Linux install on HP Pavilion ZE4115
 

Ok, here we go... I am having a problem installing Linux on my laptop. The laptop is a HP Pavilion ZE4115 and I would like to install Suse on it, or Red Hat.

I had mandrake installed, but was not happy so I am trying to get an other Distrobution to install. When I install Suse via the CD boot disk the boot image loads and then it hangs. ( I ahve waited about 20 min. to make sure, it's really locked up) I have basically the same problem with the Redhat boot CD. So, at my brother's sigguestion I tried out slackware from ISO CDs. Slackware loads up, asks if I want to make any 'special requests' - i.e bare.i xxxx or whatever. and then procedes on to ask me about keyboard support where it hangs.

I did some searching with Google and on these boards, and I found a sigguestion for some one with a similar problem on slackware, that I might make a 'special request' for the bootloader, bare.i nomce This didn't work. Further research sigguested adding bare.i nomce nousb nopci The install proceded with this. Through trial and error I found that all I needed was the nousb command.

Ahh, more to research. I tried disabling USB legacy support with my bios (which I have recently flashed to the latest version) and still no luck with the suse install.

A website: (which you can find by searching in google for "HP Pavilion ze4115 Linux laptop" and clicking on the first link sice I can't post the url here) says, "Basically what happens, is Linux (or the installation) will Kernel panic:

Bank 3: b40000000000083b at 340000000000083b
Kernel panic: Unable to continue

With some research, I found out that this is a Machine Check Exception..."

Since HP has no love for Linux, I don't see any help coming from them.

I think possibly the most simple soution to my problem might be simply making a append in the suse boot loader, save the changes, and burn it to a bootable CD from windows XP, but I can't figure out how to do that.

I would be just about as happy with a similar solution for Red hat. I want the system to be "graphically accessable" - it's primary use will be by my fiance who is completly new to linux and isn't very tech savy at all, so I want the system to be easy to use and configure graphically. This being said, I am unsure of using slackware in this situation, not to mention I don't really want to have go through the entire installation via text mode...

Thanks for your help and sigguestions.

-Matttail

P.S. I love this smile
:newbie:
--------------------------

hi,

don't let the text scare you. other distro's have just some fancy picture behind that text and not much more.

i started with linux with Slackware with 0 knowledge about linux.
all i did was follow these steps here

and within 1.5 hours my system was up. i dual boot between winXP and slack now.

good luck