Hi,

I just installed SUSE 9.2 over the weekend. It's my first experience with Linux in any form. I have a dual boot setup with Linux and XP. Regardless of which OS I choose, the machine spends a long time on a black screen before "stuff" starts to appear (Windows splashscreen or the SUSE screen where I can watch hardware modules load, etc.). It spends a while (1 minute, or so) on the blank screen before loading Linux, but a long, long time (2+ minutes) when I want to load Windows. After the first appearance of anything on the screen, there are no problems loading either OS.

Right now it isn't a huge concern; things seem to be working okay. I am always a little worried that my OS won't ever load. Has anybody ever come across something like this before? Is there a fix, or is this just the price I have to pay for the dual boot?

Almost forgot:
Athlon 2400+
768 MB ram

Could you post your /boot/grub/menu.lst and partition table (fdisk -l) ? This sound like a rather unusual probem. Do you have a CD/DVD in the drive and the BIOS is trying to boot from it? But this slows down before the grub menu appears.

I think a little clarification is in order. I do get the grub menu, but after I choose, then I get minutes of blank screen before either OS starts loading.

In looking at both /boot/grub/menu.lst and fdisk, it looks like the latter is more likely to be the problem.

fdisk:

Disk /dev/hda: 40.0 GB, 40020664320 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 4865 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hda1 * 1 1275 10241406 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/hda2 1276 3843 20621001 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/hda3 3844 4821 7855785 83 Linux
/dev/hda4 4822 4865 353430 f W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/hda5 4822 4865 353398+ 83 Linux

Disk /dev/sda: 250 MB, 250640384 bytes
64 heads, 32 sectors/track, 239 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 2048 * 512 = 1048576 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda4 * 1 239 244720 6 FAT16

The last one is a USB Zip 250. Shouldn't be trying to boot off that! Where do I go to fix this?

If it might still be the grub menu, here it is:

# Modified by YaST2. Last modification on Sat Feb 12 01:49:31 2005


color white/blue black/light-gray
default 0
timeout 8
gfxmenu (hd0,2)/boot/message

###Don't change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: linux###
title SUSE LINUX 9.2
kernel (hd0,2)/boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/hda3 vga=0x317 selinux=0 splash=silent resume=/dev/hda5 desktop elevator=as showopts
initrd (hd0,2)/boot/initrd

###Don't change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: windows###
title Windows
root (hd0,0)
chainloader +1

###Don't change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: floppy###
title Floppy
root (fd0)
chainloader +1

###Don't change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: failsafe###
title Failsafe -- SUSE LINUX 9.2
kernel (hd0,2)/boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/hda3 showopts ide=nodma apm=off acpi=off vga=normal noresume selinux=0 barrier=off nosmp noapic maxcpus=0 3
initrd (hd0,2)/boot/initrd

No clarification was necessary, that is why I am confused

What happens if you boot without the ZIP drive attached? The settings are all fine, as far as I can see and grub shouldn't be bothered by that ZIP drive.

Do you have a BIOS setting to boot from USB? It may help to deactivate that.

Unplugging the zip drive did the trick.

Thanks for the help.

A good number of newer motherboards include support to boot from USB floppies and/or Zip drives natively (packing an entire OS on a zip disk, let alone a floppy, still amazes me, but is very possible). Poking around the bios and turning off that support would probably yield results. The wrong setting may also do a lot of damage...so user beware.

After moving to SuSE 9.2 from 9.1 I notice the boot up time for SuSE 9.2 is much much slower than 9.1. Does anyone have any ideas why this is happening? It's the same machine and configuration as when 9.1 was installed.

Since juanr0's problem seems to be solved (or close to), and you have a different problem, it may be best to start a new thread.

At any rate, that can be hard to answer without more to go on. Is there a specific spot that it pauses at for a long period of time? If you push F2 (before it pauses) what does it say on the screen at that point? You can read the boot log from YaST and find that spot if you want to be exact.

Anything else that could give a clue? Just "it's slower" is very hard to gage. Can you describe slower? Slower where, how?