I just got SuSE 9.1 DVD..

So anyways, I go and install it. Only one problem, the boot loader (GRUB) refuses to work.

During the installation, when it rebooted, I had to go into the manual installation and boot directly off /dev/hda3. I am also using winXP and trying to go with a dual boot system.

Anyways, after a long painstaking day, I finally managed to get SuSE to run (KDE works, but GNOME just has a whole bunch of lines for text).

WinXP is my first partition, and I am on an AMD 1700+ with nForce2, onboard Geforce4 MX video GPU and sound.

I use a Surecom 320XS ethernet card to connect to my ADSL modem.

Anyways.. when I boot off the hard drive, the only thing that shows up is the word GRUB, no graphical interface, nothing. It won't respond to any keyboard commands.

To run SuSE, I have to boot off the SuSE DVD, and go into the manual installation, and directly boot off /dev/hda3.

My windows partition is on /dev/hda1. I tried editing the GRUB configuration files, and to no avail. I tried switching to LILO, and all that does is, instead of the word GRUB on boot, it just shows a single uppercase L. Again, the computer freezes, and I have to Ctrl-Alt-Delete, and boot off the DVD again.

And there are a few problems IN SuSE also, I can't get onto the internet. It worked one time (during the setup), when I just setup the ethernet card, and didn't touch the DSL settings; the updater worked, and I updated all the installed components.

I haven't been able to get it to work since.

Also, I can't enable 3d acceleration, and I've gotten the nVidia drivers off YOU (the updater); SaX2 says that there are no available screen modes (I run a 19" monitor, at 1600x1200 resolution by the way)

Anyways, any help would be greatly appreciated.

[Also.. I'm not COMPLETELY new to linux.. I had red hat before, and had it running pretty smoothly, but some space issues forced me to erase the partitions.. but yeah, I have no idea how to do most things :P]

Hi Kelvie,
I've just won such battle against SuSE 9.0, so I'm aware of what your problem is and how it can be solved.

If it makes no odds to you, that I'm a Linux newbie, but dare to post some knowledge here, read further - SuSE rocks!!!

I've almost exactly the same hardware configuration, the only difference is that I've another HDD where I put my SuSE distro and my GeForce2 MX400 is on the AGP slot.

Just one conclusion - Never, by Tux, really never use YaST or YOU to update your system or to confugure critical system sections like bootloader setup, kernel modifications and updates and so on! If you really need to update something or to upgrade software, use the apt4rpm instead. Here you can read more about this great tool.
For the nVidia driver to update, you just need to download the newest installer and then follow the instructions there. You'll not have need to recompile anything, and the installations is prety simple and straightforward.

Well, the solution is simple, use your boot DVD to boot in the installation of SuSE 9.1. Do not choose directly rescue system, but rather than go in the Install/Update, then Repair existing installation and log in onto the Rescue: console by typing just root as user name, you'll not be asked for password.

From there mount your SuSE partition in the /mnt directory
mount -t auto -o rw /dev/hda3 /mnt

Edit your /mnt/boot/grub/menu.lst so that it contains at least this entry
label Linux
root (hd0,2)
kernel (hd0,2)/boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/hda3
initrd (hd0,2)/boot/initrd


Append on the kernel-line any parameters you like to pass to the kernel.
Then issue this command stroke from your Rescue: prompt

grub-install --force-lba --root-directory=/mnt /dev/hda

This should fix the problem with the freezing GRUB. If you want to have dual-boot choice for the XP system, just add to the menu.lst file the appropriate entry for Windows XP. For details check the GRUB documentation.

That's it, if I can be of further assistence for you, just post here.

Kind regards,
sbogus

Ah, so that's your trick

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...hreadid=180240

What do you mean with the word trick?
Tricky was to realize what the GRUB does with all the disks and partitions.

Kind regards,
sbogus

Well, when you browse this site and see how often people have problems doing dual-boot with Win and SuSE, your trick should be widely publicized. Particularly nice would be SuSE noticing that something is wrong (again) ...

Yeah, I'd hope SuSE would notice that...
But unfortunately the background causing this problem persist also in 9.1 version.
I do not consider it trick , just it is small piece of knowledge inside the mater of how Linux builds up its own boot process. I'm very happy I know it now, and I'm very thankful to you JZL240I-U, to pointing me to the right direction and to giving me the right media to learn from.

Kind regards,
sbogus

You are wellcome ...
... but you did find the specific solution all by yourself, I guess I just gave some links and "moral" support -- and that's what LQ is for, after all. Bye and good luck.

Hah, alright, thanks for all the help.

One problem remains though, I have to get my network working somehow. It has worked in the past with linux, and I'm sure the modem is working just fine. I'm sure the MAC addresses are configured correctly (as I used RH before, and the network was more or less automatic (even better so than XP).

Anyways, I had gotten YOU to work, so that proves that internet will work.

It will be infinitely more convenient to have internet at home.

Also.. does SuSE have apt-get pre-installed? Installing it on RH was quite a pain.

Again: how would I get GNOME to work? (all the menus and stuff have lines instead of text)

And if I went to nVidia.com and got the drivers there instead of through YOU, then I can enable 3d accel?

Thanks,
K

There is an entry in Yast (not YOU) for that ... as long as your description of the error is not more specific ...

That depends from what you chose to install during setup . What you want, though, is apt-for-rpm, since SuSE is rpm based. You should install that (Yast -> install software).

Sounds like a driver problem. See what the installation of the driver produces there. (Else I'm out of my depth, I use KDE).

Yes, usually the better choice over YOU concerning nVidia.

hi Kelvie,

SuSE is rpm-base system, so apt-get is not an option there. On the site, there's very detailed explanation of how to install the apt-get application for SuSE. Just follow the instructions there. It is very easy, even I as a linux newbie did managed to install it without any problems.

No, you can't enable 3D acceleration, since after the installation of the drivers it is already enabled. You also can't disable it, because sax2 will tell you that 3D acceleration is generally not possible. But....! If you go through sax2 screens to configure your X-server, the you'll probably notice the small picture with red ring and the word "3D" therein, and ohh what a wonder! - this picture has no crossing red line through - this means your 3D acceleration is very well active. Just ignore what sax2 says about the 3D acceleration - after the nVidia drivers are successfully installed sax2 tells you no more the truth.

Kind regards,
sbogus

Alright, I have some progress!

I followed the directions completely (thanks !), but was unable to get it to work.

grub-install kept complaining about not being able to find the stage files in /usr/lib/, so I went into /usr/lib/grub/i386-suse and copied all the files to /usr/lib (this is in the rescue system, so this is all on the ramdisk, I presume).

vi took quite a bit of figuring out, but I made the file to exactly what you specified.

My device.map looks like this:
(hd0) /dev/hda
(hd1) /dev/hdb
(fd0) /dev/fda

Anyhow, I got grub-install to work. I try to boot off the hard disk, and the only progress is, instead of showing only "GRUB" on the screen, it now says:

GRUB Loading stage1.5

GRUB loading, please wait . . .

So I wait a couple of hours, nothing happens.

I reinstalled SuSE, and by NOT using YOU, I have gotten the internet to work (along with my printer !). I suspect the nForce2 driver update screwed up a lot of things.

Anyways.. it's kind of late so I won't go download and install the nVidia drivers quite yet, although they're just a website away. I have a few more questions to ask.

Of course, how can I get my boot loader to work?! It seems impossible.. and I want my WinXP back!

How can I get things like kernel updates, security patches, etc, using apt4rpm?

I'm really used to using Windows Update for things like this. Would I have to go to the internet and find every single patch that is available, and install all of them separately? Or is there an easier way?

I like Mozilla :P But for some reason it installed Mozilla in German for me, how would I go about to switch it back to English? (or.. is Konqueror better?)

Oh yeah... the font inside GAIM is too big.. and it won't let me set it under 12pt, any way to change that?

And if you need any more info about my computer, please ask,

Anyways, thanks a lot in advance !

Hi Kelvie,

Well, this is probably because the GRUB bootloader did not install properly. What I do is to choose in YaST2 (yes, YaST can be used at least for this step) that I want GRUB as boot loader and I specify to install it in the /boot partition of the linux installation (don't worry, thereafter I manually fix that, this is to get the GRUB files installed properly on their places). By the way, the GRUB stage files should be located in /boot/grub directory of your root partition and not in the /usr/lib nor in /usr/lib/grub/i386-suse. What I'd recommend you at this stage of the the problem is to burn a CD with the ISO image boot.iso located in the /boot directory of your distribution CD. Then use this CD to boot after installation and use this CD to enter the rescue console.

Okay, to get your XP back, just use your WinXP Setup CD and run there the rescue console of the XP. Then you can fix your MBR and bootloader for Windows with the commands fixmbr and fixboot. Thereafter you should be able to boot in WinXP.

Now back to your Linux bootloader problem. Boot into the Linux rescue console. Mount your root partition in /mnt
Then I'd kindly ask you to provide the following information:

- the output of fdisk -l /dev/hda
- the contents of the /mnt/boot/grub directory (ls -lha /mnt/boot/grub)
- the contents of the menu.lst file in that /mnt/boot/grub directory
- the contents of the /mnt/etc/grub.conf file it that one exists

Just issue apt-get update
After it finishes you can type in apt-get upgrade kernel security. This will update your kernel and the security packets.

No, you don't need to do this. see above for how to do it.

No, Konqueror is crap! Use Mozilla, but do not install it from the SuSE distribution package, rather than download the latest build from the Mozilla site and then install it.

Kind regards,
sbogus

Umm, not to criticize or to rein in your zest, but are you sure that apt works on SuSE, sbogus? I thought is ought to be apt4rpm...

On the topic of Konqueror being crap I beg to differ ... but everybody to his or her tastes .

Hi JZL240I-U,
apt4rpm comes with some scripts called apt-get, apt, apt-cache and so on... So if you installed apt4rpm successfully, the you should be able to type in on the command prompt just this
apt-get update
and it will work. I've done exactly the same and I was able to refresh and update my apt cache and to perform smooth and simply update of some SuSE packets like k3d, xmms and etc.

About the Konqueror... well you're correct - each one has its own imagination of what a good browser should be - for me Konqueror is just a waste, I never used it and I also will not use it in the future.

Kind regards,
sbogus

I see. Learned something new -- can go home now.
Thanks sbogus