blinking cursor and no more upon startup

dismas · 10-18-2005, 08:03 AM

Okay, I've gone through the install a couple of times now. I've followed the steps in the 2nd ed. of Slackware linux Essentials. When I get everything installed and remove the cd and hit ctrl-alt-del to restart I get the standard HP blue startup screen and then a blinking cursor up in the upper left of the screen. That's all I get though. I can't enter anything on the keyboard or anything. Just the cursor.

It's an old HP 6545C that I put a new 40G drive into.

Any ideas what I'm doing wrong? I just don't know.

Thanks.

nelsonlobo · 10-19-2005, 02:40 AM

Hi

What type of processor( PIV or AMD etc) do you have on your system?
If the slackware version is of i386 (or vice versa)than it will give problems like you mentioned.

Regards
Nelson

ciotog · 10-19-2005, 02:41 AM

Which boot loader are you using, and where are you installing it (master boot record or on a partition)?

Have you tried using a floppy boot disk?

dismas · 10-19-2005, 08:56 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by nelsonlobo
Hi

What type of processor( PIV or AMD etc) do you have on your system?
If the slackware version is of i386 (or vice versa)than it will give problems like you mentioned.

Intel Celeron 500 Megahertz (MHz) processor. The Slackware is the new 10.2.

dismas · 10-19-2005, 08:58 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by ciotog
Which boot loader are you using, and where are you installing it (master boot record or on a partition)?

Have you tried using a floppy boot disk?

LILO and it's on the root partition (if I understand the question since I'm a newb).

The floppy drive started making horrible noises when I started up the computer so it's been disconnected.

ciotog · 10-19-2005, 10:38 PM

Does the partition where you've installed lilo have the "bootable" flag set? If you're not dual-booting (and even if you are) I would recommend instead to install to the mbr - just change the line

Code:

boot="/dev/hda?"

in /etc/lilo.conf (where the ? is the partition number) to simply

Code:

boot="/dev/hda"

and then rerun /sbin/lilo to reinstall lilo. If you're not even getting to lilo on boot, then it hasn't been installed where it can be seen.

dismas · 10-23-2005, 11:31 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by ciotog
I would recommend instead to install to the mbr - just change the line

The partition did have the bootable flag set. I'm re-installing everything again today. I understood what you had told me to do but I have no idea how to do it. I'm at the part of the install where it asks where I want LILO installed. The third, MBR, option has "(possibly unsafe)" next to it but I'll give it a shot I guess.

And no, I'm not dual booting. Linux will be the only OS on this system.

dismas · 10-23-2005, 11:39 AM

Woot!! I got past the damn blinking cursor!!!!

It actually started up and I'm now staring at the prompt: root@darkstar:~# and wondering what to do now!

Thanks for the help!!

I guess now it's time to go

ciotog · 10-23-2005, 11:42 AM

If you're not dual booting then there's no risk at all installing LILO in the MBR. It's only unsafe when you're dual-booting and the other OS requires their own boot loader to be there.

dismas · 10-23-2005, 12:04 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by ciotog
If you're not dual booting then there's no risk at all installing LILO in the MBR. It's only unsafe when you're dual-booting and the other OS requires their own boot loader to be there.

Ah, okay, that makes sense. The "unsafe" warning pretty much made me shy away from actually attempting it.

XavierP · 10-23-2005, 12:09 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by dismas
Woot!! I got past the damn blinking cursor!!!!

Type xwmconfig and choose a desktop. Then type startx and enjoy the desktop.

ciotog · 10-23-2005, 11:42 PM

...After creating a user and logging in as that user, that is

davidh_R · 11-12-2005, 01:09 PM

Im having this same problem, and i remember installing lilo to the superblock. Im not dual booting and i did set the boot flag. Im thinking that i need to install the boot info on the mbr. How do i go about changing that, without going through the entire inatallation process? I can boot from the install cd, and i didnt make a floppy when i was prompted during the install.

ciotog · 11-13-2005, 02:14 AM

If you can boot from the installation cd you should be able to mount the root partition somewhere (/mnt/linux for example), chroot to /mnt/linux, edit /etc/lilo.conf to tell it to install in the mbr (by changing the boot= option as mentioned above), run /sbin/lilo then reboot.

Or you can go through the setup process again, but skip the package installation step.