Puppy won't reboot
 

Hallo, I installed puppy 431 and 412 (HD frugal) on a Toshiba Satellite 1800-514 with 1 ghz celeron processor, 256 mb ram and 15 gb HD.
When I try to reboot it just hangs in a black screen, but does not reboot.
if I want to shut down, no problem.
winXP reboots correctly.
could somebody please help me?
p.s.
I've updated the bios to the latest version , but doesn't make any difference

How did you do this Frugal Install?

Just booting into the LiveCD then eventually shutting down and saving to hard disk?

Yes?

In that case you'd need the Puppy CD in the drive to boot from it. Puppy has all boot files on the CD plus your individual modifications in the save file on disk. It will only start together.

Second option: If you install Grub on a Linux partition (can be done from the LiveCD) and have Puppy save the pupsave file plus 3 or 4 more files from the CD to that same Linux partition, then you can boot from hard disk without using the CD again. When using 2 different Puppies you'd need subdirectories and the correct entries in /boot/grub/menu.lst. (Please ask again if this is what you need)

Additionally: With only 256MB RAM it is advisable to create a Linux Swap Partition of about 512MB. Use gparted (Menu => System) on the LiveCD to do this.

puppy 412 and 431 are installed in 2 separate folders in a linux partition, I use grub to choose from which one to boot.
I don't use anymore the live cd.

I have a swap partition of 256 mb.
if the laptop is off and I switch it on it boots fine, but if I choose to reboot than it hangs in a black screen.
strange isn't it?
I also tried to add the text acpi=force in menu.lst, but didn't help.
please advise....
thanks in advance.

Sounds like you did everything right, so far.

I never heard of a black screen only when rebooting. But obviously it can happen.

Either there is something wrong in menu.lst or with the reboot procedure.

Could you post your /boot/grub/menu.lst content?

Second, what happens when you enter wmreboot or /usr/bin/wmreboot in a console? If you see an error message there, can you post it?

Hi,
I noticed that without acpi=force it doesn't power off
, with it it does, but still won't reboot.
If I type wmreboot puppy starts to shut down, it saves the session, but won't reboot, no error message displayed, just the black screen.
this is the content of menu.lst:

# GRUB configuration file '/boot/grub/menu.lst'.
# generated by 'grubconfig'. Sat Mar 20 14:43:05 2010
#
# The backup copy of the MBR for drive '/dev/sda' is
# here '/boot/grub/mbr.sda.20778'. You can restore it like this.
# dd if=/boot/grub/mbr.sda.20778 of=/dev/sda bs=512 count=1
#
# Start GRUB global section
timeout 7
color light-gray/blue black/light-gray
# End GRUB global section
# Linux bootable partition config begins
title Puppy Linux 431 frugal
rootnoverify (hd0,2)
kernel /puppy431/vmlinuz pmedia=atahd psubdir=puppy431 nosmp acpi=force
initrd /puppy431/initrd.gz
# Linux bootable partition config ends
# Linux bootable partition config begins
title Puppy Linux 412 frugal
rootnoverify (hd0,2)
kernel /puppy412/vmlinuz pmedia=atahd psubdir=puppy412 nosmp acpi=force
initrd /puppy412/initrd.gz
# Linux bootable partition config ends
# Other bootable partition config begins
title Windows XP
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
makeactive
chainloader +1
# Other bootable partition config ends
#pause Insert a formatted floppy disk and press enter.
#root (hd0,2)
#setup (fd0)
#pause Press enter to continue.
#title Install GRUB to Linux partition (on /dev/sda3)
#root (hd0,2)
#setup (hd0,2)
#pause Press enter to continue.
#title - For help press 'c', then type: 'help'
#root (hd0)
#title - For usage examples, type: 'cat /boot/grub/usage.txt'
#root (hd0)

Very strange abarnabe.

Your menu.lst looks okay. I'd put another (hd0,2)here
Same for 412. But I don't think that would make a difference.
Try this change in the kernel line:
Also, it sometimes helps to clean out /tmp. Copy the entire folder to another partition as a backup, then delete /tmp and replace it with a pristine /tmp from a fresh iso of the same Puppy. Just click on the iso, it will mount; go to /tmp and copy it to your installation. Unmount the iso and reboot. What's the result?

Further this looks promising:
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?p=261660
Especially this paragraph
Last resort:
What about your graphics driver? Did you install any for nvidia/ati? Did you get the right one?
Compare your kernel version and the pet version. 431 and 412 have different kernels.
nVidia drivers are here:
http://www.puppylinux.asia/tpp/NOP/
(user: puppy pw: linux type it twice)

Hope this gets you going...:hattip:

It has a Trident video chip with tv out, I didn't install specific drivers, Is it ok if I install xorg full drivers? ftp://ibiblio.org/pub/linux/distribu...et_packages-4/
do you know a location for specific ones?
I l'll try your suggestions doday,
thank you Wu2wei

I don't suppose the xorg drivers will make a difference. But then again, it is worth a try. Back up your pupsave file, though, before you fiddle with drivers. More often than not you will be happy for the backup.
And sorry, no video drivers for your chip.

You could find out if xorg has anything to do with your predicament:
Start puppy with "puppy pfix=ram" i.e. without loading the pupsave file and then choose xvesa as the graphic display. Go to the desktop and reboot without saving. If that works in xvesa you know it's something in xorg!

I did try all of above, but no luck , I think it's something acpi related

I am really sticking my neck out here as I not that knowledgeable about this OS.
I think a frugal install goes onto a flash drive, if correct have you check your system BIOS to see if it is set to boot from a USB device?

Hope I haven't stated the obvious or caused offence

No offence,
the frugal was installed on internal hard drive.

sorry so long getting back! have you tried to look at the grub boot loader files as there may be a problem with the booting stage, maybe its not being recognized. I think there is another boot loader cant remember its name but I think it has the same sort of files. You could use the live cd to look at the boot files.

den_.

I have had similar issues when I was running my computer with some peripheral connected. Don't recall but I think it was a mobile phone.

Have you tried to switch to console terminal (ctrl+alt+f1) just after hitting your reboot button. At least you should be able to figure out if it is a shutdown, bios or grub problem.

While shutting down you get some log messages. Then your screen should turn black as if the computer was turned of. This will last a sec or two. Then you get a boot sequence as if you had turned on your computer again.

Best wishes
Uten

EDIT: If you don't know: ctrl+alt+f4 should bring you back to the desktop (if is still there) (note f4 on puppy not f7 as used by a regular X setup)

Try using the vesa driver, had a similar problem with a trident card when trying to play video files and had to use the vesa driver.