Hi. I don't know exactly what my problem is, so bear with me.

I just received a Compaq Deskpro computer I bought via ebay.ca (I tried looking for a model number, but to no avail) : it's got a PII 300 MHz inside with 96 Mb of RAM.

I launched the Debian installer. All goes well : Debian install screen, after pressing enter I'm asked about the region where I live, language, keyboard type, etc. Then the obligatory kernel modules loading happens and then... nothing. I'm stuck with a blue screen. I've tried waiting for a full hour and nothing was happening.

So I thought it had to be Debian, so I tried installing Slackware 10.0. Again, after doing pretty much the same steps, I get nothing.

So now I'm facing a huge problem : I don't KNOW what my problem is - which is precisely why I'm posting in the newbie section. I'd think it is a hardware problem since 2 distros failed on the job, but what could it be ? Is the CD-ROM dead ? Mobo ? HD ? Or maybe some Compaq-specific gimmick ? I did a seach on the site and found nothing.

I was ready to burn the midnight oil configuring that computer but not for that.

Have you opened the case yet? Sometimes boxes have shipping trouble, I'd check that all cards, ram, etc. are seated properly, including cables. That's just a hunch, assuming the box was shipped to you in some form.
good luck.

Yeah open the case up and check.

Just had another idea, if you've got both slack cd's, the second one is a live cd. You could try booting to that, if it boots, you could run some hardware diagnostics. If it doesn't boot, you might look at the cdrom, or ram. Hope something here helps.
good luck.

Coming back from my exam, I took a look inside the box and everything looks fine at first glance.

The idea of using the live disk came to my mind, too, but you mentioned "hardware diagnostics". Are there some utilities I could use to do that ?

If you can get it to boot, you can check dmesg, then there's badblocks, another clue may come from any devices that you can or can't load the modules for. If you can get something to boot, then you'll be able to troubleshoot. There is also memtest.

http://www.memtest86.com/

You could also look here.

http://www.stresslinux.org/

good luck.

IF I can get it to boot yes... but I simply can't.

Following your advice, I put the Slackware CD 2 in the drive before booting. And it does boot : I get the standard Slackware greeting, asked for kernel parameters then start. System messages scroll down until

RAMDISK: Compressed image found at block 0

And then nothing. The system stalls here. I'd try those tools you mentioned but I simply can't get to a command prompt !

If I have the time and patience, I think I'll remove the hardware, one piece at a time to see if the system works properly with it removed.

Compaq's not making a customer out of me, that's for sure.

That's probably a good idea, at least you'll know everything is seated properly.
good luck.

Ok problem solved. I took out the CD-ROM drive and installed my own and it works now. I hate these kind of stupid errors.

Anyway, thanks for the help.