black screen on install? (hardware problem?)
 

i'm a total newbie to linux, and have SuSE 8.2 in front of me, and am running windows 2k, the problem is that i tried to install suse on my pc but i keep getting a black screen right after it asks me how i want to install (loads kernel then goes blank).
i have managed to install it on an old pc that i had but not on my new one.
could it be the hadware that it doesn't recognise or something like that?
heres what its spec is...
asus a7n8x deluxe (nforce2 chipset with onboard serial/raid)
sony dwu10a dvd multi writer
2x 120gb maxter sata drives (raid 0 stripped set) its patitioned with a 10Gb FAT32 and the rest ntfs
1x 10Gb fugitsu ide (only installed this to see if it was the sata drives)
1024Mb corsair dual channel ram
asus geforce fx5200 graphics
amd xp2800+ barton cpu

:newbie: :confused:

I am having the exact same problem today. I have a very similar setup to yours. However, the blank screen eventually turned into garbled graphics at the top 20% of the screen.

I hit the reset switch and, on the screen where you choose Installation, you should be able to hit F2 (see the bottom of the screen) and select text mode installation. I was able to do that, but I aborted the installation when I got to the partitioning part, not because the partitioning scares me, but because I didn't have time tonight to figure out exactly how their text mode partitioning utility actually works. I have an 11 GB partition that is currently not formatted. It is the G: drive in Windows. Anyway, the partitioning utility looked a little chaotic. I should have more time to look at it this weekend.

I assume then, that whatever is causing the problem with the screen initially can be overcome, probably by getting the nvidia driver.

This does sound like an improperly configured nVidia driver. Getting the driver and installing it properly will in that case solve the problem, but doesn't help for initial installation.

If you can (I don't know, not having used Suse), you could choose vesa or vga as the video card for install, then install the nVidia driver properly after downloading the current version. Failing that, install in text mode and then do the nVidia thing?

thanks for all your help,
seems as though text mode installation was the way to go, also had the same problem with mandrake and had to go text mode with that too..

Text mode installation with SuSE-8.2 and A7N8X Deluxe motherboard worked for me
 

The text mode intallation with SuSE-8.2 and the A7N8X Deluxe motherboard worked for me (the graphics install did not work). At the end of the SuSE-8.2 it lets one do the X-windows graphics setup, which worked OK, and I have reasonable graphics.

After I had SuSE-8.2 installed, I then installed an rpm that I had previously downloaded from the nVidia web site:

http://www.nvidia.com/object/linux_nforce_1.0-0261.html

That got my nVidia LAN up and running (without that driver, the LAN doesn't work). I had a similar problem with WinXP, where I had to download custom LAN drivers to get the LAN working, so Linux is in similar territory here.

I then updated my SuSE-8.2 (with Yast2) from the SuSE web site, being careful NOT to install the rpm kernel update k_athlon_2.4.20-101. I found THAT kernel update incompatible with the nVidia drivers (although maybe it was just me screwing up, as I am very much a newbie when it comes to linux and SuSE).

I did note that the SuSE-9.0 demo installation (which I downloaded and burned to CD from the SuSE web site) does work with a grahics install. So it appears SuSE have added more support to this A7N8X deluxe motherboard in the SuSE-9.0 release.