I bought a refurbed HP Pavilion a822n, thinking I got a 64 bit cool computer to run Linux. It installs and boots, but lasts about 30 seconds before it locks up when running.

Before I ask about or try to figure out IRQ and boot setting error messages, maybe I should ask if Linux (SuSE 9 Enterprise) runs on typical systems, or do I have to have very specific pieces?

To put it another way, do I need to buy an expensive server advertised to run Linux? I keep seeing how LINUX makesw 486 computers useful again.

Apologies if I am repeating, I tried lots of searches, including the HCL stuff from Novell.

Thanks in advance,
Jimster

Did you saw any ouput before the Machine locks?
When does it stop?

Pardon, what is a typical system?
I saw SLES9 running on 64bit PPC as well as on common x86 Architectures.

No.

I've used several distro's (bold is current).
RH7.3 and RH8 on P4/2.4GHz with 512 MB and Matrox G450
Slackware on a P3/700MHz with 128 MB and some onboard video (old Dell GX110)
Ubuntu Warty, Slackware and Xandros on a P3/500MHz laptop with 384MB and onboard video
Ubuntu Warty, Slackware, Xandros and RH7.1 on a K6-III/450MHz with 128MB and Matrox G400

So I don't think that you need expensive machines. There's always a chance that you run into a 'compatibility' issue that needs solving.

I think it's time to to start looking what is failing. Are you using X (graphical stuff), does it happen in X? Does it happen in consoles? Any info in directory /var/log/messages

The Slackware site runs on a 600 MHz P3 with 512 MB RAM, just for reference.

I've had slackware running on a 500 MHZ with 192 MB machine (now 64MB due to crappy RAM) , with no noticable performance issues, but this was a personal file server, i would not reccomend this for a desktop machine.

Most distros will run on a large variety of hardware, if SuSe doesn't work you can always try a different one, does it state that SuSe Ent has 64bit support?? maybe that's part of the problem.

I use Fedora core 4 (http://fedora.redhat.com/) - free and i find it a nice cross between functionality and ease of use/ability to learn the system. This also has a 64 bit version (http://download.fedora.redhat.com/pu.../4/x86_64/iso/) that you could try.

see if that helps any.

That is very impressive. I wonder what kind of traffic that site gets...

Though not an Ubuntu man myself, a lot of people starting with Linux seem to like UbuntuLinux - it is certainly well documented in the Ubuntu Guide. The Ubuntu Forums offer good advice, too - although I always preferred asking here, at LQ. Ubuntu has an AMD64 64-bit version.

Since your computer freezes like that, without any messages (I assume) and warnings of any kind, this is most certainly a kernel issue. Probably a module, stack overflow or sth. similar.

I suggest you try and compile your own kernel, try and get the latest available stable kernel, 2.6.xx or something.

Hope this may help.

Jimster,
First and foremost your problem isn't the a822n. I have run about every distribution on mine. I get live CD's and full installs 3 or 4 a month from Linux Format Magazine and have only had a few refuse to play nice. I find that the Debian based have the most trouble on it (and every other computer in my flock). Generally the boot problem turns out to be a disagreement with the default display and the display you are using.

If on the other hand you are getting fully installed and it locks up during boot then I'd be suspecious of the hard drive and see if a live CD will play nice.

John - the old model

@FewClues:
This thread is over a year old. I don't think that Jimster is still interested, but I might be wrong.

Two Masters degrees and I still can't read! thanks!