HP G60-231WM will not run live Linux or install linux, did install PCBSD, netBSD
 

Ubuntu 8.04 disc boot process stops at Busybox/ash

Damnsmalllinux boot process stops at Knoppix shell

"Moving to Linux 2nd ed" (Knoppix 3.9) crashed to black screen

All distro's on Linux all-in-one desk reference for dummies, 3rd ed, failed to boot.

NetBSD 5.0 installed

PCBSD 7.1 installed

Did HP cripple this laptop so it would not run Linux, only Vista (what was on it when I bought it)?

BTW, one of the HDD screws is locktited in. It's not coming out.

Recommendation: Leave this laptop in the store. In addition to the above, the keys are a shiny metal and you cannot see what is on them if the light hits them wrong.

Linux not seeing the CD
 

When Ubuntu stops at Busybox, it's because BIOS can see the CD but Linux can't. This happens when the motherboard is miswired in various ways. Unfortunately, Ubuntu doesn't have the full complement of boot-time workarounds that Knoppix has.

Get the current Knoppix. 3.9 is way too old and probably doesn't have drivers for half the stuff in that machine. Visit
http://www.knoppix.net/wiki/Cheat_Codes
or http://www.kernel.org/pub/dist/knopp...cheatcodes.txt
and try booting in baby steps. The "nodma" and "pci=bios" boot arguments cover a multitude of disk-related hardware design and BIOS config errors. (nodma cripples performance too, but one thing at a time.) Lots of cheap motherboards require noapic.

NetBSD runs because it doesn't assume all this crap is set up right.

Personally, I'd avoid -WM (the walmart version) hardware. There's a reason it's cheaper.
What's your time worth?

Thanks.

BTW, Ubuntu 9.04 installed, no problems.

Mouse (Logitech Trackball, USB port) and built in touch pad, all operating systems - Cursor movement is very jerky. Also Computer screen update, very slow. I have not seen anything like this since I dumped the 286 years ago. The Radio Shack Color Computer was faster than this.

This stupid thing is supposed to have how much memory and what is the speed of the CPU again??????????? (rhetorical question) Goes to show that the specs are not the whole story.

What a rip off.

I'll be trying some of the small installs for older hardware and see if I can pick up the speed some, but I got this laptop for surfing, email, and reading documents, so the speed is less an issue than simply offensive. The 1.5 hour run time (with a new battery) is absurd. I wish I'd noticed that earlier on.

I'll need to hit some more websites later, my ISP is having a lot of trouble upstream of them with Colubris. (Huh. I googled them for spelling, and they were just bought by HP, the worthless ######### that made this ########## computer.)

Cheap junk is junk no matter who makes it. HP also makes bigger, pricier machines where everything works right. Wish I could say that about Dell.

Glad you found a newer kernel that works around whatever weirdness is on that motherboard.

not *so* junky, this laptop should work well
 

I just looked up this machine at HP.
Dual-core 2 GHz 32-bit AMD CPU, 3 GB RAM, modern video chip, 1366x768 display.
I've got Lenovo's mostly-Intel version of the same thing, and it's more than fast enough for GNOME and Openoffice. Something is really wrong if you have a performance problem.

If your "cursor is jerky" with more than one pointing device, my guess is you're using the wrong video driver. Get the manufacturer's drivers. nVidia and AMD publish simple installers that install the right drivers, even on GNU+Linux. (Intel prefers to ship their driver through the X.org organization so you don't have to get theirs from them.) Look /etc/X11/xorg.conf for a "Device" section. On a modern laptop the driver in that section will be nv, ati, or intel. If it's vesa, your CPU is drawing every dot on your screen instead of handing that work off to the graphics chip. Abiword and Openoffice will be hard to use, and the flash player won't keep up with a youtube clip.

I have a HP 6715S - twin core turion, 4 Gigs, etc. close to yours, I suppose.
Ubuntu-9.04 was dead slow. Fedorax86_64, slamd64, or slackware64 rocks.
Damnsmalllinux is going to have issues because some methods of threading are poorly implemented in uclibc.

Give it a month. You can do it, but you are on a sharp learning curve. Now stop swearing at it and get to work. I'm now very satisfied with my laptop.

There is/was a problem with the current Intel video drivers as used in Ubuntu 9.04. That might explain your performance issues. If you have Intel video, you can try 8.04 or the (test) version of 9.10 (not sure if the official version is already released).

I guess that the distro's that came with your book might be slightly old and do not support your hardware.

more things to try
 

The test ubuntu-9.10 is a good idea. Also, give sidux a try. It's basically Debian Unstable (as in changes fast, not crashes a lot) with some extras to protect you from broken stuff. I love their little network manager (ceni), much nicer than kwifiradar or GNOME 's awful Network Manager.

The Walmart HP G60 has poor video even with Vista (the installed OS) along with everything else that installed. Slow screen update and a jerky cusor with both the track ball and the touch pad, all operating systems. Mines, Freecell, and Robots are all as slow and jerky as they were on the old pre Pentium computer I first tried them on. (Can't recall if it was the 286 or 486.)

I'm on a company computer now and they are slowly blocking more and more; I'm surprised they have not blocked this site yet. Downloading stuff is not an option at the moment, not until I find an internet cafe that stays open more than a half hour after I get off work.

It'll probably be Spring before I can start playing again, but I am printing out the suggestions here for then. Thanks all.

It's worth knowing then that you can also reach this site as

http://www.windowsquestions.org :)

LOL, we'll see if they pick that up.