I made a boot CD then booted from it. Did a manual install and did the network install. I used ftp.suse.com as my install source for SuSE 9.1. Then it loads via FTP a 53300 K file called something like ramdrive. Once that is complete I know that the Yast GUI installer is supposed to boot up, but it doesn't, the install hangs as some command lines are being auto executed. Here is what is says in white text on my black screen:

------------------------------------------------------------------------
creating device nodes ... done
using udev as hotplug helper
/mounts/instsys/sbin/inst_setup: line 62: /lbin/lndir: No such file or directory
mkdir: cannot create directory '/lib/modules/2.4.21-144-default': Read-only file system
intergrating the shared objects of the installation system...
Idconfig: Can't open configuration file /etc/ld.so.conf: No such file or directory
starting syslog (messages are logged to /dev/tty4)...
starting klogd ...
No keyboard detected. Trying to connect via serial interface /dev/ttyS0.
On your terminal computer start the user interface with
y2base "serial(115200):/dev/ttyS0" qt --fullscreen --noborder --auto-fonts
or
y2base "serial(115200):/dev/ttyS1" qt --fullscreen --noborder --auto-fonts
or start the YaST2 menu by typing "yast2" and select YaST2/Remote Install
Cannot read pwd entry for user id 0. No logconf, using defaults.
_
------------------------------------------------------------------------

Right below the last line I get a blinking cursor where I can type which is funny because I though it didn't detect a keyboard. But if I hit enter after I type something it just jumps to the next line, nothing gets executed.

I see some obvious problem like "cannot create dir", "No such file", and "No keyboard detected" but I don't know why...here is my system:

Laptop/notebook
Sony Vaio PCG-FX220
PIII 750mhz
256 megs of ram
15 gb hd

Win XP is currently installed also and works great, no probs. I did an install of suse before on a system with Win ME and suse installed along side of ME just fine, i assume it wouldn't be different with XP.

Thanks in advance for help on this

I had this exact same problem when I tried to use my previous 9.0 boot CD, hoping I wouldn't need to burn a 9.1 version. It didn't work until I burned the 9.1 boot CD. Then the install went "OK". There are still many other issues I'm working on with the 9.1 version, like localization is hosed and networking doesn't work yet.

I'll bet you used an older bootdisk, like the one from SuSE 9.0, right ?
I know I did..... It took me two days to give up on 9.1 and RTFM ! - ie, reading the questions in LQ...
So right now im' installing SuSE 9.0 from FTP, and it's working fine.
-I wonder if it is possible to upgrade to 9.1 online ? Hmm... Guess i'll find out later today..

/WeirdLabs

Thanks for the help, I just so happened to do exactly that after the post and I got the install to start, but then it froze during the install download part, so I have given up for a couple weeks.