256. I just remembered when we got it it had windoze xp and the graphics flickered, it doesn’t flicker using 9.10 maybe I should leave well enough alone until we buy her a different on maybe from Ostock refurbished. Sometimes the “hole in the wall” computer store locally has some good deals. This has been educational.