Suse 10.0 won't boot after install...

Hi all

I have tried to install Suse 10.0 (DVD from the front of Linux Magazine).

All went well until after installation, the screen told me that it had to reboot. It did this, but then wouldn't reboot - it just stalled with a black, blank screen. I tried to reboot both with the disc and without the disc in the drive, but it just won't boot up.

Windows is offered as a dual boot option by Grub, and that works fine. I tried the Suse 10 (failsafe) option and it told me that the GUI something or other hadn't loaded. I then went through several YAST screens in text and all seemed to go well. I can log in as root or user, but only in text mode.

I tried reinstalling the whole thing... but with the same result.

This is a dual-boot setup on my Compaq laptop - Presario R3000.

I'm not a complete newbie, but not exactly a Linux expert either so please reply in simple language...


Thanks for listening.

What Window manager are you using? while in text mode, log in, if you aren't logged in as root type su and hit enter then type your root password and hit enter. Next type init 5 and you should be taken to the GUI if everything is installed fine. From there you can log in and open yast and click on System on the left side then on the right, click /etc/sysconfig Editor. On the left side of that window expand the desktop menu by clicking the plus sign next to it. Find display manager and expand it and then click on the first entry under that named DISPLAYMANAGER make sure that says kdm under setting of DISPLAYMANAGER (if you are using KDE). You can look under that and see options for other window managers.

Next expand the Window manager setting on the left side and click DEFAULT_WM make sure that says kde (again, if you are using KDE, other options are below that). If those settings are correct just hit abort, if you changed them, then hit finish.

Ok, now go back to the main yast control panel and while still under system click on the System Services (Runlevel) option. From there click to select Expert mode at the top. Then under "set default runlevel after booting to:" change that to "5: Full multiuser with network and display manager" then click finish.

Thank you so much for your very detailed and helpful reply.

I did a s you said. The init 5 thing worked very well and the GUI came up and SUSE seemed to load properly.


I followed exactly your superb YaST instructions and did what you said.......

However, still no success. The normal Suse 10.0 boot option still doesn't work, and the Suse 10.0 (failsafe) option will boot, but again I only get the option of a text based system.
On boot the last commands are:
Master resource Control: runlevel 3 has been reached
Failed services in runlevel 3: network
Skipped services in runlevel 3: nfs acpid smbfs slash


Welcome to SUSE LINUX 10.0 (i586) - Kernel 2.6.13-15-smp (tty1)

then I have to log in!!! On doing that (Again) init 5 does the trick!
Thanks so much for the help... but what do I do next????

Oh yes...

Also, why doesn't my normal 'SUSE 10.0' boot up, why does only the 'SUSE 10.0 (failsafe)' work??

If you boot up the normal one, 3 or 4 lines of text appear, then instantly disappear and that is where it hangs.
Is this a laptop thing or a SUSE thing?

So init 5 brings you to the GUI? Do you know what those lines say? From reading your first post it seems like the installation never finished. What Suse does on install is it reboots after the first CD like you stated, then you select to boot from the hard drive and it will load, but then Yast will load up again and finish the rest of the installation. The thing I don't understand is that you set up the passwords and stuff for root and another user AFTER all the packages have been installed, so how are you logging in?

Thanks again for your reply. No I don't know what those lines mean.

I agree that the installation never finished. I followed all the instructions as it installed and then the laptop said that it had to reboot... However, on reboot it just hangs. I just get three or 4 lines of text appearing then it goes black and hangs at that point. The installation did not continue as you say it should have done.

I don't know why the failsafe option works but not the normal one and i don't know how to repair the installation!
I have tried to install the whole thing twice now, but still I get the same results - it hangs after reboot.

I apprecaite you help in this - thanks.

Did you have time to read any of the lines that came up? do you remember what any of them said? if so post what you saw/remember.

Have you tried the install in text mode rather than GUI mode? It's pretty much the same thing, but with no mouse, you navigate with the keyboard using ALT and the underlined letters, or I think they are the yellow letters in this case. Or I believe you can tab through. But anyway, if you want to give that a try follow this:

When the the computer loads and it starts to run from the CD, you get that first menu that says boot from hard drive, Installation, etc.. push the down arrow to stop the timer and then press F3 on your keyboard I believe it is and then you can select text mode from there using the arrows. and then select installation from the menu.

Thanks again for your reply.

I have video'd my bootup screen and then tried to read it. However, the image is only up for about a second and the quality isn't good, but as far as I can tell, I get the following lines on boot up (there will be some copying errors):


root (??something??)
Filesystem is reiserts, partition type 0x83
kernel /boot/vnluz root=dev /hda3 vga=0x317 selinux=0 resume= /dev/hda2
plash silent
[linuxbz image, setup=0x1e00, size=0x190ah0]
initrd /boot/initrd
-


It then goes back and stays black!!

No I haven't tried to install in text mode. However, when it wouldn't boot up I did try the failsafe option and installed using the text editor there when it couldn't find the GUI.

This is all very confusing.... Is it just my Laptop? I know it wouldn't boot Mandrake 10 (error message about kernel parameters on boot up) although it did run Fedora core 3 nicely.

I just read this on a report on the 'net:

After a long, slow download from impacted servers, I've got the new SUSE 10 running.

The install went well, except that it wouldn't boot from the hard disk! That's because I had my machine's BIOS drive-configuration for my SATA drives set to "PATA legacy" on the secondary channel... which turned the CD-ROM into something from the black lagoon as far as SUSE was concerned. It would boot from the Install CD, but not from the hard disk after installation. Changing the BIOS did the trick (it had been set to "legacy," because when I first got the machine two years ago, I installed Slackware 9.1 with a 2.4 kernel without SATA compatibility.)

I know how to change BIOS settings, but wondered if the above made sense to anyone?

Have you looked in BIOS and checked those settings? I'm sure it wouldn't hurt to try that.

Hi AdamCo

I was going to look at the BIOS, but having spent a while searching this forum I did a fresh install... but with ACPI disabled (This was one of the options offered me)

This time it booted up lovely, continued with the install and is now working fine!
However, I have no idea what APCI is, means or does!

Have I lost out by disabling it?
Why did this work?

I wish I knew more.... bit I'm getting there!

Hi there,

I'm a complete novice to Linux so bear with me. I've tried installing Suse 10.0 from a DVD on Linux Format magazine. All went well until after the hardware configuration. It said the desktop would load but instead the screen went blank and the system froze. A message came up on the monitor "Mode not supported 255.7 KHz V: 239.9 Hz".

I've booted it up in failsafe mode and tried the "init 5" command but it didn't do anything for me so I'm not sure if I have the same problem as was already discussed. Could someone explain the last three posts to me so I can try it out.

Cheers,

Mike.

Originally Posted by Adrian Baker However, I have no idea what APCI is, means or does! Have I lost out by disabling it? Why did this work?

ACPI (Advanced Configuration and Power Interface) is responsible for your computers powermanagment. So it is quite obvious what you've lost: Powermanagment

I think the reason why this affects your system so much is that the specifications of ACPI seem too be rather vague or the manufactures are implementing them too carelessly. Whatever the reason is, some hardware simply doesn't work properly with ACPI enabled.

You can try a 'milder' method to disable ACPI with the kernel option pci=noacpi, which does not switch off the acpi functionallity for your whole system, but maybe the critical part.

Mike:
Your problem is not related to ACPI. Maybe you should open another thread. Just a hint: Use sax2 to configure your graphics card properly and it should work. Boot into runlevel 3 by adding a 3 to the bootoptions on the grub menu (I think you need to press F3 first).

Thanks abiskoOO. I'll try that... but where exactly do i use/put the pci=noacpi option?

These options can be passed to the kernel temporarily by pressing F3 (if I remeber correctly) when the grub menu appears. You should get a command-line where you can type the parameter. This I would suggest for testing. If the parameter works, you can make it permanent by adding it to the kernel line in /boot/grub/menu.lst, e.g.:

kernel /boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/sda5 vga=0x31a selinux=0 resume=/dev/sda7 splash=verbose pci=noacpi showopts