Hi, im not 100% on specs of the laptop as it is my sister old comp. However it has intel celeron 700ish mb ram, 18gb HD currently in hda1 and hda6 i believe. i dled the mandriva 2008 dvd iso. booted that up fine and followed live install. i wiped off windows and reformetted hd into what it says above (and a 2gb swap)
The first boot went fine, and i configured network settings, this crashed the comp. when trying to boot again it just froze. reinstalled from disk and didnt set up wireless network and was fine, rebooted fine, then set up wireless and it froze a few seconds after connecting to my home network. Once again trying to reboot fails and freezes. Rebboting in safe with command startx works. If i connect to network it freezes. However if i end session and then input command exit it will load normal user. and this functions normally...usless i connect to network. Ive no idea whats wrong.
In addition i tred ubuntu 7 (i like :S (downloaded and burnt)) this wont boot. same with fedora 8. open suse 10.2 was off a magazine and wont boot. give no error messages for all and contiunes with HD boot after.
Tried booting on main computer with xp on and i get an error message which i now cannot remember.

Can someone give me some guidance please, i have looked around on forums but i cannot find anything useful


Update, boot off mandriva disk - config network - open mozilla and it crashes. Still no idea but some more info

Hmm, so am I right it crashes every time you try to connect to the network?

This is with wireless or ethernet or both?
It does sound like a driver problem to me. Which wireless and/or ethernet cards do the machine have?

I had some success with an old laptop and a Knoppix CD, you could try that as well. Knoppix is quiet good at running on old hardware, latest Suse, Ubuntu and Fedora is less so.

thanks for the response. This is wireless only, i have found the problem tho. About 10 mins ago i thought id try my other usb wireless adapter ( the one i use to emit my home network) this could connect to a network (not mine and i have to go outside to find it) i tested mozilla and such and it worked fine, so i now know its a driver problem. If this cannot be fixed i may just buy a card.

By the way the the usb adaptor is my sis' old one and is...
hercules HWGUSB2-54-v2 b/g

I found this bug report about your card: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+s...22/+bug/139070

Which kernel is that installation running ("uname -a" command)?

Might be a newer kernel might do the trick. Again, a Knoppix CD might provide that. You can run Linux from the Knoppix CD, so you don't have to install in order to find out.

well...that doesnt make too much sence to me. This is my first time trying linux, its getting better tho. I do have knoppix on dl. As for kernal and processor (as i wasnt 100% earlier)
linux local host 2.6.22.9-desktop586-1mdv #1 SMP Thu sep 27 03:58:17 CEST 2007 i6 86 mobile intel(r) celeron(r) CPU 1.6ghz gnu/linux

I did think of a kernal update myself, but didnt want to try it if it wasnt the case as im not sure how to do it...yet.

This is a stupid question i know. But i was trying to install kismet but ive no idea where to start. Talks of compiling the configure file in make or something. Not asking you to tell me how to do it, just can you point me in the direction of somewhere that will.

thanks

Sorry, busy days, haven't had time to get back on LQ.
I think Kismet is a tool that uses an already installed driver, so probably no use to you at this stage.

I suspect, ideally you should try to run a distribution that has a 2.6.23 kernel. Version 5.2.0 of Knoppix run kernel 2.6.19. There is a chance the fix went into the kernel later. That bug report mentions some tests on 2.6.24, but not sure if that's when the fix went in.

Ideally what you need is a Live CD (A CD that allows you to run Linux from the CD/DVD without installing it) to see if it recognise your hardware without crashing. Your best results are likely on 2.6.23 based ones. With some luck those based on 2.6.20 or later might also work.

The whole situation is annoying me now. I never used linux before and im jsut trying to do too much at once, and not really solving any problems, like not even being able to find or open stuff i install... I think the simpliest thing to do is just buy a wireless router and pcmcia card thats compatable without using ndis. Cause then at least i can access internet and work straight from that machine instead of switching constantly.