Boot-up freezes

keetch · 08-23-2007, 01:28 PM

I am trying to breath some life into my old laptop - Win 98 se, pentium 2, 160mb ram, by trying DSL. I have no previous knowledge of Linux.
The Live CD boots up ok when the laptop is switched on, but freezes after the line "Autoconfiguring devices.....Done.". There is no error message, and after a few minutes the screen goes blank.
I would appreciate some help and advice please.

trashbird1240 · 08-23-2007, 04:26 PM

Are you sure it's frozen? How long have you let it go? It may be detecting your hardware. Try another live CD, e.g., PCLinuxOS.

keetch · 08-24-2007, 09:53 AM

Thanks for your reply.
I waited 50 minutes and the screen was still blank. I will try another distribution at some point if I receive no further replies.

zmsc1 · 08-24-2007, 10:55 AM

Hi Keetch,

Do you know about the DSL cheatcodes? Hit F2 or F3 before booting and you'll see lots of boot options you can try. Try (for example) to boot with the command fb1024x768 lang=uk toram nopcmcia

Stuart

trashbird1240 · 08-25-2007, 02:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by zmsc1

Hi Keetch,

Do you know about the DSL cheatcodes? Hit F2 or F3 before booting and you'll see lots of boot options you can try. Try (for example) to boot with the command fb1024x768 lang=uk toram nopcmcia

Stuart

Good point: disabling hardware detection, or certain hardware features (ACPI) may help.

Joel

keetch · 08-26-2007, 02:51 AM

Thankyou Stuart and Trashbird1240 for your help. I feel as if I am getting somewhere now.