Hi all,
I installed fedora 8 on my HP Compaq v3000 laptop after 5 failed attempts (the installation used to hang) - an irritating experience which took a lot of patience and will on my side to still want to try linux.

After a lot of time investment, the installation completed, but now the system wouldn't boot. Of all 23 attempts, my system booted just once and hung after 15 minutes. My mouse tapping in Vista stopped working. And everytime I tried to boot into fedora, the system hung either during the boot process or at the logon screen - or right after entering the username/password and hitting enter.

I searched on the forums and came across things like 'noacpi' or 'acpi=off' and believe me, I tried all the combinations and my system still had the same issues. Moreover, I'd rather dump linux if I need to run it without the power management.

So far, until now, my experience with fedora 8 has been lowsy. Moreover, I hardly have the patience to install ubuntu or some other distro now so I'd like to know a way to fix this issue now or get rid of linux. Though I might want to give slackware a try but that would still be the last option - I sincerely wouldn't like downloading 3 gigs of something that just wont work after installation.

Moreover, this has scared me. Does it apply for all hardware?

My hardware:
Model: HP Compaq Presario V3000AU
Processor: AMD Turion64, 2.2 GHz
Graphics: Nvidia GeForce Go 6150
Memory: 1.5 GB RAM
HDD: 120 GB
Willing to dedicate to linux: 20 GB (will keep increasing in future)
Sound: Connexant HD Audio
Wireless: Broadcom (I guess I can get the drivers for broadcom using ndiswrapper, right?)

Can anyone please tell me the solution to this problem? I really wonder when we'll get to see a distro that does not involve wasteful hardware hassles - if we're ever able to see one.

Late last year I went through several distributions looking for a candidate to be my next main OS. I had the same problems with Fedora 8 that you are having. I went through the various options that you tried and got nowhere. So I scratched Fedora off my list and moved on. I found three distributions that worked out of the box for me and a couple of others which I could hammer on until they worked. In the end I chose Debian.

While going through the list I found it convenient to have three Linux partitions, swap and two / partitions. That way I could keep a stable Linux in one of the / partitions while I experimented with other distributions in the other / partition.

I suggest that you give up on Fedora and try other distributions.

------------------
Steve Stites

The only distros that are consistent are the ones that you configure yourself and don't rely on auto-detection scripts to attempt to guess how your system is supposed to work. Of course, these are only as good as the person configuring them.

If Fedora doesn't work for you out of the box and you don't want to make it work, try something else, it will be a crap shoot unless someone else has already documented a system like yours running a certain distro. Every distro should run fine on it, whether or not its automatic detection scheme will get everything right on the first shot is another matter.

A quick google search did turn up this, where someone mentions fixing their V3000AU' freezing with the "idle=poll" kernel parameter.
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=486389

*piiiing*



+1 on just trying different distros. Of course, it coule be a hardware issue too.
If other distros freeze too, I would run a memtest, cpu test and so on.
It shouldn't take more than 30 minutes to install ubuntu on your system, and you can spend 90% of that time taking a nap, watching TV or walking your dog.

Thank you for your reply. I tried the idle=poll parameter by editing the options in GRUB during boot, but it didn't help. Moreover, as the system begins to boot, I see something fishy: PCI BUG ##$#$#@^&^&*^%#$#$ (some numbers) FOUND!

Is something going on with the PCI slots? Some people told me that its a problem with the wifi network adapter, which is not being recognized by the linux kernel, but I don't know. I've tried all options.

Can anyone tell me how to get the system to boot atleast? Even in command line? Any help will be greatly appreciated.

Okay. So, now I used ndiswrapper to install my wifi driver from the command line (the command line boot worked perfectly) and since then I've performed 2 reboots and the system is now stable.

But I'd still like to know what the problem was - if it indeed is solved.

Some systems just have hardware that is hostile to anything but Windows, I'm unable to find anything but your posts talking about running Linux on a Presario V3000AU. There could be some buggy code in the BIOS that Windows is able to ignore, but will stop Linux. These aren't terribly common, but when you get one, it will make you pull your hair out.

With all of the hardware out there it is hard to get something that will run perfectly on all of it, unless the hardware was designed with it in mind.

A wireless card shouldn't have caused anything like that, but anything is possible.

apparently Suse 10.x does a good job of working with that hardware.. http://www-static.cc.gatech.edu/~lof...aptopSuSE.html

and heres a ubuntu 6.06 (old) setup
http://starbase-12.blogspot.com/2006...buntu-606.html


When working with Laptops and Linux it's goood to use the linux on laptops or tuxmobile sites to find out how to solve issues you are having. Odds are someone already ran into it and solved it.
http://www.linux-laptop.net/
http://tuxmobil.org/mylaptops.html

If you're asking for a distro that is stable and won't give you a lousy experience try Slackware or Debian.

Remember that Fedora is cutting/bleeding edge distro, perhaps you don't realize who will be left cut and bleeding in most cases. The major problem with Fedora is and has always been selinux, if you turn it off, with enough luck things will turn out alright, but don't bet too much money on it.

Thanks for your replies guys. I think the problem was indeed with my wireless card- once the broadcom drivers were installed, the system was stable.

I installed Nvidia's drivers as well, and got the 3d working- effects et al. But the system still hangs if I invoke the effects too frequently (like desktops on a cube or window wobbling on drag)

It's "Eye candy".

Most of us want our computers to work, and be secure. Mine do, are, and I'm happy.

I'll leave the fancy (useless) desktop effects until they are stable. But we need people like you to report that they are not working, so the developers know what needs fixing

I agree, no special 3D effects desktop system (xgl, comipz, etc.) is anywhere near stable at the moment, so don't complain here, tell it to the devs.

And yes, even if I had a computer with immense power and resources, I would still find a rotating 3D cube useless. I prefer good old fluxbox, with just a taskbar, 2 workspaces (really I only need one, but I keep an extra for short side tasks), manually edit the menu config file to suit me and that's it. No complications, special effects, I use a theme with 3 colors black, white and grey, dull but highly visible and functional. I guess it depends on your mentality and what you want out of your computer or what you think you want out of it, or what others want you to think you want ...

I have had really good luck with Fedora8 the only problem my compaq had was the stupid broadcom NIC. But NDSwrapper took care of that...

Agreed with you guys. Disabled all 'eye candy'.
System smooth.

Good.
Welcome to linux